In this episode of the REconomy Podcast™ from First American, Chief Economist Mark Fleming and Deputy Chief Economist Odeta Kushi discuss how underutilized office space may impact the commercial real estate industry with special guest Senior Commercial Real Estate Economist Xander Snyder Read More›

The housing market has faced its fair share of headwinds leading up to this year’s spring home-buying season. While mortgage rates have retreated from recent highs, they remain elevated compared with one year ago, and house prices, while down from the peak, also remain elevated. All while housing supply remains historically and unseasonably low. ... Read More›

At first glance, converting old office buildings into apartments seems like an obvious solution to two pressing real estate challenges. There’s a national housing shortage of several millions of housing units, and office space is substantially underutilized due to the adoption of remote work. Declining office use is a significant risk to office ... Read More›

Retail real estate remains a challenged asset class, although locations catering to experiential services so far appear to be more resilient than others. Even before the onset of the pandemic, the rise of eCommerce and the shift away from mall culture created an uncertain outlook for many types of retail locations. In this month’s X-Factor, let’s ... Read More›

In this episode of the REconomy Podcast™ from First American, Chief Economist Mark Fleming and Deputy Chief Economist Odeta Kushi break down the housing market implications from an eventful month of March, which included ongoing inflationary pressure, bank failures and a Federal Reserve rate increase. Read More›

The performance of retail real estate is closely tied to consumer spending trends. Over the last year, consumers have benefitted from meaningful wage growth, but inflation has erased most of those gains. Similarly, despite nominal retail sales growing by approximately 5.4 percent in February, retail spending in real terms has fallen over the last ... Read More›

Affordability has now improved for three straight months, yet remains down 39 percent since January 2022, according to the Real House Price Index (RHPI). Nominal house price appreciation has slowed dramatically in response to dampened demand. Nationally, annual nominal house price growth peaked in March 2022 at 21 percent, but has since ... Read More›

In this episode of the REconomy Podcast™ from First American, Chief Economist Mark Fleming and Deputy Chief Economist Odeta Kushi discuss home price trends nationally and at the market level, examining why house prices in some markets are more resilient than others as house prices adjust to higher mortgage rates. Read More›