Year: 2015

The cost of shipping large items may be more affordable than ever before, thanks to plummeting oil and gas prices across the world, but there's another major factor that is stalling the shipping industry in the U.S.: weather. According to recent reports, the Great Lakes -- which provide affordable water transportation options for countless shipping and travel services -- experienced such freezing temperatures during the winter of 2013-2014, that the U.S. shipping industry was forced into a standstill. Overall, experts note, the industry experienced over $705 million worth of economic losses, as well as 4,000 individual jobs lost, due to the frozen lakes. This season, the Lake Carriers' Association (LCA) is working closely with the U.S. Coast Guard to avoid such trouble during the current...

Senior housing was making headlines in 2014 for all the right reasons. With the retiring Baby Boomer generation flocking en masse to these senior communities, the year saw a market climate that was highly favorable to both buyers and sellers. According to a January 3 Senior Housing News article, interest rates for both assisted and independent senior living communities fell to all-time lows in 2014, which was good news for the owners of these communities. Lower interest rates allowed them to diversify their assets, offering a wider variety of unique living solutions for their residents. On the buyers’ end of the market, rising housing prices gave many seniors a good reason to finally sell their homes and make the transition into a retirement community, according to the Wall Street Journa...

If 2014 was the year that the commercial real estate market woke up from a long period of dormancy, then 2015 will be the year it rubbed its eyes, had its morning cup of coffee and started the day off with a buzz. That's at least how experts described the outlook for 2015 at a recent commercial brokerage forecasting event, according to a January 6 Las Vegas Review-Journal article. Across all sectors, from retail to industrial, commercial real estate will continue to make gains on the advances it made in 2014. This is especially true in the investment sector, which will see steady gains in land prices and rising confidence among property buyers. According to UrbanLand, a continued increase in the amount of investment capital entering the commercial real estate market can be expected throu...

The Affordable Care Act has long been a divisive topic among politicians, with many feeling that the reform attempt best exemplifies a system of government that has become extremely partisan over the years. However, one element of the ACA's legislation has ironically become one of the few issues to unite both Democrats and Republicans: a medical device tax, enacted in January 2013, has drawn the ire of politicians and lobbyists on either side of aisle for over two years. Somehow, the controversy over the bill, which places a 2.3% levy on everything from IV bags to artificial hip joints, has continued unabated, with a number of proponents and opponents publishing their arguments in the first few days of 2015. This raises an important question: is the medical device tax hurting or helping t...