Alternative Investing Report - August 20, 2025

*as of 8/19; Sources: S&P, BTC, FTSE, DJRE, CL50

Housing starts were up significantly nationwide in July, with single family housing starts rising 2.8% monthly and 7.8% year-over-year, and multifamily housing starts up by 11.6% monthly and 27.4% year-over-year. The gain in single-family starts came entirely from the South, which saw starts jump 13% monthly and 22% year-over-year, and they they actually fell everywhere else in the country. However, total construction permits fell to their lowest level in five years, and the number of buildings under construction have declined so far in 2025.

➨ TAKEAWAY: Different parts of the construction pipeline are showing different trajectories, with the decline in permitting offsetting the increase in projects getting started. Homebuilders remain pessimistic overall, with the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index showing builder confidence remaining in negative territory for the 16th straight month.

Vincent co-founder Slava Rubin and Sacra's Jan-Erik Asplund discussed the design startup Figma's recent IPO, its competitive landscape, financial metrics, core products, growth potential and price risks. A must-watch for anyone interested in the business and how AI is transforming the software landscape.

Q2 saw net absorption rates fall again in the office sector, as more tenants vacated space than leased it. Net absorption has also turned negative in the retail sector, which saw rent growth fall to 2% year-over-year. Industrial properties also saw their vacancy rate rise and rent growth slow due largely to the increased rate of new supply coming to the market. The bright spot in the commercial market was multifamily, which saw net absorption rise by 20% year-over-year.

➨ TAKEAWAY: The entire real estate market has been waiting for the Fed to cut rates so borrowers can more easily refinance and buyers can pay higher prices due to lower monthly payments. Mortgage rates have started to fall, anticipating the Fed cutting rates in September and October, so expect the commercial market to show modest gains in the Q3 numbers.

🪙 Crypto slump: Investors shed riskier assets yesterday, with tech stocks, crypto stocks, and crypto itself seeing price declines. Bitcoin dropped more than 2%, Ethereum fell 5% and the crypto market as a whole is now down more than 9% in the past five days.

🚀 Figure files for IPO: The blockchain-based lending startup filed to go public as FIGR on Nasdaq, aiming to become the latest blockchain business to test investors’ appetite for the sector.

⚾ Type 1 photo market: A Mickey Mantle Type 1 photo that was used for his 1951 Bowman rookie card is being auctioned this weekend at Heritage with a $500,000 estimated value. A Type 1 photo is one that was developed from the original negative within two years of its production, and their market grew exponentially in the past few years.

🎨 Biggest July sales: With Old Masters the focus of last month’s auction, the biggest result was the $43.8 million sale of Canaletto’s “Venice, the Return of the Bucintoro on Ascension Day”, which was the only sale to top $5 million.

🚀 Top VC firms: Time Magazine released its ranking of the top 101 VC firms in the U.S., topped by Accel, General Catalyst, and Andreessen Horowitz. Not surprisingly, California firms took 8 of the top 10 spots and more than half of the entire list.

🚜 USDA no longer supporting renewables: The Department of Agriculture is cutting its support for solar and wind projects on farmland, which will affect the value of large swaths of land that have been generating ancillary income by producing energy.

In a week when most crypto prices fell, OKB, the native currency of crypto exchange OKX, has more than doubled. OKX is one of the top exchanges in the world based on daily trading volume, and exchange-based coins can be thought of as a “picks and shovels” play for investors, who are betting on the success of the exchange, rather than the success of any given crypto. As long as people are trading, the token should have value. OKX juiced the value of OKB this week by slashing the supply of tokens from 300 million to 21 million by sending millions of tokens to an unreachable wallet address. This burn is a one-time occurrence, so OKB is not likely to see another massive jump in price, but it is an instructive lesson in supply and demand in the crypto world.