MarketWatch: Weekly Real Estate Update for Riverdale, Bronx – 9/15/2025 – 9/22/2025

Did You Know?

DID YOU KNOW?

* Today is the autumn solstice, marking the first day of astronomical fall in the Northern Hemisphere, which occurs on September 22nd, 2025, at 2:19 p.m. EDT. This is the moment when the sun is directly over the Earth’s equator, creating approximately equal lengths of day and night. Just a few more hours left of Summer…. 😄

* In Australia, the success of compulsory retirement savings, is ironically compounding the problem of ‘inheritance impatience’ elder abuse…..often younger heirs seeking financial assistance to buy a home. Employers are required to set aside 12% of wages, swelling the retirement savings pool to $4.3 trillion, a sum that’s projected to become the world’s 2nd-largest by 2030. Median balances for those aged 65 – 69 are about $200,000 and many older Australians have also built wealth through soaring property values. (Bloomberg)

* By 2050 the global population aged 60 and older will hit 2 billion.

* French leftwing lawmakers are pressing for people with fortunes of more than €100mn to pay a minimum of 2% tax annually on all their assets, including their companies, shares of companies and unrealised gains to pay down France’s growing national debt….and would impact around 1,800 people. While the super-rich frame this as communism/socialism, the less-rich frame this as ‘paying their fair share’. This is becoming a global issue as extreme wealth disparity grows and is destabilizing. (FT)

* China manufactures about 80% of the world’s solar panels, supplies about 60% of the planet’s wind turbines, 70% of its EVs and 75% of batteries, all at a lower financial cost than the West. China’s share of global clean energy patents stands at around 75%, while the country dominates the supply chain for the critical minerals that underpin many green technologies in its efforts to be 100% energy independent. China also keeps building coal power plants…. but their emissions are slowly coming down now, although still more than double that of the US with more than triple the population.

* It has been estimated by the Italian Government that the Mose Dam near Venice – an integrated system consisting of rows of mobile gates, installed on the seafloor at the Lido, Malamocco, and Chioggia inlets, that can be raised to temporarily seal off the Venetian Lagoon from the Adriatic Sea during acqua alta high tides –  had prevented €2.6bn of losses in 5 years. Insurance premiums are expected to drop in the area. (FT)

* The Moehrl law firm is targeting Zillow in a new class-action lawsuitalleging the portal “tricks” buyers into using a Flex agent, which inflates commissions, and calls its private listing ban a “scheme to defraud buyers.”  The Sept. 19 complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, alleges Zillow is a “monopoly” in the U.S. market for residential real estate online search services, stating that it claims 66% of the U.S. real estate audience share. (REAL ESTATE NEWS)

Mortgage Rate Updates:

The average rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage backed by Freddie Mac plunged by 9 bps from the previous week to 6.26% as of September 18th, easing for a fourth straight week to their lowest level since early-October. The decline aligned with plunging long-dated Treasury yields. “Mortgage rates decreased yet again this week, prompting many homeowners to refinance. In fact, the share of mortgage applications that were refinances reached nearly 60%, the highest since January 2022,” said Sam Khater, Freddie Mac’s chief economist.

Source: Freddie Mac