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Christie’s Restructures Classical Asian Sales to Focus on the Arts of India

Christie’s will feature classical Indian art created from the third century through the beginning of the 20th century in a standalone sale for the first time this September.

The online auction is a break with the traditional approach of including Indian, Himalayan, and Southeast Asian art in one sale and responds to collectors of modern and contemporary Indian art who are “interested in following art history backwards,” finding links in the art of recent time to the faraway past, says Tristan Bruck, head of sale.

The previous model better suited “an old-fashioned collector who was buying works in all three sub-niches,” Bruck says. “A collector who bought Indian paintings, for instance, was likely to also go out and buy a Tibetan thangka (or tapestry).”

The Arts of India sale, open from 10 a.m. Sept. 13 to 9 a.m. Sept. 27, is paying particular attention to works that transition Indian art from the classical to the modern era, a period that until now hadn’t received close attention, he says.

Maqbool Fida Husain, Untitled (Naga), circa 1971
Christie’s Images Ltd. 2023

In the midst of the online offering, on the morning of Sept. 20, Christie’s also will hold a live sale in New York of mostly modern but also contemporary South Asian art, which is predominately from India in addition to Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka.

Christie’s expectation is that collectors who attend, or dial into the modern and contemporary sale via phone or online, might be intrigued to also take a look at the online sale, where earlier Indian works provide inspiration for colours, style, and themes by 20th-and 21st-century artists. The auction house will also display the works together in its Rockefeller Center galleries in New York.

Collectors “realize that this art wasn’t created in a vacuum,” says Nishad Avari, Christie’s head of South Asian modern and contemporary art. “There’s thousands of years of tradition that modern and contemporary artists in the region drew on and continue to draw from.”

Consider Maqbook Fida Husain’s Untitled (Naga), a massive work of five female figures and a serpent (or naga) painted around 1971. The painting portrays four of the women with breaks at the neck, hips, and knees, alluding to physical forms expressed in temple sculpture of the Gupta Empire from the fourth- to early sixth century, Avari says.

The painting, expected to achieve between US$700,000 and US$1 million, likely was created to commemorate the launch of a monograph of Husain’s work that was published by Harry N. Abrams, who acquired the painting, Christie’s said in a catalog note. Abrams, a vast collector who also published art and illustrated books about Old Masters through artists such as Robert Rauschenberg, had displayed the work in his offices and later in his family’s home for more than 50 years.

A very large and important Pichvai of Vishvarupa Amidst A Lotus Pond, India, Rajasthan, 18th-19th Centuries
Courtesy of Christie’s Images Ltd. 2023

Going further back in time within the Arts of India sale is a Pichvai painting of Vishvarupa—a form of the god Krishna—painted in the 18th to 19th century. The work, originally a temple banner, is a traditional Indian form and concept, “but by the 19th century you can see artists are working with different types of perspective,” Bruck says. They are also using a more modern color palette, with vibrant pinks and blues, and the canvas is large—about six by eight feet.

“This could go in a gallery with the modern works, which are on these large canvases,” Bruck says. The painting “tells a great story alongside 20th-century work, being able to see the origin of a lot of these concepts.”

The Pichvai—a term that refers to devotional folk art paintings—is estimated to achieve at least US$120,000.

Another popular category are so-called company-school paintings that came out of India’s princely courts beginning with the imperial Mughal around 1600 through to the 19th century, when they were commissioned by British administrators, Bruck says.

Each court had its own style that may have been influenced by other courts and changed over time, he says. The works, often called miniature paintings because of the small, precise figures and scenes they depicted, were typically created in albums, or series, making them highly collectible.

Until recently, a group of collectors had focused solely on this sector somewhat in isolation, but Bruck says, Christie’s is seeing an “explosion of interest” in court painting albums, such as an illustration from the “Bharany” Ramayan series that is being offered in the upcoming sale.

A collector “can see what the other pages from that album have sold for and sort of put them together as an album in [their] mind and ideally collect more than one or try to get a few from the set,” Bruck says. The fact they exist within series also gives collectors confidence in what to pay, he adds.

Sayed Haider Raza, Rajasthan, 1983
Christie’s Images Ltd. 2023

The Bharany Ramayan work in the sale, titled The Monkey Army Intruding Upon a Demon’s Cave, from “Punjab Hills, Kangra or Guler, first generation after Nainsukh or Manaku,” from 1775-1780, is being offered for a minimum of US$80,000. A Patna court painting of a marriage procession at night, from around 1810 and painted in a more European style, is being offered for a minimum of US$10,000.

For many collectors, those price points are more accessible than, for example, the estimated US$250,000 they would pay for a work by Sayed Haider Raza, whose Rajasthan, 1983, is included in the modern and contemporary sale. The structure and primary-colour palette of Rajasthan, in fact, is intentionally drawn from court paintings, Avari says.

“The way in which their discrete sections, cells, in which he paints and the way in which he surrounds it with the red border is a direct reference to Pahari or Rajasthani (court) painting,” he says.

When collectors can see the court paintings that inspired a modern work they own, and they can acquire them for far less, “why not hang them side-by-side?” Avari says.

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Three Ways to Travel Around the World

Five countries and four continents in under two weeks? Or how about seeing the Taj Mahal, the Pyramids and Machu Picchu in one mad 25-day marathon? As travel rebounds in 2023, that staple of bucket lists and reality TV shows—the journey around the world—is back in vogue.

“Since international borders reopened, we’ve seen demand coming back in a big way,” says Christine Drpich, manager of e-commerce at the Star Alliance airline network founded by United and Lufthansa.

In the past six months, she says, the group has noticed a “significant surge” in searches for the round-the-world itineraries it offers on its site. Oneworld, another aviation fraternity anchored by American and British Airways, recently launched an AI-driven planning tool that helps guide fliers through all the possible routings for circling the globe, with suggested itineraries like a Jules Verne-inspired circumnavigation that can be done in far less time than the 80 days of his novel.

There is a long history of adventurers and daredevil pilots making the trip, but it became far more attainable when Pan Am launched its first scheduled round-the-world flights from the U.S. after World War II, says David Mink, a businessman who is president of the 120-year-old Circumnavigators Club based in New York (past members include Harry Houdini, John Philip Sousa, Arthur Ashe and Sally Ride).

Pan Am’s daily Flights One and Two, departing from San Francisco (later Los Angeles) and New York, helped to bring a lot more people into the club, he says.

What counts as a true round-the-world trip? To join his club, Mink says you need to travel in one direction only (no backtracking allowed), cross every meridian and return to the same place you departed from. (Some purists say you must also cross the equator and cover more distance than the circumference of the earth, or more than 24,901 miles.) That aside, any mode of travel counts, from small sailboats to hot-air balloons. “We have members who have done it in very strange ways,” says Mink. “One man traveled the entire world under the sea in a submarine.”

For those seeking a tamer version of these exploits, here are three—fairly easy—ways to travel around the world.

1. The fast way: one ticket that covers everything

Pan Am may be gone, but the latter-day version of its globe-circling flights are the “RTW” air tickets offered by the alliance airlines that let you customize a trip selecting from dozens of carriers and destinations.

Star Alliance and Oneworld can handle the entire itinerary with a single ticket; each has a global network of airline partners to fill out their route maps. They can tailor trips by distance, number of stops and class of service. This gives you the option to mix ultra-long-haul flights (those in the air for more than 16 hours) with shorter hops. And the price is generally less than if you simply booked a series of one-way tickets. You can do the trip in as little as 10 days, or take up to a full year.

The cheapest tickets through Star Alliance start at around $5,000 for a journey in coach, or $11,000 in business class, with three to five stops covering 26,000 miles. The price goes up with the number of flights and continents visited, up to 15 destinations and 39,000 miles. More than half of the RTW tickets sold by the Star group are in business or first class. It can be tough to redeem frequent-flier miles for these tickets, although member carrier ANA does offer an around-the-globe award ticket that’s popular with some high-mile fliers.

You can also cobble together a string of one-way flights, but that is more expensive than the single-ticket method—unless you follow the example of one Noel Philips, a British travel reporter with a large YouTube following, who recently flew around the world in 80 hours exclusively on low-cost airlines. He stopped in five countries on four continents, and his total airfare was under $3,000.

2. The posh way: chartered jets and luxury digs

For a price tag in the six figures, you can fly around the planet in comfort on a chartered aircraft, enjoying catered meals, flowing Champagne and swanky digs on the ground. With an all first-class layout, the jets used for these jaunts typically have a capacity of around 50 passengers, and demand is such that flights tend to sell out fairly quickly, according to Pamela Lassers, media-relations director at Abercrombie & Kent, the high-end tour operator known for its African safaris. The company is offering three RTW trips in 2024 of 25 or 26 days, via a Boeing 757, and just added a new wildlife-focused trip which stops in Hawaii, Fiji, Tasmania, Bali, Sri Lanka, Zambia and Brazil.

And there are other advantages to the private route, according to Diana Hechler, president of D. Tours Travel in Larchmont, N.Y. “You can get to some out-of-the-way places, like Easter Island,” she says, and “you avoid the delays and airport hassles we associate with flying today.”

TCS World Travel, another luxury private-jet specialist, is adding departures for its round-the-world tours—with 10 trips scheduled from October this year to December 2025. One culture and history itinerary includes Easter Island and East Africa and requisite wonders of the world from Egypt to India—via a 52-seat Airbus A321—all in under four weeks.

The cost: from $168,000 per person for A&K’s 26-day Wildlife & Nature Around the World trip, $130,000 for TCS’s 25-day tour.

3. The slow way: cruising the high seas

The reopening of the world has revived interest in circling the globe by the oldest form of intercontinental travel—ship.

Cruise lines were virtually shut down during much of the pandemic, but now business is booming, and at least a dozen lines offer a round-the-world voyage, which usually takes at least three to four months. Several lines are reporting that 2024 sailings are already sold out.

The cost: Prices range from around $20,000 to more than $100,000 per person. One example is a 128-day voyage aboard Holland America Line’s MS Zuiderdam departing Fort Lauderdale Jan. 3. The price—including all meals—starts at $23,600 per person, based on double occupancy.

At the higher end is Regent Seven Seas Cruises’ 132-night trip aboard the Seven Seas Mariner, round trip from Miami, with calls at ports in Costa Rica, Australia, Indonesia, India and Israel. Rates start at $91,000 all-inclusive, and there is already a wait list for some cabin categories on the first 2024 voyage departing Jan. 6.

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Stay With Us, Please? My Quest to Design a Better Guest Room Than the In-Laws

I SUSPECT that most people’s so-called guest bedrooms are, like mine, giant closets. Once upon a time they were my daughters’ bedrooms. But after my kids grew up, their childhood rooms were almost immediately pressed into service as warehouse space.

My husband’s guitar amps? Store them in a spare room. Amazon packages to be returned? Guest room. These rooms also collect castoffs I’m not emotionally ready to part with, including 10-foot drapery panels with a songbird pattern I made with a sewing machine my husband magnanimously gave me on our 10th anniversary. I think I used the machine once, and if I ever need it, it’s in a corner of the guest room.

This situation is counterproductive for someone like me, hoping to lure home “guests” like my three adult children and their husbands and partners. So I recently resolved to fix the guest-room issue—and immediately realised this was a job for a professional.

“My problem is that now that my children are paired-off they have other options—in-laws with better guest rooms—who they could visit instead,” I said to Grey Joyner, an interior designer in Wilson, N.C. These rival accommodations include an enviable guest suite (I’ve slept there comfortably myself), with extremely high-thread-count sheets, a private bathroom and terrace access to a landscaped garden with an in-ground swimming pool. “Of course, I’m not trying to compete head-to-head against the in-laws,” I hedged.

“Of course you are competing with the in-laws—as you should!” Joyner said. “If you were my client, this is when I would tell you: Every room needs to tell a story.”

“‘High-end hotel’ is a nice story for a room,” I said. “Should I toss everything and start from scratch?”

“No!” Joyner said. “This is not a hotel, it’s your home, and it has to feel personal. I would create a story around things you collect or already have.”

I considered what our story might be. “A thriller about a hoarder with a songbird-drapes fetish?” I asked.

She ignored this.

Obviously, accessories designed to lure each of my daughters would be nice to have, including a luggage rack for the “heavy packer” in the family (Joyner likes the $225 foldable, faux-bamboo versions from One of a Find in Charleston, S.C.); wall-mounted reading sconces for my “low-brow-murder-mystery addict” middle child (my go-to is the bendable-arm gooseneck wall sconces from Etsy sellerDLIGHT); and perhaps a Sonos speaker for the family’s “promising-new-artists scout.”

“Maybe it’s the Southerner in me, but I have a ton of silver pieces,” Joyner said. “I might put a tray on a dresser for jewellery, and one in the bathroom as a soap dish. Guests say, ‘I love that dish,’ and I say, ‘That was my grandmother’s.’ Now it has a story.”

A plan took shape: First, I spent a few days painting a Louis-XVI-style caned bed with three coats of a rich, deep brown colour—Farrow & Ball’s Mahogany—so it would have a strong visual presence to anchor the room. Second, I painted the walls, to cover the pale Benjamin Moore Ballet White with Farrow & Ball Smoked Trout, a hue whose name got a rise out of my husband. “Wow, $150 a gallon for paint?” he said. “Is it made with real trout?”

The colour created a woodsy-tan backdrop against which a castoff pair of cloudy-mirror-top night tables suddenly looked glamorous.

What next? Window coverings, perhaps in a joyous songbird pattern? Or maybe not.

“You need blackout shades or drapes because you want your guests to get a good night’s sleep,” said Kelly Simpson, senior director of design and innovation at Budget Blinds, an Irvine, Calif., company with 900 franchises nationwide. “For your situation, personally I’d do a layered look, blackout shade with drapery panels on the sides. Adding draperies softens a room.”

Stephanie Moffitt, design director of the Mokum collection at James Dunlop Textiles in Australia, concurred, suggesting patterned fabrics on shades and drapes. “You can take more risk with bolder palettes” than in a main bedroom where you have to sleep (and look at the curtains) every night for years, she said.

Luring adult children to come home could get expensive. Does it need to?

I turned to psychologist Joshua Coleman’s “Rules of Estrangement: Why Adult Children Cut Ties and How to Heal the Conflict” (Harmony, 2021) for answers. But after skimming the free-on-Amazon excerpt of the book, I still had questions—so I phoned the author.

“I’m actually trying to prevent estrangement with adult children before it happens,” I told him. “The first pages of your book point out that they—and by extension, their spouses—aren’t obligated to spend more time than they want with their parents,” I said. “Can I convey that I respect that through how I decorate a guest room?”

“Probably not—and keep in mind there’s a risk that they don’t want you to update their rooms and will feel displaced by it,” Coleman said.

“But their spouses don’t want to look at their old prom photos,” I said.

“You said you have daughters?” he asked.

Three, I confirmed.

“Daughters tend to be more powerful arbiters of time spent with parents than sons, so I would be more conscious of displeasing them. Husbands will fall in line.”

Really? It was the reactions of the spouses and partners I’d been fearing—all three of my daughters had given a thumbs-up to more-comfortable décor and had in fact unanimously suggested a mattress upgrade (the old one dated to 1985).

“So no expensive furnishings are necessary?” I asked.

He could hear my disappointment. “Look, if you want to justify it to your husband, you can say you talked to a national expert and he said you absolutely need to buy nice furniture,” he said.

That faux bamboo luggage rack will soon be mine.

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Elegance Meets Comfort In This Luxurious Concord West Duplex

Nestled in the serene suburb of Concord West, New South Wales, a remarkable property stands as a testament to modern architectural finesse and uncompromising luxury. Designed for entertaining, this presents a rare opportunity for those seeking comfort and understated luxury.

This contemporary duplex features a thoughtfully designed layout, comprising five spacious bedrooms. The master bedroom boasts expansive windows that invite natural light to dance on its surfaces, creating a tranquil ambience. Accompanied by an en suite bathroom adorned with sleek marble countertops and state-of-the-art fixtures, the master suite is a haven of relaxation.

The additional bedrooms maintain the theme of space and comfort, each generously sized and featuring ample closet space. Large windows continue to be a consistent design element, ensuring a connection with the outdoors and infusing each room with vitality.

An open-plan living and dining area showcases impeccable design, with sleek lines and premium finishes throughout. The gourmet kitchen, adorned with top-of-the-line appliances and a spacious island, serves as both a culinary haven and a social hub.

For those who appreciate outdoor relaxation, the property offers an expansive backyard that can be transformed into an oasis of greenery and relaxation. Whether hosting soirées or enjoying quiet moments, the outdoor area presents endless possibilities.

From the moment one steps foot in this Concord West duplex, it’s evident that every detail has been meticulously crafted to create an atmosphere of modern luxury. High ceilings, clean lines, and a neutral colour palette contribute to a sense of spaciousness and elegance.

In conclusion, this Concord West duplex encapsulates the essence of contemporary luxury living. With generously appointed bedrooms that exude serenity and modern facilities that cater to elevated living, this property presents an unparalleled opportunity for those with a refined taste. Whether you’re looking to indulge in refined comfort or host gatherings in style, this duplex offers an experience that redefines the concept of home.

Address: 2 Concord Avenue, Concord West, NSW

Inspection: August 26th 2023 at 11.15am

Agent: Dib Chidiac 0415 657 331 and Sofia Minervini 0435 886 638 of DibChidiac

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For British Homeowners, No Newts Is Good Newts

EASTCOURT, England—The bane of Britain’s great and powerful is a couple of inches long, has warty skin and a bright orange underbelly—and the power to disrupt some of their most heartfelt ambitions.

Singer Ed Sheeran, King Charles and former Prime Minister Boris Johnson are among the many homeowners in Britain who have, at one time or another, been warned they might have to alter their building plans to accommodate the great crested newt.

Britain is a country where the public proudly regard themselves as animal lovers. There are no wolves, lynxes or bears left in the wild here. But it turns out parts of the island nation have one of the greatest concentrations of great crested newts in Europe.

The tiny amphibian has a protected status here because its population is shrinking. Purposely killing a crested newt or destroying its habitat can result in a six-month jail sentence and unlimited fine. So before anything is built, Britons must be sure the area is newt-free and no newt home is harmed, a process that can take months and cost thousands of pounds.

Johnson once railed against “newt counting” as a symbol of excessive red tape hampering Britain’s notoriously slow housing developers. But when his plan to build a swimming pool at his Oxfordshire manor was recently delayed because it might disturb newts that might be in his nearby moat, Johnson offered to roll out the red carpet. He pledged to build a special pond, or, as he called it, “a newtopia,” to house them. He declined to comment further.

If a newt is found in a pond near a construction site, mitigation measures must be taken before the first brick is laid. That can range from building a special “newt fence” to protect it from wandering into harm’s way to hand collecting newts to move them to an artificial wetland, a la Johnson’s planned pond.

The regulations have spawned numerous newt consultants, who charge a fee that starts at around £200 ($253) to make sure homeowners don’t run afoul of the law. Teams of trained sniffer dogs can be employed to comb ponds near construction sites to give the all-clear. There are specially constructed “newt tunnels” dug under several major British roads—often costing millions of pounds—that allow the animals to crawl around freely. They have to be over 6 feet wide; otherwise they get too chilly and the newts refuse to use them.

On a recent day, Freya, a lively 8-year-old springer spaniel, charged around a field here in southwestern England, lying prone whenever she sniffed a crested newt. Her handler, Nikki Glover, is an ecologist who works for Wessex Water, a utility that wants to install water pipes in the area in September. It needs a newt count before it embarks on plans to move them to a suitable habitat.

Soon after starting to sniff around, Freya tugs at her leash and dives into a thick bush of brambles. “There’s interest there,” Glover says, before yanking on a blue plastic glove, crouching into the undergrowth, and reaching into a small muddy crevice. Her hand emerges cradling a newt.

The British government champions kits that detect DNA in pond water that it says can cut the red tape and find crested newts when they congregate during their breeding season. Annoyingly it means the tests must be completed between March and July as that is the only time the newts get it on, an elaborate ceremony which can include the small male newt tail-whipping his larger partner. “There are seasonal constraints,” says John Wenman, who runs an ecological consulting firm in Berkshire.

The little amphibian plays an outsize role in British culture. “Eye of newt” is a key ingredient in the witches brew in Shakespeare’s Macbeth (although even those witches wouldn’t actually hurt a newt—the expression is a pseudonym for mustard seed). When British people get very drunk they say they are “pissed as a newt” (origins unclear but perhaps linked to young sailors who were called “newts”). Former London mayor Ken Livingstone made political hay by owning pet newts.

Recently, newts have suffered a public-relations setback, becoming a symbol for unnecessary bureaucracy in a country where getting permission to build anything is lengthy and expensive. Britain faces an acute housing shortage, and homes remain unaffordable for many families. “For many years now, the great crested newt has had to live with a bad name,” Natural England, a government agency tasked with protecting the environment, warned on a blog a few years back.

In 2018, a council in Nottingham tendered for a contract worth up to £40,000 to relocate some 40 newts from a construction zone. When developing the stadium for the 2012 London Olympics, newts on the site in east London were hand collected in special plastic bottles and moved elsewhere. In 2017 the U.K. government reported that a house builder once paid an average of £2,261.55, or more than $2,800, per relocated newt. “No newts is good newts,” said one headline in Building Magazine.

Actress Cate Blanchett had to acquire a special license after newt consultants concluded there was “average to excellent habitat suitability” for crested newts in nearby water. She is trying to install several solar panels at her house in Sussex. King Charles was warned about disturbing newts by a British amphibian lobby group when he recently proposed to build a gift shop at his residence at Highgrove. Crested newts briefly threatened a plan by Ed Sheeran to build a chapel on his property until he built an amphibian-proof fence to protect them.

Many newt consultants rely on low-tech methods such as “torching,” or shining flashlights at ponds during the night to count crested newts. Glover, the ecologist, swears by dogs.

To teach Freya to find newts, Glover turned to Louise Wilson, a veteran dog trainer in north Wales who cut her teeth using canines to search for improvised explosive devices and drugs.

When a sewage pipe cracked near Bristol recently, before Wessex Water could stop the effluent from flowing out it had to first make sure no crested newts would be harmed by the diggers turning up to do the repair. Glover and Freya appeared and within days had evacuated 86 newts. She estimates more traditional methods would have required a month of newt hunting.

“There is no other tool that would show you there is a newt in the burrow,” she says.

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Unearthed: The regional areas ripe for investment

New analysis has revealed some of Australia’s most promising non-capital city property investment markets, where would-be buyers can find relatively affordable opportunities.

Real estate analytics firm Suburbtrends looked at secondary cities within 200km of a capital and applied more than a dozen key metrics to unearth suburbs that deliver a minimum 4.5 per cent yield.

Kent Lardner, Suburbtrends’ chief analyst, said the research took into account rental affordability, location, socio-economic ranking, price growth, inventory levels and vacancy rates.

That criteria narrowed the search to four regions – Bunbury and Mandurah in Western Australia, and the Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast in Queensland.

“Bunbury boasts the highest count of suburbs making the cut at 12, as well as the most listings available, most house options and the best median yield at 6.2 per cent,” Mr Lardner said.

“This combination of factors portrays Bunbury as an attractive market for both investors and

potential homebuyers.”

Among the suburbs identified was Binningup, which provides a strong market for house investments – with seven currently on the market at a median price of $499,000 and a rental median of $550 per week, yielding a very healthy 7.94 per cent.

College Grove was also a strong pick, with four houses currently on the market at a median price of $492,000 and a rental median of $510 per week, yielding 5.89 per cent.

“Bunbury stood out in our analysis, not just for its gateway status to the southwest region but for the balance it offers between liveability and investment appeal,” Mr Lardner said.

“Its unique characteristics align well with our criteria, making it a significant highlight in our shortlist.”

Meanwhile, the analysis produced 11 suburbs on the Gold Coast that fit the bill – a region that “excels in rental market dynamics”.

The Gold Coast ‘excels in rental market dynamics’

Among them was Bundall, a popular spot for investors. There are currently 12 units available at a median price of $557,000, yielding 5.76 per cent.

A few hours up the road, the Sunshine Coast was another strong performer in the analysis with a host of qualities that indicate a “mature and stable property market”.

Among the picks was the suburb of Wurtulla, which stood out for its unit prospects with four apartments on the market at a median price of $645,000, yielding 4.71 per cent.

Mr Lardner said Buderim was also on the list, with 27 units for sale at a median price of $585,000, yielding 4.85 per cent.

Finally, Mandurah produced four suburbs that fit the research scope, including Halls Head, where there are 64 houses on the market with a median price of $565,600, yielding 4.84 per cent.

The suburb also made the list for units, with eight up for grabs at the moment with a median price of $400,000 and a rental median of $500 per week, yielding 6.91 per cent.”

Mr Lardner said the research offers “a multifaceted perspective” on the current state of the property market in key non-capital locations.

“It’s a snapshot that reveals trends, opportunities, and challenges, providing practical guidance for both investors and homebuyers.”

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The Disconnect Between Remote Workers and Their Companies Is Getting Bigger

People who work from home are feeling more disconnected from the larger mission of their employers.

In a new Gallup survey, the share of remote workers who said they felt a connection to the purpose of their organisations fell to 28% from 32% in 2022—the lowest level since before the pandemic. The findings are from a survey this spring and summer of nearly 9,000 U.S. workers whose jobs can be done remotely.

By contrast, a third of full-time office workers reported a similar sense of connection, nearly the same as last year. Hybrid workers clocked in highest, with 35% saying their companies’ mission made them feel their jobs were important.

The findings have broader implications for businesses worried about remote work’s effects on employee loyalty and team productivity. For now, many workers say remote work affords them the ability to focus on their essential duties and avoid some of the extracurriculars of office life. This leaves it to companies to try to foster that sense of connection.

In short, more remote workers appear to be approaching their jobs with “a gig-worker mentality,” fulfilling the basic responsibilities of the role rather than anticipating the broader needs of their team or company, said Jim Harter, chief workplace scientist at Gallup, which has tracked worker engagement since 2000. Most professional roles, he points out, tacitly include expectations that go beyond the actual work, such as mentoring others or spurring innovation.

“That’s much more likely to happen if they feel they’re part of something significant,” he said.

Despite the lack of connection, the Gallup survey showed 38% of people who work remotely full- or part-time are engaged, or enthused about their work, compared with 34% of in-office workers.

The conflicting metrics show bosses don’t have any easy answers as they try to provide flexible working arrangements yet fret about worker productivity. Nearly 30% of U.S. workers in remote-capable jobs work exclusively at home, according to Gallup, a share that hasn’t wavered much in the past year. One reason they score higher in Gallup’s engagement metrics than their office peers is that they say they have a clear idea of what’s expected of them.

Many managers are unsatisfied with the current setup. In a Federal Reserve Bank of New York survey of business leaders released this month, the majority said remote work helped in recruiting employees yet worsened workplace culture, team cohesion and mentorship.

“People are a little bit more prone to drift to other employment, feeling less attached to the workplace,” said Howard Liu, chair of the psychiatry department at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, where clinicians can work several days each week from home and see patients virtually.

There’s also a risk that senior faculty may not think to include junior colleagues on presentations or projects if they don’t run into them in person, Liu said. His department now plans large outdoor events each quarter and recently rolled out smaller-group meals, where about 10 colleagues—from clinicians to receptionists—sign up to eat together. The department foots the bill.

Companies are fine-tuning how they manage their remote workforces, adding more virtual check-ins and team-building activities. Some are also bringing them together physically at more critical moments in their work with their teams.

Mr. Cooper, a Dallas-based mortgage lender and servicer, introduced a “home-centric” work model last year, letting staff still mostly work at home while having them come into the office occasionally. But as mortgage rates climbed and business got tougher, the lender’s sales managers asked their teams to come in one to three days a week, said Kelly Ann Doherty, its chief administrative officer.

The managers felt on-site work would help team members learn more from each other, improve individual performance and feel more invested in the organization, she said. It’s paid off: Productivity has improved, and the teams have closed more deals since, she said.

At Microsoft, just over a quarter of teams work together in the same location, compared with 61% of them pre pandemic. The company is now using data from internal research on in-person work and employee surveys to guide managers on when it’s most effective to work face-to-face.

One early finding is that new hires who meet their manager in person in the first 90 days are more likely to ask colleagues for feedback and say they are comfortable discussing problems with managers. These workers are also more likely to say that their teammates ask them for input to inform decisions or solve problems, Microsoft said.

“Think about social connection as a battery—you need to charge that battery every once in a while,” said Dawn Klinghoffer, vice president for human-resources business insights.

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Luxury Apartment Buildings Tempt Renters With Over-the-Top Pet Amenities. ‘Dog People Really Are Dog People.’

The beauty pageant was in full swing outside an apartment complex in an Atlanta suburb. Decked out contestants pranced up and down a red carpet, while dozens of residents cheered and snapped photos.

The winner, who wore a custom-tailored red gown made by one of the tenants, went by the name Choupette. The gown didn’t quite cover her tail.

It’s unlikely Choupette understood everything that happened that night, even though her prizes included a stuffed catfish toy and a container of dehydrated chicken livers. Chris Melerski, the building resident who owns the Greater Swiss Mountain dog that won the crown—a gold foam board cutout, trimmed with faux white fur—was very appreciative.

“Dog people really are dog people,” he said. “When they offer things like this where you live, it means a lot.”

For years, pet needs tended to be an afterthought for the firms that managed luxury apartment towers. Landlords believed that showering tenants with deluxe amenities such as fitness centres, swimming pools, basketball courts and outdoor grilling stations was the way to fill up a building and command high rents.

Covid-19 altered that calculus after an explosion in pandemic pets. Millions of Americans adopted dogs as companions for long stretches stuck at home.

Pet mania has unleashed fierce competition among property owners to lure new tenants by offering the most generous—and sometimes over-the-top—dog perks, from dog schools to pet happy hours and giant rooftop dog parks. About 36% of U.S. apartment residents had a pet in 2022, according to a survey by the National Multifamily Housing Council.

“From the moment you start thinking about your business plan and start thinking about the design, you’re thinking about pet owners,” said Raul Tamez, a senior director for Greystar Real Estate Partners, the largest U.S. apartment manager, which operates more than 2,800 rental properties.

Greystar’s San Diego luxury high rise features a “bark bar” in the lobby with treats, bowls of water and a list of every five-star dog walker who works nearby.

Landlords say renters are prioritising the needs of their pooches over other factors long considered the most crucial when choosing a place to live. A survey of 1,170 apartment renters this year by developer Cortland found that dog owners rank a building’s pet policies, such as size restrictions and fees, as more important than even the cost of rent or a property’s location, according to the Atlanta-based firm that manages more than 250 apartment properties.

When Mike and Kelli Callanan looked for a new place to live in New York City, their pet’s needs were top of the list. The Manhattan building they found features a pet-bathing and grooming area, and doormen with a weakness for doling out dog treats.

“Darby was the main reason that we moved,” said Kelli Callanan, referring to their mini bernedoodle.

New York developer Related hired a designer to build a 5,600-square-foot rooftop dog park atop a San Francisco apartment building. The park is matted out in artificial turf and includes a replica fire hydrant to encourage bathroom breaks. Staff take care of cleaning.

In New York and other cities, Related also created Dog City, a daycare with activities including art, gardening and baking, aimed to accommodate dogs that live in its buildings.

For one project, staff dipped dogs’ paws in pet-safe paint and guided them where to stomp around the canvas to form the shape of a tree—one of many activities likely more entertaining for the owners than the dogs. Employees dressed pups up as artists to take photos of each with their paintings. Charcoal and Ashes, Annette Krayn’s two Chihuahuas, gave the art to their “Grandma.”

All dogs undergo temperament exams to ensure they can get along with daycare classmates. New dogs meet with each existing member individually, under the supervision of staff on the lookout for troublemakers.

“It’s harder than getting into a kindergarten at this point,” said Krayn. Charcoal initially failed the test—Krayn said he was dealing with anxiety after a kidnapping incident—so she enlisted a handler to help him pass the exam.

Cortland hosts “Yappy Hours.” The outdoor mixers offer peanut butter and pretzel swirl flavoured Ben & Jerry’s Doggie Desserts and “pup cup” ice cream for the dogs, and pizza, tacos and loaded fries from food trucks for the humans. At some buildings, staff set up sprinklers, mini inflatable pools and splash pads in the dog park.

In New York, the Callanans’ dog, Darby, slipped away from the person who was walking her on Randall’s Island while the family was away in Massachusetts. Darby found her way across the river and back to her building in Manhattan, sopping wet. The doormen recognised her right away, and helped get her to a vet’s emergency room, where she spent two days recovering.

Dog City, the doggy daycare, sent Darby a get-well-soon gift basket that included blankets, toys, a Yeti water bowl, dog treats and a $100 Dog City gift card, with a note that read: “She is a miracle and a celebrity in our eyes with her amazing yet terrifying adventure.”

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Hong Kong Megamansion Hits the Market for HK$2.2 Billion, the City’s Priciest Listing

A Hong Kong megamansion with views of Repulse Bay has hit the market for a whopping HK$2.2 billion (about US$281.1 million), making it the city’s priciest listing.

The residence is also among the most expensive homes on the market in the world, pricier than the $250 million penthouse at Central Park Tower in New York City, currently the U.S.’s most expensive publicly listed property. In addition, earlier this year, a new mansion in an exclusive Hong Kong neighbourhood known as The Peak reportedly sold for HK$1.2 billion from a mainland Chinese buyer, Mansion Global reported.

The more than 18,000-square-foot residence was completed in 2019, but protests in the city and the Covid-19 pandemic kept the developer from listing the home. Now that they are ready to sell, however, property prices are cooling, according to Victoria Allan, managing director at Habitat Property, which listed the property last week.

“2022 was a rough year in Hong Kong,” Allan said, noting the city shutdowns. “Now that the city is open again, Hong Kong Chinese and mainland Chinese are actively buying for self use. As prices soften, we expect activity to increase as buyers [secure] property for self use at reduced prices.”

For the seller, that may mean being negotiable to a lower price, she noted. Still, the sheer size of the house, its proximity to the water and its location in the tony Repulse Bay neighborhood is likely to attract buyers who are finally able to return to Hong Kong, Allan said. In addition, high-end real estate is very limited in supply because of the island city’s limited building space, she added.

The residence features oversized black casement windows and marble floors and bathrooms, listing photos show. An imperial staircase leads to the main level that has an open layout, and there’s also an elevator.

With 11 bedrooms and eight bathrooms, the house is “ideal for families,” the listing said. There are several outdoor areas, including a roof deck with water views and a lap pool surrounded by a lounging area.

HABITAT PROPERTY

The underlying property was previously occupied by an apartment building, and was purchased by local property firm First Group Holdings in 2014 for HK$350 million, The Business Times reported, citing government data. Representatives from the developer were not available for comment.

Despite falling home prices, Hong Kong’s strict lending requirements have protected the market from the effects of rising interest rates and property owners from being over leveraged, Allan said. “This has helped keep the market more stable, and rising rates have not had as much of an impact on values as other global markets.”

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Australians living longer and in better health, but it comes at a cost

Australians are set to live longer and be in better health into their later years, but that means future generations will need to shoulder a bigger tax burden to pay for it.

Those are some of the major findings of the government’s much-anticipated Intergenerational Report, to be released on Thursday by Treasurer Jim Chalmers.

The report, the fifth of its kind produced over the past 20 years, makes key social and economic forecasts about the next four decades – and what needs to be done to sustain those changes.

It will show life expectancy is set to rise to 87 years for men and 89.5 years for women by 2062-63.

The proportion of the population aged over 65 is forecast to double, while the number of people over 85 is set to triple, which the report concedes is “an ongoing economic and fiscal challenge”.

The economic consequences of those changes will be significant, with health spending expected to increase sharply, Dr Chalmers said.

Four other main expenditure areas of the Commonwealth budget, being aged care, the National Disability Insurance Scheme, interest on debt, and defence – will leap from one-third of total government spend to one half.

In particular, the so-called ‘care economy’ will almost double from eight per cent of GDP to about 15 per cent in 2062-63.

“Whether it’s health care, aged care, disabilities or early childhood education – we’ll need more well-trained workers to meet the growing demand for quality care over the next 40 years,” Dr Chalmers said.

“The care sector is where the lion’s share of opportunities in our economy will be created.”

Productivity, which has slumped for several tears now, is expected to remain flat and the report has revised down growth “from its 30-year average of around 1.5% to the recent 20-year average of around 1.2%”.

“Placing more weight on recent history better reflects headwinds to productivity growth, such as continued structural change towards service industries, the costs of climate change, and diminishing returns from past reforms,” it reads.

“This downgrade is consistent with forecasts in other advanced economies.”

Australia’s population in 40 years’ time is projected to hit 40 million, although the rate of growth will slow. The economy will rely more greatly on migration to meet skills shortages.

Dr Chalmers said the Intergenerational Report is a warning of the need to ensure the coming changes “work for us and not against us”.

“We’ve shown and demonstrated a willingness and an ability to make difficult decisions to put the budget on a more sustainable footing,” he said.

The report’s findings will spark renewed debate about the need for broad-based tax reform, forecasting a growing reliance on income tax as other revenue – like company tax and the GST – plateaus in the next decade.

One section of the report reads: “Structural changes to the economy are projected to put pressure on the revenue base over the coming decades.”

But rather than raising the GST, Dr Chalmers has flagged tax reform targeting multinationals, the petroleum resource rent tax, high-balance superannuation and cigarettes as possible areas of focus.

Ahead of the report’s release, the Business Council of Australia this week unveiled its national plan to grow productivity and increase competitiveness via a package of reforms.

“If we want sustained wages growth and to maintain full employment, the nation needs a reinvigorated economic growth agenda driven by large-scale investment, higher productivity and greater innovation,’’ the group’s president Tim Reed said.

“Our [plan] outlines how to deliver that agenda – putting forward the big ideas to dramatically alter Australia’s economic trajectory to deliver higher living standards.’’

Among its proposed policies are calls for microeconomic reform, a 10-year net zero roadmap and an overhaul of taxation.

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Pay for New Hires Is Shrivelling

Pay for new hires is starting to shrivel after years of hefty salary bumps, requiring workers to reset what financial gains to expect from switching to a new job.

Wages, especially for people who changed jobs, climbed in recent years as companies competed for workers to fill pandemic-induced labor shortages. Now, as the job market cools and businesses become more cautious in their hiring, many companies are paying new recruits less than they did just months ago—in some cases, much less.

Among postings for more than 20,000 job titles on ZipRecruiter’s site this year, the average pay for a majority of roles has declined from last year. Some of the steepest drops have been in technology, transportation and other sectors that experienced frenzied hiring sprees in 2021 and early 2022.

Chanteal Brayboy, 25 years old, has been seeking user-experience design roles since last summer, ever since finishing a design boot camp. At the time, layoffs had just begun to churn through the tech economy.

She’s since applied for more than 2,000 roles, and only gotten calls for a couple interviews. The posted salaries for the jobs she’s interested in, she says, have fallen around $10,000 from those advertised a year ago.

“The market is completely different now, companies know they can pay less,” says Brayboy, who lives in Kalamazoo, Mich.

A sharp reversal

The declines mark a stark turnaround from 2022, when compensation for three-quarters of advertised job titles rose from the year before, according to ZipRecruiter. In a July survey of about 2,000 employers conducted by the online hiring platform, nearly half said they had reduced pay for recent job openings.

Overall wage growth continues and it surpassed inflation in June for the first time in two years as consumer price increases slowed. Still, wage growth peaked last summer and has since declined to 5.7%, according to Labor Department figures.

Because new hires account for less than 4% of all employed workers each month, says Julia Pollak, chief economist at ZipRecruiter, it can take a while for adjustments in their pay to show up in the federal data. The mass layoffs many large companies have conducted lately, particularly in tech, have helped push salaries for new hires downward, says Pollak.

“Other companies no longer face pressure to match these Meta-sized offers,” she says, referring to Facebook’s parent company.

It isn’t just white-collar roles that are feeling the crimp.

During the pandemic, the Unionville, Tenn., pizza restaurant where Valerie Breshears works as a delivery driver boosted wages to $13 an hour to draw new workers. More recently, Breshears discovered from newly hired staff that the restaurant’s starting pay had been lowered to $11 an hour.

“I felt bad for them,” says Breshears, 38. She didn’t tell them she and other workers who had been hired earlier were making more money.

‘Just not as competitive’

In Denver, where retail company Appliance Factory & Mattress Kingdom is based, the company has recently been hiring administrative workers for around $18 an hour. A year ago, the company was paying $20 an hour, says Chief Executive Chuck Ewing.

“There are more people looking for work now, it’s just not as competitive,” he says.

Data from Gusto, a payroll and benefits software company serving more than 300,000 small and midsize businesses, shows that pay rates for new hires are 5% lower than they were for new recruits for the same roles at this time last year. While professional-service roles have been most affected—pay rates for engineers and developers, for example, have dropped 18% in the past year—workers in other industries have also been hit.

More in-demand workers in certain industries continue to get pay bumps, says Gusto economist Luke Pardue. The company’s data shows pay in tourism and construction, for example, has continued to rise.

During the pandemic, the supply chain for workers was “horrifically broken,” says Laurie Chamberlin, the North America head of LHH Recruitment Solutions. Many workers sat on the job-market sidelines, and companies competed furiously to get them through the door.

“There was kind of an auction mentality,” she says. “People were paying extraordinary amounts without a whole lot of negotiating power or long-term view.”

That’s now over, Chamberlin says: “They’re saying holy cow, I’m paying this person a lot, and they’re not worth what I paid for them.” In addition to laying off workers, she says, businesses have become cautious about what they’re willing to pay for new recruits.

Back when Jennifer O’Halloran, 40, was looking for advertising roles in late 2021, she racked up 21 interviews in a matter of weeks. She quickly secured multiple competing job offers, including one from ad agency Dentsu for a media-buying supervisor role that would have paid $95,000 with a $5,000 signing bonus.

“It was insane, everyone wanted to talk to me,” recalls O’Halloran, who’s based in San Francisco.

She ended up choosing another company that offered her more money, a role she quit last summer. Earlier this year when job-hunting again, she reached back out to Dentsu. She learned that roles comparable to the one she’d previously been offered were now paying between $85,000 and $90,000, and with no signing bonus.

Dentsu declined to comment.

Too good to last

In Tampa, Fla., Meg Reilly, president at placement firm National Mortgage Staffing, says that salaries have dropped for a range of roles as the real-estate industry has slowed. For mortgage closers and underwriters, the drop has been as much as 30%. The fall has been precipitous, though many veteran candidates were primed to expect it.

“They knew it wasn’t a forever thing,” she says, of elevated salaries.

While employers have more leverage now on pay, they should tread carefully, says Marc Goldberg, CEO of Stages Collective, which specializes in recruiting for the ad tech industry.

“I advise my clients not to go down too far, because you’ll have a temporary employee,” he says. To control costs without alienating applicants, he says, companies are doing things like increasing performance incentives while reducing base salaries for certain roles, such as sales.

In Boston, Sherri Carpineto, 46, has been job-hunting since February, when she was laid off from her director role at a medical-device startup. Companies are conducting more drawn-out vetting processes, she says, including asking applicants to complete numerous sample work projects. Sometimes, they request test assignments even before she’s made it to the interview stage.

Carpineto, who has 20 years of experience in strategy and operations and is currently doing independent consulting, says the jobs she’s interested in, which are director-level or above, are paying around 20% less than what she was making at her old position. She’s noticed prospective employers are tending to combine more responsibilities and roles under one title.

“They’re paying less and asking more,” she says.

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Goodbye Bathtub and Living Room. America’s Homes Are Shrinking.

For many Americans, homeownership may be attainable only if they give up a dining room.

Home prices are near record highs, frustrating millions of potential buyers who feel priced out of the housing market. Home builders are having to find ways to make their product more affordable to increase their pool of customers.

Shrinking the size of a new single-family home is an increasingly popular way to do it. Smaller homes can help cost-constrained buyers facing high mortgage rates. They also boost the bottom line for builders who are contending with spiralling labour and construction costs.

Since 2018, the average unit size for new housing starts has decreased 10% nationally to 2,420 square feet, according to Livabl by Zonda, a listing platform for new construction homes. Construction starts for new single-family homes declined in 2022. But starts for homes with fewer than three bedrooms increased 9.5% over the same period, according to a Zillow report.

Home sizes are shrinking the most in some of the hotter markets of previous years. The Seattle area, where the size of newly built homes is 18% smaller than it was five years ago, tops the list. New homes in Charlotte, N.C., and San Antonio shrank by 14%, Livabl by Zonda said.

Most builders and architects follow the same basic playbook to produce tighter, more efficient living spaces. They are axing dining areas, bathtubs and separate living rooms. Secondary bedrooms and loft spaces are shrinking and sometimes disappearing.

At the same time, they are increasing the size of multiuse rooms like kitchens and great rooms. Shared spaces like bunk rooms and jack-and-jill bathrooms, which are located between and shared by two bedrooms, are on the rise. In some cases, the kitchen island has become the only eating area in the home.

Estridge Homes, a semi-custom new-home builder that operates near Indianapolis, recently launched a new neighbourhood concept with detached homes 300 to 500 square feet smaller and $50,000 to $75,000 cheaper than it typically builds.

The builder is slashing some bedrooms and bathrooms and trading some indoor living space for outdoor space. Lots in the neighbourhood are smaller too, but the builder is working with limited acreage by landscaping to create privacy.

Home buyers began moving in earlier this year, and demand has been strong from both entry-level buyers and empty-nesters.

Those two groups “are both big demographics,” said Clint Mitchell, chief executive at Estridge. “They kind of want the same thing.”

In December, Brad and Julie Redman downsized from their more-than 7,000 square-foot custom-built home to a 3,400 square-foot semi-custom model in Westfield, Ind., after their children left home.

Despite the smaller house and yard in a denser neighbourhood, the couple is happy with the decision. They gave up a formal dining area when they moved, but their new eating area easily converts to space for entertaining guests.

“We can use the same space for more than one thing,” Julie Redman said.

Shrinking homes are also beginning to reshape the furniture market. Companies like Bob’s Discount Furniture are creating designs suited to tighter spaces. Demand has increased for items with multiple functions, from kitchen islands with drawers and wine racks to sleeper sofas and smaller, drop-leaf dining tables, said Carol Glaser, executive vice president of merchandising at Bob’s Discount Furniture.

“If they are in smaller homes,” she said of her customers, “they need their furniture to work harder.”

Still, even smaller homes won’t make a big enough dent in the purchase price for most entry-level buyers or provide an answer to the nation’s severe housing shortage. Estridge’s semi-custom homes and townhomes, for example, still range in price between $400,000 and $800,000.

The share of new home projects priced below $400,000 has declined in nearly every major home-building metro since 2018, according to Livabl by Zonda. For entry-level buyers across the nation, the cost of owning a home increased 72% from February 2020 to May 2023, according to an analysis by John Burns Research and Consulting that estimates monthly payments, maintenance and other costs of ownership.

And the smaller floor plans usually mean that buyers are getting less space for their dollar. Lower list prices might make the overall price cheaper, but buyers are still paying more a square foot, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Inflation-adjusted cost a square foot increased about 2.5% on average between 2012 and 2020. In both 2021 and 2022, it increased nearly 4%, according to John Burns Research and Consulting.

Builders have also ramped up activity for other cost-saving methods, like starting home construction off-site and building more attached homes. In Lexington, S.C., buyers are willing to share a wall with a neighbor when it saves thousands and makes homeownership more attainable.

Sonia Mendez, a real-estate agent in the area, said she has seen builders increase construction of 1,500 to 1,700 square-foot townhomes.

“They are being bought just as fast as the single family home,” Mendez said. “The first-time home buyers are excited. They don’t see a small home. They see it as a dream come true.”

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Europe’s Gas-Guzzling Days Are Fading

Last year’s hottest gas market has cooled, and some of the change will stick.

Demand for natural gas in Europe hasn’t bounced back despite lower prices. The region’s TTF benchmark price is down 85% compared with a year ago, when Europe was rushing to fill its gas-storage facilities for winter after Russia cut off supply.

Prices have fallen partly because Europe’s gas storage is already full. It hit a 90% capacity target last week, more than two months ahead of a schedule set last year by the European Union.

But underlying demand is also weak. According to think tank Bruegel’s European natural gas demand tracker, use of gas in the first quarter of this year was 18% lower than the 2019-2021 average, and 19% below in the second quarter. The declines have accelerated from the 12% fall recorded last year.

Weaker economic growth is one reason why gas use hasn’t recovered. Another may be that lower wholesale prices haven’t been passed on to end users yet, according to Ben McWilliams, author of the Bruegel tracker.

Other factors will be more permanent, notably new technologies. The European Heat Pump Association said sales of heat pumps rose 39% in 2022. They are now installed in 16% of Europe’s residential and commercial buildings, often replacing gas boilers. Heat pumps require electricity, which is often produced using gas, but this too is changing. Installations of new solar capacity rose a record 47% in 2022, and last year was the first time that renewable power generated more of Europe’s electricity than natural gas.

One uncertainty for future gas demand is whether European industries such as chemicals and fertiliser manufacturing will return to normal. The International Energy Agency thinks that up to half of the decline in Europe’s industrial gas demand last year was a result of production shutdowns. Certain companies whose business model traditionally relied on cheap Russian gas moved manufacturing to lower-cost regions such as the U.S., where gas costs roughly a quarter of the European spot price.

European gas prices will be volatile until more global liquefied natural gas supply arrives in 2025. The TTF jumped 5% on Monday because of worries about strikes at an Australian LNG terminal. Companies may be reluctant to restart their European factories until the region’s energy costs are more predictable.

Before the Ukraine war, global demand for natural gas was expected to increase 18% between 2021 and 2030, according to estimates from the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies. This forecast has since been cut to 10%. Lower growth expectations reflect the sharp cutbacks in Europe as well as the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act, which will supercharge America’s shift to renewable energy.

None of this is ideal for the U.S. LNG players who are currently pouring billions of dollars into new production. Based on projects that have already secured funding, and those in the pipeline, U.S. LNG export capacity could double by the end of this decade, according to Wood Mackenzie estimates.

True, Europe needs plenty of LNG over the next few years to replace the shortfall left by Russian pipeline gas. But the faster the region weans itself off gas, the sooner exporters will need to find a new home for at least some of their cargoes.

The expectation is that countries still using a lot of coal in power generation, such as India and Pakistan, will eventually switch to natural gas to cut their carbon emissions—assuming prices come down enough to make that transition affordable. “The window of opportunity for natural gas is tightening all around the world, although coal-reliant markets in Asia provide growth prospects over the medium-term,” says Gergely Molnar, energy analyst at IEA.

Buyers and sellers of natural gas took very different lessons from last year’s record prices, and the fuel’s reputation as a cheap, reliable form of energy took a hit. The pace of change in Europe’s gas market raises the risk of a glut.

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America’s Obsession With Weight-Loss Drugs Is Affecting the Economy of Denmark

Ozempic and Wegovy are tilting the scales of Denmark’s economy.

Their Danish manufacturer, Novo Nordisk, has generated billions of dollars of revenue and supercharged the company’s market capitalisation. That has led to lower interest rates in the country, according to a bank report and economists.

The market value of Denmark’s biggest company has risen by more than a third so far this year to about $419 billion, bigger than the country’s gross domestic product of about $406 billion. The measures aren’t synonymous: market capitalisation is the value of all Novo Nordisk shares, while GDP measures goods and services produced in a year. But the comparison demonstrates how Novo Nordisk has surged past companies such as Lego and Carlsberg to sway the economy of its nordic homeland.

Take foreign-exchange management for one example.

Denmark’s currency, the krone, is pegged to the euro. Central bankers in Copenhagen adjust interest rates and make other interventions to keep its value steady with that of the continent’s common currency.

Novo Nordisk’s U.S. sales of Ozempic and Wegovy have been so strong that it has had to convert dollars into kroner in unusually large quantities, raising the krone’s value relative to the euro, said Danske Bank director Jens Naervig Pedersen.

“Because the pharmaceutical industry’s exports have grown so much, it’s creating a big influx of currency into the Danish economy,” he said.

Denmark’s central bankers have responded by keeping interest rates below the European Central Bank’s, weakening the krone, said Pedersen.

Denmark’s central bank declined to comment.

Novo Nordisk’s success with drugs used for weight loss and diabetes is overall a boon to the Danish economy, which will benefit from more jobs created by the company’s growth as it invests domestically, economists said. Lower interest rates also benefit home buyers who can secure mortgage rates somewhat lower than in the rest of Europe, they said.

“It is an embarrassment of riches—this is good for the Danish economy and they’re getting a lot of export revenues,” said Gian Maria Milesi-Ferretti, an economist and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

For small countries, having a domestic company play such a disproportionate role in the economy carries risks. For years, fellow Nordic nation Finland’s economy was dominated by telecom Nokia, which at its peak in 2000 accounted for 4% of the country’s GDP, more than a fifth of exports and some 70% of value on its stock exchange. It played a significant role in Finland’s growth from 1995-2007, when GDP per capita rose 55%, nearly double the increase in the U.S.

Nokia’s decline also coincided with a decade of economic stagnation in Finland after 2008. The collapse of Nokia’s handset market, largely because of competition from the iPhone that Apple introduced in 2007, exacerbated Finland’s economic woes, which under austerity policies and the eurozone crisis saw its per capita income decline over the next decade.

Novo Nordisk is now the second-most valuable public company in Europe after luxury brand LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton.

Analysts estimate Novo Nordisk’s weight-loss drug sales to be $6.1 billion this year and to reach nearly $15 billion annually in 2027, according to data provider FactSet.

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Tech allows ultra-green homes to be built in just two months

An Australian construction giant is poised to build ultra-energy efficient homes in a matter of months after signing a joint venture with a green tech prefabricated wall manufacturer.

AVJennings recently launched a new collection of designer dwellings dubbed Stellar, which feature an innovative walling system from tech company Pro9.

Using the galvanised steel-frame and foam insulated product, the time it takes to construct a home can be cut to a fifth of what it is currently, meaning a dwelling could go up in just two months.

And the finished product can achieve at least an eight-star energy efficiency rating – well above the current minimum of six stars and ahead of the boosted seven-star requirement that comes into effect from 2024.

The pro9-wall-system

AVJennings has signed a joint venture with Pro9 to establish a manufacturing hub in Australia, capable of producing more than 1000 homes a year.

“The fact that Pro9 can be implemented directly into our existing product range to elevate the offering is ground-breaking,” AVJennings chief executive officer Phil Kearns said.

“Since introducing the technology into three homes in our Evergreen community in New South Wales 2021, we can see how much it contributes to a home’s energy efficiency and comfort.”

AVJennings is the first developer to bring the Pro9 technology to market in Australia, Mr Kearns said.

“We recognise the importance of achieving higher quality, better insulated and more durable homes and for us to all reduce our carbon footprint.”

Mr Kearns said the partnership is “just the start” of what the company plans to roll out in the future.

Homebuyers are increasingly demanding green and sustainable features and most are willing to pay a premium for it, according to the most recent Property Seeker Report from realestate.com.au.

The largest survey of its kind, the research probes respondents on hundreds of questions relating to the home-buying journey and has found the vast majority are eager to go green.

The 2022 report found 81 per cent of homebuyers see sustainable features in a property being critical in their decision-making and 87 per cent are willing to pay extra for green features, from solar panels to efficient insultation.

The average premium those buyers are willing to pay is 15%, the report found.

Recent analysis by KPMG found the Green Building Council of Australia’s Green Star Homes not only benefit the environment, but owners are better off financially almost immediately, with savings outpacing initial upfront costs.

The AVJennings Stellar collection

While the modelling shows a Green Star Home will increase typical loan repayments by up to $84 per month, the savings in energy costs are up to $140 per month.

“The results are particularly exciting as they show that the economics now align with the significant amenity uplift of a greener, more efficient and healthier home,” said Mark Spicer, KPMG’s partner of ESG advisory and assurance.