The Daily Valet. - 3/31/22, Thursday

✔️ A Bubble Is Brewing

March 31, 2022

Thursday, March 31st Edition

Cory Ohlendorf, Editor in Chief of Valet.

Gotta love that Thursday feeling.

Cory Ohlendorf , Editor ⋯ @coryohlendorf

Today’s Big Story

A Housing Bubble Is Brewing

The housing market could get even more dysfunctional

The stubbornly hot housing market is beginning to raise more eyebrows. Home prices have soared to new heights and they keep on climbing, and some researchers and economists say they have seen signs of a housing bubble brewing.

First some numbers: Year-over-year U.S. home price growth accelerated to 19.2% in January, reports Fortune. That’s up from the 11.3% uptick posted at the same time last year. The latest jump is also well above the peak annual rate (14.5%) posted in the lead-up to the 2008 housing bubble.

Prices are rising faster than market forces would indicate they should and are becoming “unhinged from fundamentals,” according to a new report written by economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.

According to CNN, many Americans are still scarred by the last housing crash in 2007, which was fueled by cheap credit and lax lending standards. The result? Millions of homeowners owing more on their homes than they were worth. But this time, the economists said they’re worried about a different scenario.

Industry insiders are hoping that spiking mortgage rates—with the average 30-year fixed mortgage rate climbing from 3.11% to 4.42% over the past 12 weeks—can help to tame runaway home price growth before prices get so high it leads to a bursting bubble.

The good news? While researchers at the Dallas Fed see a bubbly housing market, they don’t think we’re headed for a 2008-style crash. For starters, households are in much better shape today. Back in 2007, 7% of U.S. disposable personal income was going towards mortgage debt service payments. At its latest reading last year, that figure was just 3.8%.

↦ FYI: It’s still tough out there for first-time homebuyers, and experts say it will stay that way for a few more years.

Russia Steps Up Attacks

Is Putin being misled by his military?

So much for progress. Just a day after promising peace talks, Russia increased bomb and artillery attacks in Ukraine on Wednesday which sent conflicting signals about the prospects for de-escalation. And it suggested new tensions in the Kremlin hierarchy about the course of the war.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russian promises of a drawdown were just “words,” and his forces are preparing for renewed strikes. The U.S. Defense Department's latest intelligence assessment supports Zelensky's suspicion. Officials say Russia intends to “refit these troops, resupply them and probably employ them elsewhere in Ukraine,” reports the Washington Post.

As Russian troops seemed to shift tactics, U.S. officials provided NBC News with declassified intelligence that Putin was being misinformed by his military, with one military official describing “persistent tension” between Putin and the Russian Defense Ministry's leadership.

The possibility of Putin being misinformed about what is happening inside Ukraine—because some of his senior advisers are afraid to tell him the truth—would “be an issue of concern” for both Ukraine and the U.S.' European allies and partners, Pentagon press secretary John Kirby noted. “One outcome of that could be a less-than-faithful effort at negotiating some sort of settlement here.”

New Timepieces From the Crown

Rolex revisits its most popular and polarizing watches, to surprisingly agreeable results

After several years of pandemic-induced cancellations, the watch industry is gathering in person, in Geneva, for a week of horological showmanship. It's been a minute—the last time Watches & Wonders, one of the industry's largest trade shows, met in person was in 2019.

And while there's plenty going on, let's just talk about the one watch brand everyone cares about: Rolex. Because they threw some curveballs on Wednesday and got people talking.

First, there was an update to the brand's most esoteric steel sports watch—and my personal favorite—the Air-King. Now, I still prefer the vintage models, but they've given the watch a more modern, sporty look with the addition of crown guards in the same vein as sturdy timepieces like the Submariner and the GMT-Master II. It also got an update to its bracelet and dial, while still remaining one of the most affordable options available.

In a move that no one anticipated, Rolex introduced a new version of the GMT-Master II with a left-sided crown. This left-fielded approach (pun fully intended) gives the GMT-Master II an unexpected look, along with its black and green rotating 24-hour bezel. Hodinkee says in watch parlance, this is a “destro,” which means it's designed for southpaws who wear their watch on their right wrist—and that's apparently still very rare.

↦ Dig Deeper: Robb Report has a nice overview of what's in store this year from some of the world's finest watchmakers.

Is Dyson Serious?

The company swears its new combo headphones + air purifier is not a joke

The brand behind our favorite status vacuums and air purifiers has just announced the release of the Dyson Zone, its first wearable piece of tech—a device that combines headphones with a portable air purifier.

You might be thinking, as I was, that since tomorrow is April Fool's Day, maybe the innovative company was having a laugh. But they've already denied that this is a prank, so let's just take their word that this is real.

Sure, the bizarre-looking magnetic face visor makes the wearer look a little like Bane. But the company says the goal of the Zone is to make living in urban spaces more comfortable by attempting to mitigate both air and noise pollution—two things that city-dwellers deal with on the regular.

Despite what it looks like, the visor doesn't make contact with your face like a mask would. Instead, it sits in front of your face, creating a gap where a bubble of clean air can gather and be breathed in. The Verge reports that a separate attachment can be clipped on in instances where you might need a proper full-contact face mask, too. I just hope the air coming out of this purifier is more gentle than their other devices ... because they're known to push some air!

↦ FYI: According to Tech Crunch, air purifiers have seen a massive spike in sales over the past two years, starting with a 57% increase in 2020.

In Other News

↦ The U.S. Government’s Google Maps Probe Could Send Ripples Through the Car Industry

↦ Academy Initiates ‘Disciplinary Proceedings’ Against Will Smith Over Oscars Incident

↦ The Rental Car ‘Apocalypse’ Isn’t Over. Here’s What to Know Before Booking.

Other Things We’re Talking About Today

Bruce Willis

Peanut butter burgers

This adjustable kettlebell

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