The Daily Valet. - 6/28/23, Wednesday
✔️ New home Sales Surge
Wednesday, June 28th Edition
By Cory Ohlendorf, Valet. Editor
Congrats to Ryan Seacrest, I guess, but how many jobs does one mogul need?
Today’s Big Story
New Home Sales Surge
There's been a huge increase in new home sales, while the median house price falls
It's a little hard to tell if this is promising or concerning. But the housing market appears to be shaking off the shock of higher mortgage rates. The number of newly constructed home sales rose for the third month in a row in May, up 12.2% from April—and up more than 20% over last year, per government data released on Tuesday.New home sales rose in every region of the country, with some of the largest monthly gains seen in the Northeast, South and West. Experts say that this is further evidence that the new construction market is being boosted by the exceptionally low inventory of existing homes for sale. Homeowners with ultra-low mortgage rates are reluctant to sell and buy another home at a much higher rate. Sales of existing homes have been down for the past few months, while the sales of new builds have been rising.Demand for new construction is soaring (and could continue) for at least two reasons. Without many existing homes on the market, prices for those homes aren't going down anytime soon. And perhaps even more importantly, homebuilders are offering mortgage buydowns and cutting prices—the median new home sale price in May was $416,300, down 7.6% from last year.According to Reuters, that means the housing market has likely found a floor and could be even improving. Data last week showed homebuilder confidence rising into positive territory in June for the first time in 11 months. However, if the housing market continues to accelerate, it could force the Federal Reserve to return to its interest-hiking ways, economist Eugenio Aleman told CNN.After a string of 10 consecutive rate hikes, the Fed earlier this month opted to not raise rates and instead take a pause to review the economic landscape. But this new report shows that they may want to increase rates higher, Allen said, “because current mortgage rates don't seem to be high enough to slow down the sector.”
FYI:
The U.S. Census Bureau’s most recent 2021 data estimates that it takes about eight months to build a new home in the United States.
What Happened to Concert Etiquette?
You all paid too much to be here to act like this
What's going on at concerts these days? In the last week or so, Bebe Rexha was pelted with a phone on stage by an audience member, then pop singer Ava Max suffered a similar experience by someone in the crowd wilding out. On Tuesday, video surfaced of Pink's recent concert in London, where she is stunned to get a bag of one fan's dead mother's ashes tossed to her onstage.And here I thought it was bad form just to sing along a little too loudly in the audience. But these incidents represent what many concertgoers have said is an uptick in poor concert etiquette. Now that concerts have rapidly returned since the pandemic has subsided, YR Media suggests people feel entitled to receiving attention and exclusive experiences when seeing their favorite artists in concert. For example, it's becoming common to toss phones on stage in hopes the singer will take a selfie and toss it back.Other experts speculate that the bad behavior can be explained by a combination of poor socializing skills (again, because of the pandemic), mixed with alcohol intoxication and competitive bids for any chance of going viral online. Be careful out there.
Don't Be that Person:
With a summer full of big tours, Rolling Stone has prepared an unofficial 2023 Concert Etiquette Guide with some dos and don'ts.
Can We Build Better Air Conditioners?
Efficient units are needed to meet growing demand without spurring more warming
It's an unfortunate paradox, really. Air conditioners make people cooler and the world hotter. But a slew of startups are launching new products that aim to break that cycle. Just a week into summer, heat waves are causing a surge in electricity demand across the American South, in part to power desperately-needed AC units.According to the Wall Street Journal, startups such as Blue Frontier and Transaera are focusing on the humidity rather than the heat, using new materials like liquid salt to dry out the air. This makes the machines more efficient, which can help ease strain on the electric grid while helping humans withstand sizzling temperatures.According to the Energy Department, air conditioning ranks as one of the biggest energy users in homes across much of the country. Nearly 90% of U.S. households used some form of air conditioning last year, at an annual cost of about $29 billion to homeowners. Globally, there are around two billion AC units churning, the International Energy Agency reports. But growing middle classes in countries such as India are expected to lift that number to roughly 5.5 billion by mid-century. And many of those will be cheap, inefficient units that become less efficient at high temperature and humidity levels. And unfortunately, that's exactly what will be more common in the future
FYI:
You don’t have to run your air conditioner 24 hours a day. The Washington Post put together an efficiency guide.
Fast Food Rankings
The list of America's top 50 restaurants sees a few contenders slipping in the rankings
American food, you might argue, is defined by its fast food. It's no doubt the cuisine that we've exported around the world, right? Well, for anyone interested in who's at the top of the fast food chain, there's no better set of data to sink your teeth into than the Top 500 Report from Nation's Restaurant News.The annual ranking of our national burger, burrito and pizza chains (along with other fast-casual establishments) not only tracks which ones are doing the most business, but as The Takeout points out, it also lets us see which restaurants are slipping, too—an early warning sign that some changes are due if they hope to turn the business around. As for the ones that need to turn things around, they suggest Jack in the Box, KFC and Pizza Hut step up their collective game.As for the winners ... Perhaps it's no surprise that McDonald's remains the number one restaurant in the United States in terms of sales at $48.67 billion. Starbucks came in second, and Chick-fil-A, Taco Bell and Wendy's rounded out the top five. However, Subway is the largest chain by units at 20,576.
Meanwhile:
A “distant relative” of the modern pizza was just discovered in the ancient ruins of Pompeii.
In Other News
Now it's hanging over Midwestern skies, including Chicago.
Have you heard about ...
Worth a Listen
Planet Money's Entirely AI-Produced podcast
The latest Planet Money miniseries is an interesting experiment: A three-parter in the vein of “Planet Money Makes a T-Shirt” and “Planet Money Buys a Superhero” that sees the team embarking on a journey to see if they can create an episode using only generative AI tools. They started with scripts from OpenAI's ChatGPT Plus, but they needed a voice. So they cloned the voice of a former colleague. Vulture was sold and says you should check out the miniseries if you're at all interested in this stuff.
Listen:
Shopping
What We’re Buying
A luxe sheet set
Take advantage of the early 4th of July deals with these sales and discount codes before the long weekend. Don't worry ... we'll be updating our list as promotions are announced, so check back to keep track of all the best deals as they go live. But for now, score some serious savings like this super soft set of sheets.
Get It:
Luxe sateen sheet set, from $169 / $135.20 from Brooklinen
Morning Motto
Always do what you say you’ll do.
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