This Week’s Short Stories

This Week’s Short Stories

Housing Starts Slump

Analysts were disappointed when their predictions for June housing starts were not fulfilled. The Census Bureau and HUD announced a downward adjustment in housing starts for the month. Starts fell to a seasonally adjusted rate of 836,000, the lowest level since August 2012. That number was down by 9.9% from May.

Commercial Lease Rule Changes Coming

For nearly five years, the Financial Accounting Standards Board has been working on commercial lease rule changes, and it looks like they’re close to implementation. They are varied and complex, but the latest change in the plan was better received by commercial tenants than the previous version. Previously the plan was to require tenants to use the “effective interest method” to recognize rent expenses, but now the normal “straight line method” is back in the rules. This avoided an expected significant negative impact on the P&Ls of large tenants like Walgreens and McDonald’s.

Home Sales Dip in June

Sales of homes hit a three year high in May, but stumbled in June. The number of sales dipped by 1.2% in June to an annual rate of 5.08 million units. Though that was better than the same period a year ago by 15.2 percent, it was still lower than expected, with rising mortgage rates one factor.

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