The average rate on the standard 30-year fixed mortgage fell around a quarter percentage point to 6.47%, a low not seen since May 2023 and the sharpest weekly decline in around nine months.

More than $40 billion of office loans were in distress at the end of the second quarter, which is around three times the value of distressed apartment loans. But the pool of apartment mortgages that could get into difficulty in the future is larger—$56.9 billion are at risk of distress, compared with $50.9 billion for offices.

Major department stores now occupy less than half of all anchor spaces at enclosed shopping malls, with roughly 500 vacant department-store spaces nationwide.

People who leave cash uninvested in retirement accounts lose out on more than $172 billion a year in retirement wealth as a result.

A stock-market selloff intensified around the world, sending U.S. indexes sliding and volatility spiking to its highest levels since the Covid-19 pandemic.

A July poll showed that voters rank housing as their second biggest concern when it comes to high prices—behind only groceries. That is a shift from a November 2021 poll, which found that housing was ranked below the cost of groceries, gas and utility bills.

Americans in the past two years spent more of their income on food than they have in three decades.

Fed officials’ quarterly economic projections have penciled in an interest-rate outlook suggesting that, once they make their first move, they could cut rates by a quarter percentage point roughly once every quarter.

Office is by far the most troubled property class. In the second quarter, the volume of office property seized in foreclosures and other actions was up about $5 billion from the second quarter of 2023. Apartment buildings, which have been hit hard by the increase in interest rates and the crush of new supply, had a $975 million increase during the same period.

In the second quarter, portfolios of foreclosed and seized office buildings, apartments and other commercial property reached $20.5 billion. That is a 13% increase from the first quarter and the highest quarterly figure since 2015.