Wall Street Journal – Financial News

Current Economic News

I spend a lot of my time reading financial news. I figured I would start sharing some
of the interesting tidbits that I come across.

1) Home Construction in the U.S. picked up last month both for apartments and single-family homes.

2) The Fed will increase its benchmark interest rate from near zero
to between .25% and .5% and increase it slowly over the next three years.
Investors were pleased and sent stocks soaring. The impact this rate hike will
have on mortgage rates remains to be seen. I suspect that mortgage rates will
raise modestly over the next several months.

3) December 2015 was the best month for auto sales in the last decade.
This is another sign that the economy is doing well and customer sentiment is high.

4) The University of Chicago will build a new trauma center in Hyde Park. The university
hopes to start construction in Summer 2016. The project may last two years. The
trauma center will be built near 57th and Cottage Grove.

5) The cook county tax base grows after six years of decline. The estimated value
of real estate in the county rose 11% year over year. The current estimated value
of real estate is $460 Billion.

6) Airbnb, the new leader in short-term housing, is launching a pilot program to give
landlords a 10% cut in revenue generated from their properties. It turns out that
many tenants are renting their own apartments on the popular website.
Many landlords are upset, because they feel this violates the lease.
I recently read a story where a tenant in New York somehow turned his two
bedroom apartment into a ten bedroom apartment (those had to be some tiny rooms).
The tenant then moved out and started renting the small bedrooms on Airbnb
for $35 per night.

7) Chicago sets a new record for foreign investment. International investors paid
3.27 billion for properties so far in 2015. The last record was set in 2013 at
2.18 billion dollars. Apparently Chicago real estate is looking more attractive
to foreign investors.

Until the next time,
Mark Killion
Kale Realty
www.773property.com