Black Friday spending beats year-earlier levels
Black Friday kicked off retailers’ crucial holiday shopping season with encouraging results, as preliminary U.S. numbers showed annual gains for both online and in-store sales.
Mastercard’s annual SpendingPulse report found that overall sales for the day after Thanksgiving, excluding auto sales, increased 4.1% from a year earlier. Much of that came from a 10.4% rise in online spending, as in-store sales increased 1.7%, based on cash, credit card and digital payments tracked by the financial services firm.
The apparel category led Mastercard’s tracking with an annual gain of 5.7%, including a 6.1% rise online and a 5.4% increase for in-store sales. Black Friday spending at restaurants increased by 4.5% from the previous year. Holiday shoppers are “navigating an uncertain environment by shopping early, leveraging promotions and investing in wish-list items,” said Michelle Meyer, chief economist at Mastercard Economics Institute, in a weekend report.
Adobe Analytics, which primarily tracks e-commerce, reported Monday that online sales reached a record $11.8 billion on Black Friday, up 9.1% from a year earlier and led by categories such as electronics and video game consoles. The tech firm’s data division projected Saturday and Sunday’s online spending would add another $11.4 billion to the Thanksgiving weekend tally, with Cyber Monday contributing $14.2 billion.
Property taxes increase in 2024
Last year’s property tax amount increased by about 4% from 2023, according to an analysis of Census data by the National Association of Home Builders.
The average annual residential property tax bill for the 87 million owner-occupied homes across the country last year was $4,271, the analysis found.
“No state had an average residential property tax bill under $1,000 last year for the first time ever,” NAHB said in a report.
New Jersey homeowners paid the highest real estate taxes, which were around $9,767 per home. That’s $2,194 more than the next closest state, New York, which was $7,573, according to NAHB data.
The lowest real estate tax amount was in West Virginia at $1,044.
"While average annual real estate taxes paid is important, it provides an incomplete picture," the NAHB report said. "Property values vary across states, which explains some, if not most, of the variation across the nation in average annual real estate taxes."
Another way to measure the tax burden is by dividing the total paid in taxes by the total value of owner-occupied real estate, the association said. Under that measure, Illinois had the highest effective property tax rate at $17.93 per $1,000 of home value. Hawaii had the lowest effective property tax rate at $3.08 per $1,000 of home value.
Tear-downs make up about 7% of new homes
About 6.9% of new single-family detached homes last year replaced structures that had been torn down in older neighborhoods, according to a new survey by a market research firm focused on residential construction.
The Builder Practices survey by Home Innovation Research Labs also shows that another 20.1% of new homes were built on so-called infill lots in older neighborhoods.
The survey found a wide variation in where teardowns occur. Approximately 15% of new homes in New England involved replacing an older one, 13.2% in the Pacific, and 10.1% in the East South Central region. In the South Atlantic, the teardown share was 4.8%, according to the data.
Across the country, new homes built on empty lots in older neighborhoods were nearly three times as common as teardowns. Data shows that infill development accounted for 38% of single-family homes in New England, 32.4% in the mid-Atlantic, 9.7% in the West South Central and 9.3% in the Mountain divisions.