The typical profit margin for a flipped home rose to 25.4% in the first quarter, up from 24.7% in the fourth quarter of 2025. Margins had been declining since peaking at more than 34% in the second quarter of 2024.
An average of 26% of paid, full days were worked from home in May, down from the 27% registered two years earlier. It was about 30% in 2022, when companies were transitioning away from the pandemic. But in 2019, before the pandemic struck, about 7% of days were worked from home.
The typical March 2026 homebuyer paid 15% down on the value of a home, a percentage that’s down from 16.1% in March 2025. That translates to about $64,000 — still more than double the median $30,000 down payment homebuyers paid in the years leading up to the pandemic, when buyers were putting down about 10%.
Supply-chain backlogs, permitting fights and availability of power supplies are among the issues that have caused the construction of data centers to fall behind targeted timelines, with the gap growing wider in recent months. More than 60% of data-center capacity planned for completion in 2027 isn’t yet under construction, and another 7% is delayed.
The slowest housing market in decades is stretching into its fourth year, causing many real-estate agents to leave the industry or find second jobs. The National Association of Realtors had 1.412 million members as of April, down from a peak of 1.6 million in October 2022.
The median age of a U.S. home is a record 44 years, leading to vast and rapidly increasing maintenance and modernization costs. Financial advisers now suggest setting aside 2% to 3% of a home’s value annually for upkeep, up from the traditional 1%.
Downtown Denver faces a crisis with nearly 40% office vacancy, the highest among the country’s top 50 cities.
Google and Blackstone plan to launch an artificial-intelligence cloud company with $5 billion in equity capital from Blackstone. The new venture aims to bring 500 megawatts of capacity online in 2027, using Google’s specialized chips and software. Blackstone will be the majority owner and has over $150 billion in existing data-center assets.