Luxury retailers, flush with cash, are spending big on real estate in the world’s most expensive and exclusive shopping corridors. In New York City, Prada recently agreed to buy the building that houses its Fifth Avenue store as well as the building next door for more than $800 million. Gucci’s is also paying nearly $1 billion for a 115,000-square-foot retail space a few blocks south.

The central bank held its benchmark federal-funds rate steady last week in a range between 5.25% and 5.5%, the highest level in more than two decades.

In the first half of 2023, international banks represented 25% of loan originations to U.S. central business district offices, compared with 17% for regional and local banks. By contrast, regional and local banks did 54% of lending in that period for medical offices and 45% for suburban offices—versus 2% and 6% at international banks, respectively.

Americans quit 6.1 million fewer jobs last year than in 2022—a decline of 12%. In December alone, quits fell to the lowest monthly level in nearly three years.

In the Fortune 500, 82% of employers offer at least some remote-work opportunities and Americans spent about 30% of their paid days working from home in January 2024, largely the same from a year earlier.

Asking rents for prime space in 16 U.S. markets declined in the third quarter after increasing on average from about $61 a square foot in mid-2021 to close to about $70 in the second quarter of last year. They were just under $69 in the fourth quarter.

Vacancies at U.S. shopping centers fell to 5.3% in the fourth quarter, the lowest level since tracking the metric in 2007. Average asking rents rose to $23.70 a square foot and are now nearly 17% above 2019 levels.

Fed officials expect to cut rates three times this year, according to projections from their last meeting in December, but they haven’t indicated when those cuts would begin.

The U.S. economy grew 3.1% over the last year, defying projections of a recession as a resilient labor market supported strong consumer spending. The 2023 figure stands in contrast to what economists expected a year ago, when they saw a recession as very likely and expected anemic 0.2% growth for the year. Last year’s gain was a sharp pickup from a comparable 0.7% advance in 2022.

Blackstone agreed to sell the Arizona Biltmore luxury hotel to London-based private equity real estate manager Henderson Park for $705M. Almost six years ago, Blackstone acquired the property for roughly $400M from Singaporean sovereign wealth fund GIC and spent over $150M on property renovations.