Home prices have hit new highs as the inventory of homes for sale held below historical levels. The median single-family existing-home sales price rose 14.2% in the second quarter from a year ago to $413,500.

The average sale price per acre for American land in the second quarter of 2022 was $18,083, doubling over the last two years.

This year, the sales-volume growth rate has been falling as rising inflation has pushed interest rates higher. In the second quarter, investors purchased $190.3 billion of commercial property, an increase of 17% over the same period in 2021 but down from a 150% sales-volume increase in the second quarter of 2021.

Public pension plans lost a median 7.9% in the year ended June 30, their worst annual performance since 2009.

Real-estate closings can now take place remotely in most states, with 43 states having laws permanently allowing remote online notarization up from 22 at the outset of the pandemic.

The red-hot rental market is starting to cool. Average apartment rents rose 9.4% in the second quarter of 2022 compared with the same quarter in 2021, down from the more than 11% annual increases seen the previous two quarters.

The VIX hasn’t closed above 30, a key level that signifies increased fear, since June and settled Tuesday just below 24. The VVIX, an index measuring the volatility of the VIX itself, has fallen relatively steadily since January and recently hit a three-year low of 80.

Total general-purpose and store credit-card debt fell to $748 billion in April 2021 from $913 billion in January 2020. It remains among the few mainstream forms of consumer debt where the aggregate balances, now at $855 billion in May, haven’t yet returned to prepandemic norms.

Embattled property developer China Evergrande Group was told to honor a $1.1 billion guarantee, revealing yet another large financial obligation that wasn’t previously disclosed. Evergrande said one of its subsidiaries in China had provided counter guarantees to an unnamed entity by pledging its shares in Shengjing Bank Co., a regional lender.

U.S. hotel construction has declined for seven consecutive months, according to STR, but planning activity continues to rise nationally, albeit at a slower pace. In Construction: 149,198 rooms (-20.1%), Final Planning: 178,809 rooms (-11.3%), Planning: 281,190 rooms (+6.1%).