Alternative Investing Report - March 26, 2025

*as of 3/25; Sources: S&P, BTC, FTSE, DJRE, GOLD

The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Home Price Index rose for the 24th consecutive month, showing a 0.3% monthly gain in U.S. housing prices, with a year-over year gain of 4.1%, a slight bump over December’s 4.0%. Of the twenty largest metro areas, New York City has posted the highest year-over-year gain, followed by Chicago and Boston, while Tampa is the only metro area to post a year-over-year loss. The FHFA House Price Index showed a 0.2% monthly and 4.8% yearly gain in January, compared to a 0.5% monthly gain in December and a 6.7% yearly gain last January.

➨ TAKEAWAY: While housing prices continue to show positive growth and hit record highs, the pace of that growth is slowing, as the real estate market has been mostly at a standstill since interest rates rose. While the trends are interesting to observe at a national level, investors should focus on the market-level data, as there are significant differences in performance between the most desirable markets and the least.

📉 Consumer confidence dips: March saw consumer confidence fall by 7.2 points to hit the lowest level since January 2021, and the share of people expecting a recession is at a nine-month high.

⌚ Neil Armstrong’s watch: A gold Omega Speedmaster that was given to the first man on the moon could sell for more than $2 million at auction. Beyond its provenance, it is one of only 26 of the commemorative watches ever made, and the last sale of any of them was in 2022 for just below $2 million.

🏢 Positive net absorption: Office space vacancy rates are finally decreasing in a majority of U.S. markets, with 25% of markets seeing better net absorption rates than in pre-pandemic times.

🚀 Clean energy VC: Investment into clean energy startups fell by 3.1% yearly in 2024, and exit value fell by a staggering 86.8%, though late-stage startup valuations continued to rise.

🏡 Home ownership rates: Younger generations saw their rates of home ownership flatline in 2024, as Gen Z and Millennials continue to fall behind the pace of the Gen X and Boomer generations, highlighting the issue of housing affordability.

👛 Paul McCartney coins: A one of a kind 5-kilogram gold coin honoring the legendary Beatle sold for $600,000 at auction, while four 5-kilogram silver coins sold for $38,400 each.

💵 Insurance investors target private markets: 62% of CIOs and CFOs of insurance companies surveyed plan to increase their private market allocations in 2025, with private credit the most popular asset class.

🏡 Lowest income visa requirements: For those considering retiring abroad, this list of the countries with the lowest incomes required to obtain a visa includes Chile, Portugal, Costa Rica, and more.

The Pi Network is a crypto project that is distinguished by the fact that users can “mine” the native Pi token from their phones by simply tapping a button. It’s not crypto mining in the traditional sense, it’s more of a giveaway for using the app. After accruing millions of members, the project launched its mainnet on February 20, finally allowing users to trade their tokens. In the aftermath, the token’s price reached a high of $2.97 a month ago, but it has plummeted in the past few weeks, as major exchanges such as Binance have not listed it for trading, and it has faced accusations of being a scam. The latter could be true, given that it is unclear what the project is trying to accomplish, but if there is news that any major exchanges will list it, expect a short-term bump in price, followed by another decline.