The pace of job growth in July was unchanged from the 1.7 percent annual rate of previous months, but the details suggest an economy that will do modestly better for the rest of the year. Most importantly, jobs in business services were up 3.5 percent from last year.
Business services is one of the largest sectors of the economy, on a par with health care and government, and bigger than retail or manufacturing. Earlier this year it was growing at a 3 percent rate, in the last few months around 3.5 percent; it seems only a small increase but it means that businesses are expanding again.
Demand for U.S. real estate by foreign investors has exploded over the last year. The first reason has been the weakness of the U.S. dollar. That has allowed foreign buyers to invest in U.S. real estate that produces favorably high yields, as well as profiting from the currency trade. These two factors compound to give foreign investors greater returns.
Hundreds of thousands of homes in the US are now labeled as “zombie” foreclosures. That's when the owner of a foreclosed home leaves only to find out years later that he or she still legally owns the home and is on the hook for property taxes and other fees. Such cases occur in more than a third of foreclosures, industry figures show.
The first quarter of 2013 is almost over and so far, a few trends have emerged in real estate. These trends are not set in stone, nor can we be sure that they will continue on the same trajectories throughout the rest of the year. As with any other major part of the economy, much of real estate depends on external factors such as employment, interest rates, and general economic conditions.