The consumer confidence index increased to 121.7 in April from a revised 109.0 in March. Recent improvements led the index to a more than one-year high, with the indicator approaching the pre-pandemic level of 132.6 in February 2020.

Foot traffic at a representative sample of 50 malls in March was up 86% from the same month last year. While that foot traffic was 24% lower than in March 2019, mall owners are hopeful that their business has turned a corner.

Median asking rent rose 1.1% on an annual basis in March to $1,463 a month across the country’s 50 largest markets. That marked the first month where the pace of rent growth had increased since last summer.

Pre-pandemic, the average hotel logged a little over two hours of labor for every occupied room, but that’s dropped to 1.5 hours over the course of the pandemic in part because housekeepers aren’t going into rooms each day and reduced food and beverage service.

SmartRent.com Inc., which sells smart home-technology systems to apartment-building owners and developers, intends to go public through a merger with a special-purpose acquisition company that values the property-tech startup at $2.2 billion.

In the first quarter this year, U.S. startups raised $69 billion from investors—41% more than the previous record, set in the fourth quarter of 2018.

Mack Real Estate Group has taken over control of seven limited- and full-service hotels totaling 1,087 rooms in New York City through a loan foreclosure. A Mack affiliate provided an $85 million mezzanine loan while the value of the ownership transfer was listed at $315.8 million.

Kimco Realty Corp. has agreed to acquire fellow grocery-anchored shopping-center owner Weingarten Realty Investors for nearly $3.9 billion in cash and stock.

The U.S. housing market is 3.8 million single-family homes short of what is needed to meet the country’s demand, according to a new analysis by mortgage-finance company Freddie Mac. The estimate represents a 52% rise in the nation’s home shortage compared with 2018, the first time Freddie Mac quantified the shortfall.

The Biden administration extended through June a federal moratorium on evicting individuals making up to $99,000 and couples making up to $198,000 annually who say they can’t pay rent because of coronavirus-related hardships.