Newsroom
Real Estate
Housing, commercial property, and the cost of shelter.
China's private investment slump spread beyond property in the first half of 2026
Private fixed-asset investment excluding property development fell 4.9% year over year in the first half of 2026, reversing 5.1% growth a year earlier. The decline shows that weakness extended beyond developers, but the available data cannot identify which private industries caused it.
Florida Cut Insurance Rates 8.7% and Credited One Author. The Math Names at Least Two.
Florida regulators set an average 8.7% rate cut for state-backed Citizens and credited it 'entirely' to the state's 2022-2023 lawsuit reforms. But a global reinsurance downcycle was cutting Florida's single biggest cost the same month, and a Louisiana control group that caught the same tailwind saw its largest insurer raise rates 9.7%. The honest reading is a contested range, not a single number: the reforms are real, but a simple cost breakdown puts their share of the cut anywhere from almost nothing to just under half, and a third author, the regulator itself, ordered a cut more than three times deeper than Citizens asked for.
The New-Home Price That Won't Move: How Builders Are Cutting 13% Without Touching the Sticker
The Census median new-home price was statistically flat in May 2026 even as supply hit 10.3 months and builder sentiment stayed buried. Cumulant's analysis finds the flatness is largely a measurement artifact: paid prices have fallen by roughly 13% through mortgage-rate buydowns the contract price never records, a hidden cut worth about $48,000 on a large builder's average home, and one that is now quietly shrinking.
