Shares of CBRE Group Inc. and Jones Lang LaSalle Inc. plunged 12%, and Cushman & Wakefield Ltd. dropped 14%. For CBRE and Cushman & Wakefield, the moves marked the biggest drop since 2020 in the midst of the Covid-driven market selloff.
After managing a 1.4% YoY rise in 2025 (dramatically down from the 9.7% YoY rise in 2024, and 33% YoY collapse in 2023), US existing home sales were expected to drop 4.6% MoM in January (following December's outsized 5.1% MoM surge), despite a tumble in mortgage rates.
The analysts were correct on the direction but wrong on the scale as existing home sales plunged 8.4% MoM in January from a downwardly revised +4.4% MoM in December. That is the biggest MoM drop since February 2022...
Source: Bloomberg
While some suggested this could be impacted by the Winter Storms, this is based on contracts signed in November/December... and the biggest decline was in The West (which had zero weather impact)
Nevertheless, realtors gonna realtor:
“The below-normal temperatures and above-normal precipitation this January make it harder than usual to assess the underlying driver of the decrease and determine if this month’s numbers are an aberration,” NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun said in a statement.
That MoM plunge pulled the total SAAR down near 15 year lows...
Without an extended period of improved affordability, the recovery in the housing market is likely to be prolonged.
The NAR report showed the median selling price rose 0.9% from a year earlier to $396,800 last month.
First-time buyers represented 31% of buyers of existing homes in January, up slightly from 29% in the prior month and higher than a year ago.
The inventory of previously owned homes increased 3.4% in January from a year ago to 1.22 million.
A pickup in supply through 2025 has helped to tame price growth, though Yun said on a call with reporters that listings need to increase much more to help improve sales.
On the bright side, it appears mortgage applications are rebounding as the year started with lower rates...
Source: Bloomberg
Arguably, existing home sales have much further to go to the upside as the lagged mortgage rate has continued to decline... so what triggered this collapse?
Source: Bloomberg
Finally, circling back to where we started, NAR expects home sales to rise a stunning 14% this year, higher than most other forecasts but a figure that NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun said he feels “confident” in. That assumes more inventory will come on the market, mortgage rates will hover around 6% and the Fed will cut interest rates another two times, compared to policymakers’ median projection for one.
https://www.zerohedge.com/personal-finance/us-existing-home-sales-collapsed-january
It’s a stretch of the Big Apple where laws don’t seem to exist.
Squatters living in more than a dozen trailers and RVs — and even a decommissioned ambulance — have turned a Bronx street into a filthy nightmare, with illegal generators and propane tanks lining the sidewalk and waste from chemical toilets dumped right into the street.
The unsightly scene has been an open secret for two years, according to locals.
“They pump s–t out into the streets and then they don’t move, so the street sweepers can’t even clean them up,” a lifelong Bronx resident, who asked not to be publicly identified, told The Post Wednesday. “It smells like a chemical toilet and it gets worse in the summer.
“I understand people need a place to live, but this is only getting worse,” he said.
On Tuesday, The Post revealed another illegal encampment in the shadow of Citi Field in Queens, where dozens of families were living in trailers and motorhomes.
The squatters there appeared to be running black market car service shops, by tapping into city electricity from utility poles and water from fire hydrants.
“We gave up calling the police,” local business owner Luke Huwang said. “The police don’t touch them.”
Over at the Bronx encampment, 15 trailers and RVs lined Bronx Boulevard between Duncombe Avenue and East 211th Street, some of them equipped with security cameras and nearly all with solar panels and digital antennas.
The entire stretch of roadway was marked as a no standing zone.
Jugs of gasoline and propane tanks sat outside many of the trailers, and several had generators running juice into the vehicles or nearby cars, several with out of state license plates or no plates at all.
An old ambulance sat on jack stands, with a running generator outside, near two small cars and a Chevy SUV all with New Hampshire license places — with several people inside going silent and shutting off the generator when The Post knocked to speak to them.
One man who emerged from an RV was asked if police ever came by.
“No, they don’t bother us,” he said. “We keep the place clean. There ain’t no reason to bother us. I’ve been to all 48 states for work and this is nothing.”
A nearby gas station appeared to supply the gritty encampment, selling everything from camping equipment to knives and brass knuckles for the RV squatters.
Two blocks away, an old school bus parked on Gun Hill Road took the lawlessness one step further.
The small bus was painted with marijuana leaves and a large sign that reads, “the Green Empress” — and had a walk-up window where patrons knock when they want to buy weed.
A man inside called the cost of a $10 joint “a donation.”
Privately owned developer Tavros just closed on its long-awaited purchase of the empty one-acre site at 250 Water St. for a lower price than previously announced — and it plans a big increase in the number of rental apartments the mixed-use project will have.
Tavros paid $143 million, or less than the $150.5 million reported last summer and even farther below the $180 million that previous owner Howard Hughes Corp. paid in 2018. JLL brokered the transaction. Atlas Capital provided an equity investment alongside Tavros.
More important for Lower Manhattan, the new plan for 250 Water St. will have 600 rental units compared with 400 previously planned by HHC spinoff Seaport Entertainment Group. Some 25% of them will be affordable of which 80% will be “deeply” affordable, Tavros said.
The company plans to use the facade and massing previously drawn up by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill — but Fogarty Finger has been tapped as the new design architect and architect of record.
The building’s taller portion will be set on a five-story base with ground-floor retail and other commercial uses. The site will also have landscaped public space.
SEG, like HHC, is controlled by Bill Ackman. SEG which operates nearby Pier 17 and other Seaport elements, was spun off from HHC in 2024.
Nicholas Silvers, a founding partner of Tavros, said, “The Seaport is one of the most historically significant locations in New York City and it has evolved into a dynamic residential neighborhood We are thrilled to help carry forward a project that will have a meaningful impact on Manhattan for decades to come.”
It wasn’t known when ground will be broken.
https://nypost.com/2026/02/08/business/250-water-st-sells-for-7-5m-less-than-asking/
