“People who don’t read the newspaper are uninformed, those who do are misinformed….”
~Mark Twain
If you are like most people today you don’t get the majority (or any) of your news from a “newspaper” any more. However, you probably consume more news now than ever before. You now have “news sources” and you view them on your computer, your tablet or your cell phone. I remember when cell phones were called car phones (because they were mounted in your car). Today, cell phone isn’t really a phone anymore it is really a handheld computer. With today’s cell phone you can look up any of over 3 million entries on Wikipedia, navigate roads, sidewalks and bike trails, read a book, have a 10 person video conference, shop and purchase a myriad of items. You can even speak to your phone and it will attempt to give you answers and, of course, you can seek the news from the world, Washington or even your neighborhood.
It is my secret hope that somehow this little letter/blog and our availability by phone and email is one of those sources of news or information that you value or look forward to. I know that I read a lot of news and our whole team is constantly keeping a pulse on the marketplace. With that in mind, I thought I would share a number of noteworthy headlines and bullet points;
- May 2013 – single family median price hits $450,000 for the first time in 5 years.
- San Diego moves up to 27th spot for the 2013 Best Cities for job growth.
- San Diego has been ranked 5th on a list of 50 cities for meetings and events in the country.
- County wide retail vacancy rose to 6.7% from 6% a year ago. Tenants gave back more space than we filled in the first half of 2013.
- Asking rental rates were down by 3-4% in the first half of the year but are up about the same for the last 3 months (so we are back to where we were).
- Fresh & Easy stores have been sold, 3 are slated to close (Escondido, El Cajon and Santee). Expect them to rebrand under the Whole Foods name.
- Amazon has rolled out its home delivery grocery market (Amazon Fresh) in the LA area.
- Wal-Mart has announced that smaller format stores will account for 40% of its new store opening (10-35,000 s.f.)
- San Diego unemployment inched down to 7.4% (from 7.8% in July). This is down from 9.2% of last year, ahead of 8.8% for California and close to the 7.3% national rate. (Behind the headline though – 8500 jobs from education, health care, social assistance and4700 from leisure and hospitality. 2800 lost jobs in manufacturing).
- 16 office and retail leases reported in Escondido, 9 of them by CDC Commercial (bad news: only 16 deals reported done. good news: CDC has over 50% market share.)
So what the news all boils down to is what Ronald Reagan used to ask, “Are you better off today than last year” (I know he said 4 years ago). My answer would be, yes because uncertainty has continued to ebb and employment growth has continued. However, economic uncertainty and lack of leadership (from both sides of the aisle) continues to make this the slowest recovery in history. Stay tuned for more news and check your news source…hope you enjoy the story (I mean guide).
An easy guide to keeping political news in perspective:
1. The Wall Street Journal is read by the people who run the country.
2. The Washington Post is read by people who think they run the country.
3. The New York Times is read by people who think they should run the country, and who are very good at crossword puzzles.
4. USA Today is read by people who think they ought to run the country but don’t really understand The New York Times. They do, however, like their statistics shown in pie charts.
5. The Los Angeles Times is read by people who wouldn’t mind running the country, if they could find the time – and if they didn’t have to leave Southern California to do it.
6. The Boston Globe is read by people whose parents used to run the country.
7. The ChicagoSun-Times is read by people who aren’t too sure who’s running the country and don’t really care as long as they can get a seat on the train.
8. The New York Post is read by people who don’t care who is running the country as long as they do something really scandalous, preferably while intoxicated.
9. The Miami Herald is read by people who are running another country but need the baseball scores.
10. The San Francisco Chronicle is read by people who aren’t sure if there is a country or that anyone is running it; but if so, they oppose all that they stand for. There are occasional exceptions if the leaders are handicapped, minority, feminist, atheist dwarfs who also happen to be illegal aliens from any other country or galaxy, provided, of course, that they are not Republicans.
11. The National Enquirer is read by people trapped in line at the grocery store.
12. The Key West Citizen is read by people who have recently caught a fish and need something to wrap it in.