Tracking Foot Tracks
Real estate company Avison Young has put out what it calls its Vitality Index, which uses smartphone pings to track where foot traffic is heaviest. That helps owners and occupiers make decisions based on where people are congregating.
The report it put out last week should hearten purveyors of entertainment, recreation and tourist facilities. According to Avison Young, more than twice as many Angelenos visited such places during the week of Sept. 19 as opposed to the week before the onset of the pandemic in March 2000. But the report might sadden office landlords. That sector recovered only 38% of its traffic from before the pandemic.
Retail foot traffic fared a bit better than the office sector. Visits to shopping malls were close to 91% of pre-pandemic levels; retail corridors were nearly 80% and big box stores were nearly 63%.
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Suspicious of the resumes you receive? You may have a good reason. According to a report last week from Iprospectcheck.com, an employment background check company, the average California candidate admitted their resumes are only 62% accurate. Separating them by industry, the report said, those seeking jobs in finance had the lowest resume accuracy on average: 34%. By contrast, those in real estate had the highest accuracy at 90%.
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We keep reading about how Californians supposedly want to move, but one study that came out last week said people in the Golden State aren’t house shopping much.
California came in ninth place on a list of states whose residents are doing the least amount of online house shopping. A company named TexasRealEstateSource.com came to that conclusion by examining Google Trends data of search terms frequently used by people interested in moving, such as “buy house” or “sell house.” Those searches were grouped by state.
The report said folks who live in Hawaii are doing the least amount of house shopping. The flip side? Residents of South Carolina are doing the most. There must be something about the Carolinas that’s causing residents to be restless; the No. 2 state for house shopping is North Carolina.
The Insider column is compiled by Editor-in-Chief Charles Crumpley. He can be reached at [email protected].
