KeNo's Housing and Economic Portal: Saturday April 23 Housing and Economic stories

Friday, April 22, 2011

Saturday April 23 Housing and Economic stories

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TOP STORIES:

Malls Face Surge in Vacancies - (online.wsj.com) Even as the economy picks up steam, many of the nation's malls and shopping centers are suffering a hangover due to changing consumer habits and the fallout from a massive building boom. Mall vacancies hit their highest level in at least 11 years in the first quarter, new figures from real-estate research company Reis Inc. showed. In the top 80 U.S. markets, the average vacancy rate was 9.1%, up from 8.7%. The outlook is especially bad for strip malls and other neighborhood shopping centers. Their vacancy rate is expected to top 11.1% later this year, up from 10.9%, Reis predicts. That would be the highest level since 1990. In 2005, the mall-vacancy rate hit a low of 5.1%. For strip centers the boom-time low vacancy rate was 6.7% that same year. Not all retail properties have suffered as much, especially on the high end. Large, publicly traded mall owners like Simon Property Group Inc. and Taubman Centers Inc., which tend to own top-tier properties, have trimmed their vacancy rates to 7% or lower and lifted their lease rates in the past year, buoying their stock.

Concerns Emerge as a Fed Rate Falls - (online.wsj.com) A sharp and unintentional decline in the Federal Reserve's key interest rate in recent days is raising eyebrows in financial markets and shining a light on the challenges the central bank could face steering monetary policy in the months ahead. The federal-funds rate, an overnight bank lending rate that affects borrowing costs throughout the economy, has fallen to 0.09% from 0.13% in the past week and from 0.2% in late December. While the numbers are small, such movement is unusual. The Fed's target for this rate is between zero and 0.25%, but the rate has generally held close to the high end of that range since the central bank set it in December 2008. This is the Fed's key policy rate and the Fed usually finds it easier to control its moves. When it wants to fend off inflation, it raises this rate to tighten policy. But a confluence of events, including the cash it has pumped into the financial system, threatens to make this task more complicated.

AIRPLANES, SPACESHIPS AND SUBMARINES: The Ridiculous, Sexy Life Of Richard Branson - (www.businessinsider.com) Billionaire bad boy Richard Branson has thrown his hat into the ocean exploration ring with the recent launch of Virgin Oceanic. This of course comes after his success with Virgin Galactic and Virgin Airlines. These are only his business ventures - what does he do in his free time? We took a look into the opulent life of this incredible entrepreneur.

Government Shutdown Threatens 800,000 U.S. Workers as Obama Seeks Solution - (www.bloomberg.com) In the event of a government shutdown, the National Institutes of Health won’t admit new patients, some taxpayers will wait longer for refunds and any furloughed civil servants with federally issued BlackBerrys must turn them off. A failure by Congress to extend the government’s spending authority, which expires tomorrow, would force the closure of national parks, monuments and museums. Federal agencies -- such as the National Labor Relations Board -- that don’t protect lives, property or national security also would be shuttered. As Democratic and Republican leaders in Congress seek agreement on a spending measure for the rest of the 2011 fiscal year, the Obama administration has warned of economic disruption from even a short shutdown. More than 800,000 “non-essential” federal workers -- out of a civilian workforce of 2.1 million -- would be furloughed until new spending legislation was passed. Agencies have drafted contingency plans for who would work and who wouldn’t.

Bears Give Up: Biggest Switch in Sentiment in 7 Years - (www.cnbc.com) The number of investors with a bearish outlook plunged by more than a third in one week according to a widely followed investor survey released Wednesday, the largest amount of bears to throw in the towel in this poll since 2003. The survey ending April 5 came as the indomitable Dow Jones Industrial Average touched its highest intraday point since the two-year bull market began. Middle East turmoil, an Irish bailout, fears of a municipal bond crisis, a nuclear disaster in Japan and an impending end to the Federal Reserve’s quantitative easing has failed to keep the market down this year. And the bears are simply done fighting the tape.