From what I've read, it's not that much of a concern yet. The immediate threat would be to orbital infrastructure, with debris burning up in the atmosphere. It would not change the trajectory of the moon. So, they can wait to get more info. If, by very small chance, 2024 YR impacted Earth in 2032, it would be localized disaster with enough time to move people out of the area of impact.
That being said, it's a good reason to work on asteroid deflection tech! Probably shouldn't waste it.
Cheaper mortgage rates means institutional capital that was otherwise sitting on the sidelines in T-bills will be deployed directly into that remaining supply.
Just start building already, 6.8 % for the 30-year fixed is well within historical precedent. High housing prices are a result of asset inflation for a product priced at the margin. Only way around that is to increase supply.
(Also consider this: there is nothing more unproductive than real estate - the stupid capital must be forced out of the mattress and into productive ventures.)
There are a lot of interesting details embedded in this number, specifically how strong consumer spending was.
I still have concerns about dwindling savings and increasing credit balances, as well as historically high APRs, but will worry about that another day.
I think credit card APRs specifically are off the charts. Other forms of credit (mortgages etc) not so much. Credit card issuers are commanding a 15% margin over prime rate, while charge-off i.e. the risk to the credit issuer is around 3%, near all-time lows. In other words credit issuers are raking in record unearned profits.
This FRED series only goes back 30 years but if you look at the Fed Statistical Abstract consumer credit tables, APRs in 1985 were < 19% and in 1980 were < 18% so 21% and higher are very exceptional.
Consumer is tapped out, economy is flashing yellow warning light and the Fed needs to cut now. Lots of spending currently being driven by Boomers running off of assets and paying cash (~40% of consumer spending), but there is only so much of that. Per the Sahm rule and rising unemployment, we are approaching recession territory and the potential for a self reinforcing consumer demand destruction spiral (people lose jobs, pull back spending, more people lose jobs, even more spending gets pulled back, and so forth).
