Swedes' Housing Optimism Weakens With Lower Consumer Confidence
A housing-price indicator from SEB AB, Sweden's largest lender, fell by 2 points from the previous month to 34 in May, as 47% of respondents believe prices will gain, compared with 13% anticipating a decrease.
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CBS News
22 minutes ago
- CBS News
Law banning renters from paying broker's fee in Massachusetts goes into effect as renters celebrate
Starting Friday, tenants renting apartments in Massachusetts are no longer responsible for paying broker's fees. Under a new law, that responsibility has shifted to the party who hired them. "It just makes everything more affordable," said Addison Fletcher, a Northeastern University student who rents an apartment in Mission Hill. "Northeastern's already unnecessarily expensive as it is, and the housing around here is all inflated because of the proximity to campus," he added. Elizabeth Scholl echoed that sentiment, saying, "I think it's great, but I am kind of disappointed that it happened after we signed our lease for our fall apartment." Although Tory Bullock paid a broker's fee when he moved into his Mission Hill apartment nine years ago, he told WBZ-TV he sees the value in the change. "Boston is extremely expensive—we all know that," he said. "Any help we can get to lighten that load is a great help." According to the average rent in Boston is $3,536 per month. When renting an apartment, tenants typically have to pay first and last month's rent, a security deposit, and a broker's fee. "A broker's fee is the compensation for the work that goes into either finding a tenant an apartment or a landlord a tenant," explained Randall Horn, the broker-owner of Entourage Realty in Boston. After August 1, he said the fee for his services will likely fall on landlords. "Now they have to pay the party they hired, whereas previously it typically always fell on the tenants," Horn said. Douglas Quattrochi, executive director of MassLandlords, says landlords shouldn't be surprised by the new law. Since around 1971, he says, General Law Chapter 186, Section 15B, has stated that landlords can't charge a broker's fee. "It said we can only charge first, last, security, and locks," he said. But with the lack of education and enforcement, "There have been a lot of people operating non-compliantly, and they probably haven't even realized it." According to Quattrochi, the new law should simply be seen as "the cost of doing business." "And while I think it's well intentioned, I'm afraid it could end up being reflected in higher rents so that fee still gets passed on," Horn said.
TechCrunch
4 hours ago
- TechCrunch
Truecaller's call-recording feature won't work on iPhones from September 30
Truecaller is discontinuing its call recording function on iOS — just over two years after the feature was launched — as the Swedish company opts to focus on its core offering: fighting spam calls. On Friday, the company confirmed to TechCrunch that its call recording feature will no longer be available on iPhones starting September 30. Users with saved call recordings can either download them to their devices, share them via email or messaging apps, or switch their storage preference to iCloud to keep the recordings accessible even after the feature is discontinued. Truecaller's head of iOS, Nakul Kabra, told TechCrunch the company took the decision because it wanted to focus on its Live Caller ID and automatic spam blocking features. In June 2023, Truecaller launched call recording on iOS for its paying subscribers, alongside reintroducing the feature on Android. The app also got support for transcribing calls natively. Both call recording and transcription were launched in India last year. While call recording works seamlessly on Android, it is more complicated on iOS, where Apple's operating system does not let third-party apps record calls natively. To work around this, Truecaller uses a recording line that merges calls to record — a method that increases both costs and complexity, per Kabra. These challenges ultimately led to the feature being discontinued. The company has set up a support page to help users if they face any issues during the transition. Truecaller's move comes months after Apple introduced native call recording and transcription support for iPhone users in an iOS 18.1 update last year. The native feature does not require users to connect to a record line to record the call, unlike Truecaller, and also brings Apple Intelligence-powered transcriptions. Techcrunch event Tech and VC heavyweights join the Disrupt 2025 agenda Netflix, ElevenLabs, Wayve, Sequoia Capital — just a few of the heavy hitters joining the Disrupt 2025 agenda. They're here to deliver the insights that fuel startup growth and sharpen your edge. Don't miss the 20th anniversary of TechCrunch Disrupt, and a chance to learn from the top voices in tech — grab your ticket now and save up to $675 before prices rise. Tech and VC heavyweights join the Disrupt 2025 agenda Netflix, ElevenLabs, Wayve, Sequoia Capital — just a few of the heavy hitters joining the Disrupt 2025 agenda. They're here to deliver the insights that fuel startup growth and sharpen your edge. Don't miss the 20th anniversary of TechCrunch Disrupt, and a chance to learn from the top voices in tech — grab your ticket now and save up to $675 before prices rise. San Francisco | REGISTER NOW That said, Truecaller had introduced call recording in the first place to entice iPhone users to upgrade, as the caller ID function is limited on the free tier. Paying users also get real-time caller ID, along with advanced and automatic spam blocking, Siri shortcuts, incognito mode, and other features. Truecaller has around 3 million subscribers worldwide, but iOS accounts for 44% of its total premium revenue, per its second-quarter financial results (PDF).
Yahoo
4 hours ago
- Yahoo
This week in Trumponomics: The Trump slowdown is here
Economists have been warning that President Trump's trade wars will depress growth and hiring. Trump and his defenders say pshaw. But the Trump economy is suddenly looking shaky. Hiring slowed dramatically in July, and downward revisions for the two prior months reveal the weakest job market since the COVID recession in 2020. Employers added just 73,000 jobs in July, with the average for the past three months an anemic 35,000. In 2024, job growth averaged 168,000 new jobs per month. Up till now, Trump has waged his trade war with impunity. His tariffs have raised the average tax on imports from 2.5% to about 18%. That's a hefty tax on some $3 trillion worth of goods, paid by American businesses and consumers. Yet inflation is still below 3%. The stock market flinched in April and May but has since hit a series of new record highs. The second quarter of 2025, however, is now looking like it may have been the last respite before Trump's disruptive policies take their it's not just hiring. Second quarter GDP rose by 3%, which would be solid in normal times. But the numbers are distorted by a surge of imports in the first quarter and a corresponding plunge in the second. Even it out, and GDP growth in the first half of 2025 was a weak 1.2%. That's less than half the growth rate in the first half of 2024, which was a more robust 2.8%. Many companies are beginning to say Trump's tariffs are harming profits, including bellwethers Ford (F), General Motors (GM), and Procter & Gamble (PG). The US manufacturing sector has contracted for five months in a row, and manufacturing employment has dropped for three months straight. Tariff-related inflation might also be materializing. The inflation rate inched up from 2.4% in May to 2.7% in June. There were notable month-to-month price hikes in product categories dominated by tariffs, including clothing, appliances, sporting goods, and toys. Consumers don't normally notice small monthly price hikes, but they notice for sure if price hikes persist and stuff continually gets more expensive. All of these trends are exactly what the many critics of Trump's trade wars have predicted. Tariffs raise costs for any firm or household dependent on imports. Higher costs reduce spending and investment. Trump's episodic tariff announcements also create uncertainty because affected businesses can't predict future costs. That creates an incentive to wait instead of investing, expanding, or hiring. The net effect is lower growth, lower employment, and possibly stagflation. Read More: What is stagflation, and how does it impact you? It's possible that Trump will get the message and wind down his trade wars. But not before more chaos. Just as Trump was inking trade deals with Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, and the European Union, he upped the ante on some five dozen other countries by threatening tariffs on their imports as high as 40%, including a new 35% rate — up from 25% — on some Canadian imports. The US stock market had been hovering near record levels on the hope that the worst of Trump's tariff fulminations were over. But stocks sank anew on Aug. 1 on the latest tariff shock, plus the lousy job numbers. There's yet another tariff deadline, Aug. 7, when the latest barrage of tariffs will go into effect unless those 60-odd countries make trade deals with Trump. Some of them probably will. But the new regime of higher tariffs is here to stay, and whether the average tariff rate is 18% or 20% or 22%, everybody's going to have to deal with Trump's new import taxes. Read more: 5 ways to tariff-proof your finances The consolation prize is that the weakening economy makes the Federal Reserve much more likely to cut interest rates in the fall. Odds of a quarter-point rate cut in September jumped from 38% to 81% after the latest job and tariff news, according to the CME Group's FedWatch tool. Trump, of course, has been hectoring the Fed to cut rates, and the weakening Trump economy now gives it a reason to. Most economists think the economy will slow from 2.8% GDP growth in 2024 to around 1% in 2025 and 2026. That's not a recession, but weak growth will make jobs more scarce, keep a lid on wages, and intensify the economic blahs many people feel. It's probably happening now. Rick Newman is a senior columnist for Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Bluesky and X: @rickjnewman. Click here for political news related to business and money policies that will shape tomorrow's stock prices. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
