Marketwatch May 29, 2020

Tune in to our Second North Georgia Intelligence Roundtable Thursday, June 18th at 4:00. We have an excellent panel to discuss CURRENT North Georgia Dynamics, Residential, Commercial and Acreage real estate along with insight on EMERGING TRENDS and an audience fed Q & A.

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You are invited to a Zoom webinar.

When: Jun 18, 2020 04:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

Topic: Norton Native Intelligence 2.0

Register in advance for this webinar:

https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_z6cD6gc_TdW3u64SKTSLOA

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We have become a MASKED economy, in a brave new world in this grand social experiment and we have pivoted quickly. When chatting with someone in a mask you don’t know if they are smiling, frowning, scowling, or smirking. Eye contact helps but its not enough. We will survive. Masks have also become political; current thinking is that 85% of this virus turmoil is @&##$*%o, it is the other 15% that concerns us so we “mask.”

We are getting use to the choreographed dance of social distancing: side stepping in grocery aisles, spreading out while dining out, following directional arrows, blue tape or standing on the Magic “X”. On positive notes, our bakers and butchers are at work, the corner pizza joint is a buzz with deliveries, the barber and beauty salons are back in action. As the “dawn” post pandemic, our favorite restaurants and shops are alive. We should support them with our patronage whenever we can. North Georgia is a small community…we all need to do our best to sustain our local businesses. They are the fabric of who and what we are. Norton Native Intelligence™ believe there is an amplified sense of community here. It was before and now it feels like that bond has grown even stronger.

APRIL UNEMPLOYMENT COMPARISONS

April unemployment numbers shows interesting trends and unique affects across a variety of counties.

NEWS FROM OTHER SOURCES

 AMERICANS DURING LOCK DOWN

Papa John’s announced yesterday that North America same-store sales surged 33.5% during May, topping April’s 26.9% jump. “For the second straight month,” CEO Rob Lynch said, “team members and franchises delivered the best sales period in the company’s history.”

Domino’s said same-store sales over the first to months of the quarter increased 14%. But it is not sure how long this kind of breakneck growth will last.

Source: Morning Brew

 REOPENED OFFICES

The long process of reopening office buildings after months of begin shut down will require new technology, careful planning, and far fewer workers than before the pandemic. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued new guidelines on Wednesday detailing how office buildings can reopen.

•  The short version: Face masks, handshake bans, physical distancing, daily health checks and staggered shifts.

We are never going to have the same number of people in the office than we did before COVID-19. Organizations are redefining ‘we’ space versus ‘me’ space. Building tenants are actively redesigning offices to allow more personal space. This includes marked corridors to direct traffic flows and removing open-area desks and conference room chairs. Employers are installing digital tools. Sensors that alert which spaces are occupied, assigned elevator trips and touch-less entry that does not require a badge.

What happens to commercial real estate in a work-from-home world? On the one hand, full-time or hybrid work-from-home environments logically reduce the demands for office real estate. On the other, “de-densifying” offices mean people that do go to work will have to spread out, driving the demand for more square footage.

Where it stands: There’s broad consensus that offices will continue to exist, even if they look different. The role of the office has not changed. Maybe the location may change, the design may change, but it is a place for collaboration, for innovation and creativity. …I can see the increasing flexibility in terms of work-life arrangements, but I have not met any individual with the aspiration to work from home for the rest of their career.

Source: Axios

Half Capacity and Tighter Margins

Among restaurants “distance eating” will require pouring a lot of money into keeping diners away from one another and from the waitstaff. Small stores may not be allowed to let in as many shoppers at a time as they had before. Less demand. Businesses that rely on foot traffic during the workday, for example, will see demand dry up as bigger corporations tell their workers to stay home (possibly forever). And high levels of unemployment are expected to persist even as the economy reopens, which will crimp consumer spending that small businesses rely on.

Post-pandemic America will have fewer of the neighborhood shops, restaurants, and bars that we have grown up with, relied on, worked for, and viewed as pillars of our communities. Holly Wade, Head of Research at the National Federation of Independent Business warns of “a fine line” between surviving temporary closures or reduced business during lock downs and insolvency.

SOURCE: AXIOS

HOMES SALES

 Americans are behaving very differently than in previous recessions: Convinced that the corona virus pandemic will soon pass, many continue to spend money as if nothing has changed. The latest example is the Commerce Department’s new home sales report, which showed home sales increased in April, despite nationwide lock downs that banned real estate agents in some states from even showing listed houses. Sales of newly built homes rose by 1% in April compared with March, dramatically outpacing economists’ expectations for a 22% decline.

Lawrence Yun, Chief Economists at the National Association of Realtors says four main factors are driving the market’s strength. 

• Dwindling supply because of fewer homes being built in recent years and older people not moving.
• Historically low mortgage rates.
• The CARES Act moratorium on residential foreclosures for borrowers with federally backed mortgage loans.
• Consumers who were locked out of the market in 2019 and are confident prices will continue to rise even in the face of the recession.

WE ARE N THIS TOGETHER…

 NORTON NATIVE INTELLIGENCE

For More Information email info@gonorton.com