Money, Wealth & Power—A Daily Look at the Financial World
California’s housing divide is now etched in one striking number: $9,100,000. That is what Gov. Gavin Newsom spent on a Bay Area mansion at a time when the state’s homelessness crisis and affordability crunch remain acute. The optics are jarring, but the purchase also highlights a deeper truth about California real estate: the same market…
In much of urban America, the math on housing has flipped. Monthly payments for a starter home now routinely overshoot comparable rents, turning what used to be a trade off between stability and flexibility into a straightforward cost gap. The result is a generation of would be buyers in big cities who can afford to…
Bill Gates has quietly become one of the most powerful private players in American agriculture, with control of roughly 1 out of every 4,000 acres of United States farmland. He has acknowledged that footprint himself, describing it as less than 0.03 percent of the country’s total farmland, yet large enough to shape local markets and…
The American housing market has quietly tipped into a strange imbalance. There are now far more real estate professionals chasing deals than there are homes available, and the gap between people with licenses and actual listings is widening even as inventory inches up. The result is a profession where a growing share of agents sell…
Georgia’s long simmering frustration with rising property tax bills has finally produced a sweeping political response. Republican lawmakers are advancing a plan that would erase local property taxes on owner-occupied homes within a few years, replacing a core pillar of local finance with state money and new limits on how fast tax bills can grow….
In Minneapolis, a city already defined by hard conversations about safety and belonging, local leaders have quietly launched one of the country’s most targeted experiments in immigrant housing stability. Earlier this month, the Minneapolis City Council approved $1 million in rental assistance aimed squarely at families whose lives have been upended by intensified immigration enforcement,…
The 2026 housing market is shaping up less like a one-sided rout and more like a long, tactical bout where momentum shifts from round to round. After three years of suppressed activity and punishing borrowing costs, buyers are finally seeing more homes and slightly better terms, while sellers are adjusting to a world where overpricing…
In Washington, a short-term rental dispute that spiraled into a 13‑month standoff has ended with a blunt message from the bench: not every long‑term occupant is a tenant. A D.C. judge has ruled that an Airbnb guest who refused to leave had “no legal tenancy,” clearing the way for immediate eviction and energizing a national…
Beyoncé and Jay-Z are worth more than many small countries, yet they are piling on debt against a single mansion in Bel Air. Their latest move, a second mortgage of roughly $57 million on a home they already leveraged once, has sparked a fierce debate over whether they are stretched thin or playing a sophisticated…
Across the United States, coin shops that usually scramble to find enough bullion to satisfy customers are now struggling with the opposite problem: their safes are packed with silver and gold they cannot easily move. Instead of advertising for more inventory, some are quietly capping how much they will buy, or turning walk-in sellers away…