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Want more housing market stories from Lance Lamberts ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter. During the Pandemic Housing Boom, housing demand surged rapidly amid ultralow interest rates, stimulus, and the remote work boom. Federal Reserve researchers estimate new construction would have had to increase by roughly 300% to absorb the pandemic-era surge in demand. Unlike housing demand, housing stock isnt as elastic and can’t quickly ramp up. As a result, the heightened demand drained the market of active inventory and caused home prices to overheat, with U.S. home prices in June 2022 sitting a staggering 43.2% above March 2020 levels. Since that national boom ended in mid-2022, the housing market has been moving through a cyclical cooling phase and undergoing a period of recalibration and normalization after such a large burst. Look no further than the share of U.S. homes that sold below their original list price, by year, according to a new Redfin report: 2018 > 62% 2019 > 64% 2020 > 55% 2021 > 38% 2022 > 42% 2023 > 54% 2024 > 58% 2025 > 62% The share of homes selling below their original list price varies by region. Many Sun Belt pandemic-boom marketsparticularly across Florida and Texasare seeing the highest prevalence of homes selling below their initial ask. By contrast, many Northeast and Midwest metros remain, relatively speaking, more resilient, with fewer than half of homes selling below list in several markets. Parts of San Francisco and San Jose have regained a bit of mojo amid the AI boom. window.addEventListener("message",function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var e=document.querySelectorAll("iframe");for(var t in a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var r,i=0;r=e[i];i++)if(r.contentWindow===a.source){var d=a.data["datawrapper-height"][t]+"px";r.style.height=d}}}); Some sellers are recognizing the market has changed and others are not . . . I have one seller who overpaid for their home a few years ago and wants to list it at $950,000. The problem is recent comps call for a list price of $825,000,” writes Connie Durnal, a Redfin Premier real estate agent in Dallas. “I have another seller who paid $400,000 for their home but was willing to list it at $385,000, which was a great strategy. Because the home was fairly priced, it got multiple offers and sold for $10,000 over the asking price. Redfins analysis is based on annual MLS data comparing original list prices with final sale prices. The firm didnt publish data for every metro.
Category:
E-Commerce
These are tough times for many businesses across corporate America, many of whom are cutting down on business travel, and perks on the road. And in these times, one company’s policy on business travel is going viral: According to a recent Wall Street Journal article, Cracker Barrel employees reportedly must follow a new policy that they can only eat at Cracker Barrel restaurants while traveling for work. But according to Cracker Barrel, that’s not exactly true. “The policy for employees to dine at Cracker Barrel while traveling for business, whenever practical based on location and schedule, is not new,” Cracker Barrel explained to Fast Company in an email statement. “Also, it is not the only place that our employees may eat when on the road, as previously reported. The change was to further limit reimbursement of alcoholic beverages under the policy.” Still, backlash to the reported policy comes during a rough patch for the American restaurant chain known for its Southern charm, marked by declining sales, and more customer backlash over a recent botched attempt to rebrand. In August, Cracker Barrel unveiled a new campaign starring country music artist Jordan Davis that revamped its “Old Timer” logo and menus, and lightened up the restaurant’s dining rooms, to the dismay of longtime customers. (The reaction can be summed up by one TikTok user who posted, I prefer the darker cozier look, I also dont like change.”) The company was soon forced to walk back the plans, and later said it wouldn’t change the logo. Cracker Barrel financials Shares of Cracker Barrel (NASDAQ: CBRL) were down less than 1% in midday trading on Tuesday at the time of this writing. The Tennessee-based chain’s first quarter fiscal 2026 earnings missed expectations, with total revenue at $797.2 million, down 5.7% compared to the prior year first quarter; same-store restaurant sales down 4.7% over the prior year quarter, and comparable store retail sales down 8.5%.
Category:
E-Commerce
PayPal is replacing CEO Alex Chriss with Enrique Lores, saying that the pace of change and execution at the company has not met board expectations over the past two years. Lores has served as a PayPal board member for almost five years and has been board Chair since July 2024. He’s also spent more than six years as president and CEO of HP Inc. The payments industry is changing faster than ever, driven by new technologies, evolving regulations, an increasingly competitive landscape, and the rapid acceleration of AI that is reshaping commerce daily, Lores said in a statement on Tuesday. “PayPal sits at the center of this change, and I look forward to leading the team to accelerate the delivery of new innovations and to shape the future of digital payments and commerce. PayPal’s board thanked Chriss for his contributions, including the role he played to monetize Venmo and grow the Buy Now Pay Later business. Lores will take over as PayPal CEO on March 1. David Dorman will serve as independent chair, effective immediately. PayPal’s Chief Financial and Operating Officer Jamie Miller will serve as interim CEO until Lores assumes the position. PayPal also reported its fourth-quarter results on Tuesday. The technology platform and digital payments company posted an adjusted profit of $1.23 per share on revenue of $8.68 billion. The performance missed the expectations of analysts polled by Zacks Investment Research, who were looking for a profit of $1.29 per share on revenue of $8.77 billion. The San Jose, California-based company also forecast lower profit for the first quarter. Shares slid 16% before the market open. Michelle Chapman, AP business writer
Category:
E-Commerce
Amid nationwide outrage over the killings of Renée Good and Alex Pretti, two House Democrats are pressing Google and Meta to answer for recruitment campaign posts that Immigration and Customs Enforcement has recently run on their platforms. The lawmakers, Reps. Becca Balint of Vermont and Pramila Jayapal of Washington, have accused the companies of being complicit with the Trump administration and enabling ICEs efforts to promote slogans thatthey sayhave also been employed by white nationalist and neo-Nazi groups. The inquiries were sent on January 21, and as of Monday, the platforms still had not responded. “What is going on with ICE is a five-alarm fire for our democracy, and these corporations are in it up to their necks,” Balint tells Fast Company. “They can no longer claim they ‘didn’t know.’ They are not only profiting from cruelty but actively helping to perpetuate it at everyone else’s expense. We expect answers, and we expect them now.” Under the Trump administration, ICE has sought to rapidly scale up recruitment. The agency aimed to spend $100 million on the effort, according to a document reported by The Washington Post last year, and it outlined a wartime recruitment strategy that included targeting people who show interest in firearms, Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) events, and podcasts focused on patriotism. ICE has run about 65 different advertisements on Google since the beginning of the year, according to the platforms ad library. These posts include a $50,000 signing bonus offer, opportunities to Defend the Homeland, and heavy use of Uncle Sam imagery. ICEwhich Rolling Stone reports has spent at least a few hundred thousand dollars running ads on Meta platforms in recent monthshas used its Facebook account to post provocative imagery alongside recruitment posts. These include posts featuring a picture of knights with swords alongside the text, THE ENEMIES ARE AT THE GATES,” as well as another displaying a man riding a horse and the phrase, WELL HAVE OUR HOME AGAIN.” Some of the posts are more explicit, including one showing a man carrying the Betsy Ross flag with the message, SEND THEM BACK. The politicians’ letter to the companies aims to draw a direct line between Big Techs ad systems and the normalization of rhetoric that civil rights groups say echoes white supremacist propaganda. Just last week, DHS posted a recruitment ad on Instagram proclaiming well have our home again, which is a song popularized in neo-Nazi spaces and used in white nationalist calls for a race war. The same lyrics were found in the manifesto of Ryan Christopher Palmeter, the white supremacist who shot and killed three black people in Jacksonville in 2023, wrote Balint and Jayapal in their January letter to Meta. It appears Meta is complicit in furthering this content on behalf of the Trump administration. These Facebook posts have racked up tens of thousands of likes or shares. Though Google, which also owns YouTube, and Meta, which owns both Facebook and Instagram, are the platforms the lawmakers focused on, theyre not the only place where ICE has posted content. The agency has posted job ads or recruitment content on LinkedIn, which didnt respond to a request for comment. It’s not immediately clear that these platforms are the primary way the agency is actually finding new recruits. Still, the letter highlights that platforms stand to be drawn into the nationwide discussion over ICE and its tactics. The companies confirmed receipt but havent responded yet, Balints office tells Fast Company. Meta declined Fast Companys request for comment, and Google did not respond to multiple requests for comment. The silence isnt necessarily surprising. Tech companies have a real interest in not ruffling feathers with the Trump administration, and some platforms have, in the aftermath of the 2020 election, already done a major about-face about their decisions to boot or suppress the presidents account. Balint’s and Jayapals letter isnt a new strategy for lawmakers either. Members of both parties have previously pushed platforms to censor or restrain posts that they find odious. In highly polarized times, critics argue that this approach essentially amounts to working the refs, and it seems unlikely Google and Meta would move to censor an official government agency.
Category:
E-Commerce
Firefox has a reputation as the browser of choice for power users who prefer to customize everything and it just gave users one very important new option. While most other tech companies shove AI enhancements down their users throats, Mozilla is introducing a way to disable Firefoxs AI features outright a boon for anyone searching for a safe haven from the AI software onslaught. Starting on February 24 with the Firefox 148 update, users will be able to toggle AI off in a new AI controls area in the desktop browsers settings menu. To disable AI, you wont even need to dig around and disable features one by one: Mozilla describes the forthcoming option as a single place to block current and future generative AI features across Firefox. If youd like to customize Firefoxs AI offerings, the browser will also allow you to check and enable individual features. In a blog post announcing the option, Mozilla recognizes that not everyone wants to use AI, but it will continue to work on AI features for Firefox users who do want them. The options on the way later this month will allow Firefox users to toggle AI on or off for translation tools, alt text descriptions in PDFs, tab groups, link preview summaries, and for a sidebar feature that incorporates chatbots like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini. Mozilla has been tinkering with AI product experiments in Firefox for a bit now. The company began rolling out access to AI chatbots a year ago with Firefox 135 and last September invited iOS users to shake to summarize a website with AI. Mozilla walks a tightrope on AI Mozilla announced its plan to splice AI features more deeply into Firefox late last year, a decision panned by some of its users. At the time, the company emphasized that any AI tools would be opt-in and designed to keep users in full control. … We believe AI should be built like the internet open, accessible, and driven by choice so that users and the developers helping to build it can use it as they wish, help shape it and truly benefit from it, Mozilla wrote in the announcement. The Firefox maker just appointed a new CEO as the company promotes its image as the worlds most trusted software company. Mozilla tapped Anthony Enzor-DeMeo, previously the general manager of Firefox, to step into the role. Enzor-DeMeo described the browser as the next battleground for AI in a statement paired with the news. Its where people live their online lives and where the next eras questions of trust, data use, and transparency will be decided. Firefox users are paying close attention. Mozillas connections to the open source community and its emphasis on user choice have built a deep well of brand loyalty over the years. Still, AI is a divisive technology, and one that Firefox users arent all sold on a fact the browser maker is well aware of. We believe choice is more important than ever as AI becomes a part of peoples browsing experiences, Head of Firefox Ajit Varma wrote in Mozillas announcement on AI controls. What matters to us is giving people control, no matter how they feel about AI.
Category:
E-Commerce
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