Risk engineers provide solutions to commercial property vulnerabilities, helping insurers and businesses prevent losses as catastrophes rise. (Credit: Diki/Adobe Stock) Risk engineers are at the heart of risk management. Their risk mitigation and loss prevention assessments and expertise help commercial property owners make informed decisions to harden their buildings and facilities. PropertyCasualty360.com spoke with Scott Ewing, head of the Americas at AXA XL Risk Consulting, about the role of risk engineering in reducing property damage propensity for everything from water leaks to wildfires. Ewing has more than 35 years of experience in the risk engineering and insurance industry, leading a…
Author: Private Lending Agent
MarketScout reports that U.S. commercial insurance premiums rose 3.9% in the first quarter of 2024, driven by growth in cyber, auto and property insurance. U.S. commercial insurance premiums are expected to rise a modest 3.9% overall in the first quarter of 2024, down sharply from a 5.6% surge in the fourth quarter of 2023, according to a MarketScout report. The first quarter of 2024 saw a shift in the commercial insurance industry, with rates increasing at a slower pace compared to the previous quarter. This was especially evident in January and February, when rates rose more slowly, before rising more…
Key Takeaways Looking back over the past 40 years, the average interest rate on a 30-year mortgage peaked at about 16% in 1981. The average interest rate on a 30-year mortgage bottomed out at just under 3% in 2021. Today, the cost of a typical 30-year mortgage is similar to interest rates in the late 1990s, in the 7% range. Mortgages as we know them today are less than a century old. In fact, only one in ten Americans owned their home before the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) was created in 1934. That all changed during the Great Depression, when…
A proposal to ease the property tax burden on Boston homeowners would put an even bigger burden on struggling office owners.Boston Mayor Michelle Wu is petitioning to temporarily raise the city's tax cap on commercial properties above the cap on residential properties, Bloomberg reported, an adjustment that would shift the responsibility for filling the city's looming budget shortfall from homes to offices.The adjustments will be implemented gradually over three years.More than a third of Boston's tax revenue comes from commercial real estate, a much larger share than cities like Chicago, Miami or New York, so the commercial downturn will be…
Get free access to the top ideas and insights picked by our editors. As commercial real estate continues to struggle to recover from pandemic-era changes that have resulted in rising vacancies in buildings (especially office space) and rising interest rates, banks across the country are fighting to prevent these problems from worsening even further. New York Community Bancorp's (NYCB) recent struggles highlight the rapid decline in the value of rent-regulated apartment loans in New York City. Banks have offered such loans for decades, but the Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act passed in New York state in June 2019, combined…
The Luskin School of Public Policy has been approved to launch a new real estate development master’s program in fall 2025. The 11-month program, first proposed three years ago, would provide students with graduate-level specialized training in real estate and urban development, said Anastasia Lukaitou Sideris, interim dean of the Luskin School. Students would focus on real estate fundamentals as well as more contemporary themes such as housing affordability, climate change architecture and architecture for communities of color. The program is aimed at students with experience in real estate development and graduate students looking for professional opportunities in real estate…
Meanwhile, the People's Bank of China has been on a path of monetary easing, with its latest decision in February cutting banks' five-year prime lending rate (LPR) by 25 basis points, the biggest cut since the LPR was designated the key interest rate benchmark in 2019.People take photos in the Shinjuku area of Tokyo on March 30, 2024. Photo: AFP”From a commercial real estate perspective, demand is split between the two countries. Foreign investors continue to seek investment opportunities in Japan but have remained silent on China,” said Henry Chin, CBRE's head of global investor, thought leadership and research, Asia…
WASHINGTON (AP) — Ever since the Federal Reserve signaled last fall that it was nearly done raising interest rates, Wall Street traders, economists, car buyers and potential home buyers have been obsessed with one question: When will the Fed start cutting rates? But now, with the U.S. economy showing surprising strength, another question is emerging: Will the central bank really cut rates three times this year, as the Fed itself has predicted, or will it cut at all? The Fed typically cuts rates only when the economy is weakening and in need of support. Lower interest rates could make borrowing…
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How Oregon started the Home Energy Score The City of Portland introduced the Home Energy Score (HES) program in 2018 with the goal of reducing CO2 emissions by 80% by 2050. Portland was one of the first cities in the US to implement the program after Berkeley, California. A year later, the Oregon Department of Energy partnered with green home certification nonprofit Earth Advantage to create a standard home energy scoring system that can be voluntarily adopted across the state. Earth Advantage also manages the Green Building Registry, a database where buyers and sellers can access HES…