Good morning, tennis star or otherwise, unvaccinated folks are increasingly being hit by financial penalties as governments try to boost lagging vax rates.
Sneak Peeks:
Greece: Starting soon, unvaccinated people in Greece aged over 60 will have to pay a monthly fine of €50 (USD57), a penalty that’ll be doubled in February.
Austria: The government is planning to slap all unvaccinated adults with fines of up to USD4,108 starting from mid-March.
Canada: Quebec, Canada's largest province, announced last week that unvaccinated adults will soon have to pay a financial penalty.
These penalties are a matter of fairness for those who are vaccinated, governments feel.
😷↔1 metre↔😷
Analysts Foresee Good Times For Real Estate Stocks
While the stock market is a complex place, sometimes eluding the best among us, there is a simple law that governs all stocks - if the industry and company are truly doing well, its stocks are bound to follow.
Now Analysts See A Real Estate Upcycle
Per Bloomberg-Quint, top stock brokerages feel housing is poised for an upcycle and commercial real estate is on track to rebound from the pandemic-driven disruption.
Word on Dalal Street:
🔼 Record low interest rates, stagnant prices over the last seven years and rising income are driving housing affordability and thus, sales.
🔼 Per Knight Frank, property registrations in Mumbai were the highest in at least nine years in 2021.
🔼 Per ICICI Securities, improved pace of vaccinations and staff returning to workplaces would result in an increase in net office absorption over the next three years, beginning 2022.
🔼 Real estate developers exposed to Bengaluru and Pune markets will outperform peers by volume and value, while Mumbai-based developers will benefit from long-term, pent-up demand.
Time-To-Buy Recommendations Are Back
Motilal Oswal initiated coverage on four developers—Macrotech Developers Ltd. and Oberoi Realty Ltd. with a ‘buy’, while DLF Ltd. and Godrej Properties Ltd. with a ‘neutral’.
ICICI Securities recommended a ‘buy’ on Embassy Office Parks REIT and Phoenix Mills, while has an ‘add’ call on DLF, Brookfield India REIT, Mindspace Business Parks REIT and Brigade Enterprises.
The brokerage suggests a ‘hold’ on Oberoi Realty and ‘reduce’ on Prestige Estates Projects.
*Recommendations per brokerages from a Bloomberg-Quint report.
Cinema Hall To Warehouse, Delivered
Dark stores are rising and fast.
Because We Need Faster Deliveries
The pandemic has rewired us, it seems. Gone are the days when we loved to take a break from home and head out for our groceries and other stuff.
Now, there's a war raging - a war for market share that can only be won by brands offering the fastest deliveries, like under 10 minutes.
We Need More Warehouses/Hubs
On closer retrospection, you will realise that faster deliveries only mean one thing - the warehouse and logistics hub belting out your order is not too far away from you.
For big cities spread out over hundreds of square kilometres, this translates into many many warehouses/logistics hubs/fulfillment centres/banana storage - whatever you call it.
To meet that growing demand, unused cinema halls and wedding venues are being converted into delivery hubs for dark stores, per this ET Prime report.
5G Vs. Aviation Is Getting Hotter
Major U.S. passenger and cargo airlines have warned of a "catastrophic" aviation crisis this week as AT&T and Verizon deploy new 5G services, per Reuters.
Airlines said the new C band 5G service set to begin today could render a significant number of aircraft unusable, causing chaos for U.S. aviation.
What The. . .
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) says that the new 5G technology could mess with aircraft instruments such as altimeters, which measure how far above the ground an airplane is travelling.
⚠ Altimeters operate in the 4.2-4.4 GHz range and the concern is that the auctioned frequencies sit too close to this range.
🤷♀️ Verizon and AT&T debate that C band 5G has been deployed in about 40 other countries without aviation interference issues.
Proptech's Next Stop Is Insurance
The real estate industry has always lacked long term vision and as environment related pressures mount on the sector, scurrying investors are finding out that real estate is insufficiently prepared for climate change risks.
What's This Insurance Bit?
Real estate is tangible and thus, easily insurable. For example, if extreme weather events sink a sea facing office block of a city one month each year, landlords would want to be compensated for that loss.
While that example is just an outlier, the risks faced by real estate from expanding green regulation has pushed its focus on products that combine insurtech* and proptech.
*the use of technology innovations designed to squeeze out savings and efficiency from the current insurance industry model.
Insurance Proptech's For Real
And here are three top examples.
Billy: a construction insurance company, which helps developers verify that subcontractors have the insurance they need
Jones: used by JLL, the “friction-free compliance platform” gives users an understanding of their properties’ exposure to liabilities and tools to manage them
Obie: claiming to “reinvent the insurance process”, Obie is a US brokerage that offers instant property insurance quotes.
Just Following The Money
Increasing regulations around sustainability are a driving force in the insurtech market especially as the sector's 'net zero by 2050' commitment isn't an easy one.
As staying on top of a rapidly expanding regulatory environment becomes a global priority, investors from around the world are piling into funds, created to invest in this facet of proptech.
The next frontier, is always where the money is.
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China's birth rate plummeted for a fifth consecutive year to hit a new record low in 2021, despite government efforts to encourage couples to have more children in the face of a looming demographic crisis, per CNN.
It seems in China, whether there's love or not, it must be made. 💚
☕ The Crew@Ginger Chai