SeaPRwire

When the property market turns ‘crazy’

elean
4 minutes

(BLOOMBERG) - Soaring prices. Competition. Desperation. The dramatic conditions for US home buyers during the past year are now spilling into the market for rentals. Landlords from Tampa, Florida, to Memphis, Tennessee, and Riverside, California, are jacking up rents at record speeds. For each listing, multiple people apply. Some renters are forced to check into hotels while they hunt after losing out too many times. "Any desirable rental is going within hours, just like the desirable sales," said Ms Shannon Dopkins, a Realtor in Tampa. "One woman passed up on a place that was beat up with water damage. Somebody else decided to rent it." After weakening early in the coronavirus pandemic as the economy faltered and young people rode out lockdowns with family, the rental market is now seeing record demand. Rents on new leases surged 17 per cent in July compared to what the prior tenant paid, reaching the highest level on record, according to RealPage. The gains reflect competition for a resource that's getting harder to obtain: a place to live. With prices soaring in the for-sale market, and bidding wars proliferating, would-be buyers on the losing end are being forced back into rent...

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Back to the office from Aug 19 but hybrid work is here to stay

aseanpr
5 minutes

SINGAPORE - On Thursday (Aug 19), Singapore will ease restrictions, giving companies the green light to bring more staff back to the office. Even so, most employers - including Singapore's largest, the Government - expect hybrid working arrangements to be a permanent feature of the post-pandemic world. "The Public Service is working towards supporting greater work flexibility in the post-Covid new normal," a Public Service Division spokesman told The Straits Times. "This will go towards meeting the needs of officers and, at the same time, balancing organisational needs." Two weeks ago, the multi-ministerial task force tackling the pandemic announced that working from home would no longer be the default from Aug 19. Instead, up to 50 per cent of employees able to work remotely would be allowed back to the office. This has not been the case since May 8. Companies had scrambled to make hybrid work possible - sometimes haphazardly - when Covid-19 first arrived in Singapore last year. But after more than a year of such arrangements, most firms and their staff seem to have found a rhythm. Law firm Dentons Rodyk said it plans to allow employees a fixed number of work-from-home days each w...

SeaPRwire

Should the Fed tackle the US property bubble?

elean
6 minutes

(NYTIMES) - Mr Robert Kaplan, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, has been nervously eyeing the housing market as he ponders the path ahead for monetary policy. Home prices are rising at a double-digit pace this year. The typical house in and around the city he calls home sold for US$306,031 (S$415,835) in June, Zillow estimates, up from US$261,710 a year earlier. Several of Mr Kaplan's colleagues harbour similar concerns. They are worried that the housing boom in the United States could end up looking like a bubble, one that threatens financial stability. And some fret that the central bank's big bond purchases could be helping to inflate it. "It's making me nervous that you've got this incipient housing bubble, with anecdotal reports backed up by a lot of the data," said Mr James Bullard, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis. He doesn't think things are at crisis levels yet, but he believes the Fed should avoid fuelling the situation, saying: "We got in so much trouble with the housing bubble in the mid-2000s." Policymakers don't need to look far to see escalating prices, because housing is getting more expensive nearly everywhere. Buying a typical home ...

SeaPRwire

US home prices soar 23% in Q2, the fastest rate on record

elean
2 minutes

WASHINGTON (BLOOMBERG) - US home prices rose the most on record in the second quarter as buyers battled for a scarcity of listings. The median price of an existing single-family home jumped 23 per cent from a year earlier to an all-time high of US$357,900 (S$485,900), the National Association of Realtors said in a report on Thursday (Aug 12). About 94 per cent of 183 metropolitan areas measured had double-digit gains, up from 89 per cent in the first quarter. Low mortgage rates have stoked the hot US housing market for more than a year, with a shortage of inventory pushing prices ever higher. Buyers are having a hard time finding properties they can afford: Sales of previously owned homes in the US fell for a fourth straight month in May. "Home price gains and the accompanying housing wealth accumulation have been spectacular over the past year, but are unlikely to be repeated in 2022," Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the Realtors group, said in the report. "There are signs of more supply reaching the market and some tapering of demand." The price increases have hit particularly hard for renters looking to become homeowners. Among first-time buyers, the monthly mortgage payment f...

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Singapore needs more teams to vaccinate those homebound; existing medical teams stepping up

aseanpr
8 minutes

SINGAPORE - Lugging a cooler chest containing Covid-19 vaccines and a 15kg suitcase filled with medical equipment, resuscitation tools and an oxygen canister, Dr Nathaniel Ng and a nurse headed to a Housing Board flat in Hougang to vaccinate a senior citizen. After thoroughly checking that the woman was eligible for vaccination, and recording her vitals, the nurse administered the injection. They then observed the bedbound senior for 30 minutes. After confirming that she had no allergic or anaphylactic reactions, and therefore no need for their standby resuscitation equipment or medicines, they bid farewell and moved to the next location. They had at least 10 more homes to visit. The daily workload has doubled in recent weeks for Dr Ng and the dozen other home vaccination teams conducting at-home jabs. The scheme caters to immobile seniors who are not able to make their own way to vaccination centres. When it started in June, each home vaccination team visited six to eight households a day. Since a month ago, they have had to inoculate up to 14 seniors a day, working shifts that last between 10 and 12 hours, said Dr Ng, who is medical director of home care service Jaga-Me. Last Fri...

SeaPRwire

Work from home is spurring some to retire early

elean
6 minutes

(NYTIMES) - For Ms Mona Janochoski, a chemist who ran a laboratory, working from home during the coronavirus pandemic was the deciding factor. It was the first time in her career that she had not gone to an office every day. And she found that she enjoyed being home with her husband, Tom, who had retired as the chief financial officer of a trust company in 2017. Her daughter, who was a graduate student, was living with them, too. That got her thinking about something she had not given much thought to before: quitting her job after 36 years and seeing what else life had in store. "When I was home, my husband really liked it," Ms Janochoski, 60, said. "He got used to the idea of me retiring. We kept going back to the adviser to make sure we could retire." Retirements in the pandemic by those at the top of the income ladder were often by choice. And for that slice of corporate employees, working from home for some or all of the pandemic scrambled their thinking on work and life. They had been working for decades in an office, and suddenly at home with a spouse, they began to see the possibility of a different life. "The vast majority of our clients have at least inquired about what th...

SeaPRwire

Temasek-backed e-commerce start-up ManoMano tops $3.5b valuation after new fundraising

elean
2 minutes

PARIS (REUTERS) - French online home improvement retailer ManoMano reached US$2.6 billion (S$3.5 billion) in valuation after a US$355 million fund-raising led by investment firm Dragoneer, it said on Tuesday (July 6). San Francisco-based Dragoneer has previously invested in well-known digital companies such as Airbnb, Slack Technologies and Spotify. Other shareholders that participated in the fund-raising include Singapore's Temasek, General Atlantic, Eurazeo, Bpifrance, Aglae Ventures, Kismet Holding and Armat Group, ManoMano said. ManoMano had already reached so-called "unicorn" status - for companies valued at more than US$1 billion - last year via a previous US$125 million fundraising, its co-founder Christian Raisson said in a call. Lockdowns during the Covid-19 pandemic fuelled demand for do-it-yourself home improvement products, and the trend is here to stay, with no sign of the market growing saturated, Mr Raisson added. ManoMano's latest fund-raising brings the total amount raised by the company to US$725 million since its creation in 2013, it said. It disclosed neither the financial terms of its fund raisings nor its shareholding structure. ManoMano competes against large...

SeaPRwire

When investors own over 100 homes

elean
4 minutes

(BLOOMBERG) - In Canada, a home is no longer just a home - it is an investment. The country now has one of the world's hottest real estate markets and its residents are snapping up more homes than they can ever live in. Take Mr Brady McDonald, who owns more than 100 houses. "My net worth has obviously gone up a lot, just based on what's happened this year, because the market's gone berserk," said the former arborist who started acquiring single-family homes in the small city of Barrie, Ontario, in 2015, and now says he has a net worth "in the millions". "We have a housing crisis here," he said from Barrie, where prices have gone up almost 40 per cent in the last year. "The demand for housing is not going down. So there's always opportunity." But in a country that faces one of the world's most acute housing shortages, investors like him are coming under increased scrutiny. Concern is growing that the professionals are crowding out first-time buyers and would be quick to sell if property values start to slide, which could threaten the economy. Investors account for about a fifth of new mortgages in Canada - the same share that prompted a crackdown in Britain, and roughly five times t...

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Home-care Beauty Device “DUALSONIC” Leading Self-beauty Industry in South Korea

pandora
3 minutes

Seoul, Korea / SEAPRWire / June 22, 2021 / - The "Home-beauty" trend that encourages individuals to perform self-beauty care at home has expanded during the post-COVID-19 pandemic, and there is a surge of interest in home-beauty devices intended for skin elasticity and anti-aging. The beauty industry is dominated by cosmetics, dermatology clinics, and services provided by aestheticians. However, the high-class dermatology clinics and beauty salons have been maintaining the position of a selective market due to their high price points and the need to physically visit the premises. On the contrary, both South Korea and Europe are forming trends where individuals are taking a DIY approach, home beauty, skincare, and managing one's aesthetics. Home beauty is transforming the industry trend as the market consumers are finding comfort at both the non-restriction on time constraints and the lack of need to physically visit the clinic or the beauty salon. Specialized home-beauty care brand DUALSONIC of JIONMEDITECH company, has received twice in a row, the technological innovation grand award in Money Today's "2021 Republic of Korea Innovation Awards", and it is gathering lots of interests...

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Some employers plan to make hybrid work arrangement permanent; office spaces still in demand

elean
5 minutes

SINGAPORE - Some employers plan to make hybrid work arrangements permanent even when Covid-19 restrictions are eased in the future, but this has not led to a spike in office space vacancies. Six companies that The Straits Times spoke to said many of their employees have indicated a preference for a flexible working policy. Working from home remains the default in the coming weeks, even as Singapore gradually loosened Covid-19 curbs that were imposed last month. At the Covid-19 multi-ministry task force press conference on June 10, Minister of Trade and Industry Gan Kim Yong urged employers to exercise flexibility in their employees' work arrangements, even if work from home is no longer the default. At technology company Cisco, nine in 10 staff across its Asia-Pacific offices said they favoured a combination of office-based and remote work in a survey last September. "Over the past year, employees have grown accustomed to and even prefer a hybrid model. They appreciate the flexibility that working from home offers, although some do miss face-to face interactions and the informal chats that happen in an office setting," said Cisco Singapore managing director Andy Lee. Around 90 per ...

SeaPRwire

Foreign domestic worker welcomes new house visit scheme by MOM

aseanpr
2 minutes

SINGAPORE - Come rain or shine, Grace (not her real name) sleeps every night on a mattress laid out in the balcony. A single mother, she has been working in Singapore for close to a decade, supporting her daughter back home in India. After a seven-year stint with another employer, she transferred to a new workplace about two years ago. Since then, she has not had a room of her own, and was left without wages for four months when her employers were overseas during the pandemic. "Some days, I wake up to droplets of rain on my face. When the family went to stay with relatives overseas for about four months last year, they said I was free to stay in their house but would have to provide for myself as I did not have to pick up after them. "I had to count every penny of my savings to feed myself and send something back home to my daughter," she said. After the employers' return to Singapore, they resumed paying Grace her wages. The Manpower Ministry's recent initiatives to conduct random house visits and expand in-person interviews with domestic helpers was a ray of hope for Grace. "When I saw media reports of this new measure, I showed them to my employer and said: 'They may visit us an...

SeaPRwire

Man, 93, jailed for 6 months after beating shelter home roommate with walking stick

aseanpr
3 minutes

SINGAPORE - A 93-year-old man beat up his roommate at a shelter home with a walking stick after the two got into a dispute over turning off the lights in their unit. Sim Hwa was on Friday (May 28) sentenced to six months' jail after he pleaded guilty to one charge of voluntarily causing hurt to Mr Oh Chye Thiam, 85, at the home in Bukit Merah. This is the second time that Sim has been convicted for assaulting a roommate following a dispute about lights. The court heard that Sim has liver cancer but wished to be sentenced on Friday instead of waiting for a medical report to be made. Deputy Public Prosecutor Daniel Ling said that the latest incident happened on Oct 17 last year at 11pm, when Mr Oh was sleeping in the unit and Sim turned on the lights. The victim told Sim that he wanted to sleep and turned the lights off but Sim turned them on again. Mr Oh repeated that he wished to sleep and told Sim not to turn on the lights but Sim got angry, picked up his walking stick and hit Mr Oh, who was lying in his bed, multiple times. He tried to get up from his bed but was unable to do so and fell onto the floor, as Sim continued to hit him with the walking stick. In total, Sim hit him mor...

SeaPRwire

Wall Street closes lower on weak telecom stocks despite strong retail earnings

elean
3 minutes

NEW YORK (REUTERS) - US stocks ended down on Tuesday (May 18), slumping on a sharp decline in telecom stocks and weak housing starts data that overshadowed better-than-expected earnings from Walmart and Home Depot. AT&T Inc shed 5.8%, among the biggest percentage decliners in the benchmark S&P 500. It extended declines from Monday, when the telecoms firm said it would cut its dividend payout ratio as a result of its $43 billion media asset deal with Discovery Inc. T-Mobile and Verizon Communications also dropped 3.71% and 1.31%. Eight of 11 major S&P sectors ended the session in the red, with Energy and Industrials having largest percentage decline, according to Refinitiv data. Utilities were basically flat. The three main indexes opened higher after Walmart, the world's biggest retailer, raised its full-year earnings forecast and Home Depot reported quarterly same-store sales above estimates. "Those are both emblematic of strength in the corporate sector and also of the consumer. I mean, you can't have Walmart and Home Depot have blowout earnings without the consumer really stepping up spending stimulus checks, adopting ecommerce, as well as getting back into stores", said Ross Ma...

SeaPRwire

Will work from home end soon?

elean
5 minutes

(BLOOMBERG) - Working from home for more than a year may revolutionise some parts of business but I think most people in the United States will be back at their desks in September. Let's talk numbers. Of the 150 million or so people who were employed in March, 31.6 million telecommuted, according to the US Bureau of Labour Statistics, or about 21 per cent of the pie. Some analysts and bond issuers fear that these people, having experienced the joy of not commuting or living in more spacious digs in more pleasant climes, will never return to the office, or will return only two or three days a week. This will have an impact on small businesses, rents, sales taxes, transit systems, toll roads and, ultimately, tax bases. Just how big an impact depends upon how many days a week these people remain out of the office. These fears seem justified, even logical, but the very first thing you find out when asking about the number of days people will return to the office is, no one knows. Many big cities are just now relaxing restrictions on how many people can re-occupy office space, and employers have been very diplomatic in their demands, many couching their desires as "invitations" to retur...

SeaPRwire

Google saving over US$1 billion a year by working from home

elean
2 minutes

NEW YORK (BLOOMBERG) - With Covid-19 restrictions lifting, more people are booking trips and hotels online, which is very good for Google's advertising business. Google's employees, however, are working from home and not traveling as much on the company dime - and that's also good for its business. During the first quarter, Google parent Alphabet saved US$268 million (S$355 million) in expenses from company promotions, travel and entertainment, compared to same period a year earlier, "primarily as a result of Covid-19," according to a company filing. On an annualized basis, that would be more than US$1 billion. Indeed, Alphabet said in its annual report earlier this year that advertising and promotional expenses dropped by US$1.4 billion in 2020 as the company reduced spending, paused or rescheduled campaigns, and changed some events to digital-only formats due to the pandemic. Travel and entertainment expenses fell by US$371 million. The savings offset many of the costs that came with hiring thousands more workers. And the pandemic prudence allowed the company to keep its marketing and administrative costs effectively flat for the first quarter, despite boosting revenue by 34 per ...

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Online training for Home Team officers likely to continue amid Covid-19 pandemic

aseanpr
4 minutes

SINGAPORE - Since Covid-19 hit and took in-class sessions out, Home Team Academy (HTA) trainers have had to adapt their programmes so officers could still receive training essential to their work. From Zoom to digital journal mobile apps and even video calls, Home Team officers from agencies such as the Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB), Singapore Police Force and Singapore Prison Service tapped every tool at their disposal to keep the training momentum going. The officers described how they did it in interviews with The Straits Times over two days from Thursday (March 11). Ms Seah Wang Ling, a psychologist who works with CNB, said training had to continue following a 2019 amendment to the Misuse of Drugs Act, which saw drug supervision extended from two years to five years after an abuser's release from DRC or prison. The 29-year-old said CNB officers had to be trained under the Community Supervision Skills course to better identify the needs of the drug supervisees, so they can be referred to social service agencies. They also needed to learn to work with the supervisees in long-term pro-social behaviour to stay drug-free, added Ms Seah. With face-to-face sessions out, she took to v...

SeaPRwire

Sydney housing boom lifts prices to all-time high

elean
1 minute

SYDNEY (BLOOMBERG) - Housing prices in Sydney soared to an all-time high, gaining 5.7 per cent since last year's low in October as the economy continues to recover. Sydney property values are now higher than the prior peak in 2017, CoreLogic data released on Thursday (March 11) showed. However, Melbourne remains 1.3 per cent below its pre-pandemic high and Perth is almost 17 per cent below the top of 2014. "The fresh record high is great news for Sydney home owners, but highlights the challenges for non-home owners looking to participate in the housing market as values rise faster than incomes," said Tim Lawless, CoreLogic's executive research director. The rapid gains have been fueled by record-low borrowing rates, an improving economic outlook, an under-supply of listings and government incentives. While house prices are also surging from Singapore to Canada and the US, a return to boom times in Australia threatens to swell an already worrisome pile of household debt and make it harder for young people to buy their first property. More on this topic Related Story Australia home prices surge at fastest pace since 2003 in February Related Story Property prices in Australia surge to...

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Australia home prices surge at fastest pace since 2003 in February

elean
4 minutes

SYDNEY (BLOOMBERG, REUTERS) - Australian home prices climbed by the most since August 2003 in February as record low borrowing rates and government incentives lure more buyers into the market, raising fears of overheating. Nationwide house values surged 2.1 per cent last month, CoreLogi data released on Monday (March 1) showed. Capital city prices gained 2 per cent, led by Sydney and Melbourne. “Australia’s housing market is in the midst of a broad-based boom,” said Tim Lawless, head of research at CoreLogic. The rapid gains have been “spurred on by a combination of record-low mortgage rates, improving economic conditions, government incentives and low advertised supply levels.” While housing prices are surging from Singapore to Canada and the US, a return to boom times in Australia threatens to swell an already worrisome pile of household debt and make it harder for young people to get a foot on the property ladder. Sydney is the world’s third-least affordable housing market, and Melbourne the sixth, according to a report last week. The nation’s property values have taken off again after the central bank slashed interest rates to a record low and said they’ll stay there for at lea...

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More than 26,000 Home Team front-liners get Covid-19 vaccine jab

aseanpr
3 minutes

SINGAPORE - About 26,200 Home Team officers have received their first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine as at Friday (Feb 26). Of these, 19,058 officers have received their second doses, said the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) in a statement on Saturday. MHA's vaccination exercise started with 80 officers involved in front-line healthcare operations receiving vaccinations on Jan 11. They were among about 1,050 to be vaccinated first, including Singapore Civil Defence Force's (SCDF) Emergency Medical Services officers, staff from the Home Team Medical Services Division, and other front-line officers. They included staff from the Home Team Science and Technology Agency (HTX) and the Singapore Prison Service (SPS). Subsequently, front-line officers performing enforcement and essential services duties were also vaccinated. Senior leaders from various services under MHA were also vaccinated, including the commissioners and heads of department of the SCDF, Singapore Police Force, Immigration & Checkpoints Authority (ICA), SPS, Central Narcotics Bureau and HTX. Among them was Commissioner of Police Hoong Wee Teck, who received his second shot at the Home Team Academy on Feb 17. He said: "Takin...

SeaPRwire

APS555 Announced the Launch of Sales in Europe

pandora
3 minutes

Shenzhen, China - The well-known Chinese brand of digital solutions for home mining APS555 announced the launch of sales in Europe, as well as among the countries of the Eurasian Economic Union. The company's service centers are planned to be located in Russia, Germany, Latvia, Armenia, Georgia, and Kazakhstan. The company strives for mutually beneficial cooperation on a parity basis with all interested companies and investors. Against the background of a sharp digital transformation of the global business, earning at home for billions of people has become the most important task. And the digital home business model has become available thanks to the international Chinese company APS555. Now everyone who has a powerful laptop and access to electricity and the Internet can earn money at home on the remote. Tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars are available to everyone on the basis of proof-of-stake technology. The Etherium brand and a number of other innovative digital solutions are based on these technologies. The operating system developed by APPS 555 allows you to conduct round-the-clock home mining on the basis of gaming laptops, extracting digital gold with ease. At the mo...