The U.S. economy added 134,000 jobs in September—far fewer than the 185,000 expected. This was the slowest growth in a year. Unemployment declined to 3.7% while labor force participation was unchanged at 62.7%. Revisions raised the new jobs tally for July and August by 87,000. Average hourly earnings were up 2.8% year-over-year, slowing slightly from August.

Although Hurricane Florence (unsurprisingly) dampened September hiring, hiring activity will likely slow somewhat from its relatively strong run in H1 2018. The Fed's hiking the 10-year this week was largely due to strong hiring activity in the private sector...

Rising U.S. interest rates and an uncertain outlook for the dollar have driven up hedging costs for investors from Japan and South Korea over the past year, making it harder for them to compete for U.S. real estate deals. This is beginning to impact the market—investment volume for Japanese and South Korean investors was down 62% year-over-year in Q1. Investment strategies continue to adjust and Asian investors aren't out of the game, but the pace has certainly slowed...

It was a pleasure to present at the recent CBRE 2018 Multifamily Conference in Chicago. Presentation materials are available here.

Richard discussed global capital flows and the important drivers of the "wall of capital" targeting U.S. CRE. He notes that many of these drivers will likely remain strong for a decade.

I addressed emerging tech cities, employing EA's proprietary LWP index and transactions database.

Richard Barkham, EA’s Chairman and CBRE Global Chief Economist, recently addressed the National Association for Business Economists regarding the economic cycle and its current implications for commercial real estate. As EA has consistently been at the frontier of thought leadership for commercial real estate, we thought we would share his slides and his thoughts to the broader community.

The mall is one of the most successful business models of all time, so its recent loss of traction in the marketplace has caused concern in the U.S. retail property sector. There has been a tendency to attribute the lack of growth to online sales and concomitant growth in the logistics sector, but is e-commerce really the juggernaut of popular perception?

Our near-term expectations.

One piece of economic news went relatively unnoticed in the lead-up to the Fed’s December rate-hike decision: South Korea’s central bank, the Bank of Korea—often considered a bellwether of interest rates in Asia—had already raised its benchmark rate at the end of November.