*as of 8/25; Sources: S&P, BTC, FTSE, DJRE, GOLD

The S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index showed that U.S. home price growth is rebounding, rising by 1.5% year-over-year, up from the 1.2% mark last month. The top markets in yearly price growth were Chicago, New York, and Cleveland, while Seattle, Las Vegas, and Denver fell the most. Meanwhile, the FHFA House Price Index stayed flat for the month, but was up 0.3% quarterly and 2.1% year-over-year. The states with the highest annual appreciation were Alaska, Vermont, and Hawaii, while the states with the biggest annual declines were New Mexico, Washington, and Colorado.

➨ TAKEAWAY: While the rate of price growth is rising slowly, it still trails inflation by a considerable amount, meaning that real home values are actually still decreasing. However, top markets are still outpacing inflation, and those are still concentrated in the Northeast and Midwest, while Sun Belt and non-California Western markets are still struggling.

Vincent CEO Eric Cantor, Orbit2Orbit CEO Bradley Hatton-Jones, and Mach33 CEO Aaron Burnett talk about why space is becoming one of the most compelling investment opportunities for the next decade. They explore the future of commercial space economy and why investors are paying attention.

📉 Consumer confidence drops: The Conference Board’s consumer confidence index fell from 90.2 to 89.4 in August, hitting a seven-month low, remaining well below the benchmark of 100. While the respondents said their present situation is improving, their short-term outlook got more pessimistic, thanks largely to rising inflation and gas prices due to the war with Iran.

🚀 Oura IPO: The Smart Ring maker is reportedly planning for a public offering next month that would raise $3 billion at a valuation of $16 billion, nearly 50% higher than its valuation a year ago. The company has doubled its revenues each of the past two years but is facing growing competition that could limit investor demand.

🤖 Hugging Face may sell: The open-source AI startup has reportedly been approached to sell the company at a valuation of $13 billion. The interested buyer is unknown but the reported number is nearly three times its last valuation from 2023 and almost double the $7 billion valuation that was floated earlier this year in a potential Nvidia investment.

🏢 Apartment vacancy improving: The national apartment vacancy rates declined by 60 basis points in Q2, as strong rental demand outpaced the supply of newly constructed units. This is largely because of the declining sales market, as renting has become more affordable than buying in most markets.

🏡 New home sales fall: Sales of newly built U.S. single-family homes dropped by 10.5% in July and were down 6.3% year-over-year. Persistently high mortgage rates are hampering buyer demand, even as the median sales price fell 0.9% year-over-year.

🎵 Freddie Mercury piano: A Yamaha C3 piano used extensively by the legendary Queen frontman is coming to auction at Propstore in October, and carries a high estimate of more than $500,000. In addition to Mercury, the piano was also used by members of Led Zeppelin, the Rolling Stones, and more.

In a week where the crypto market was up nearly 25% as a whole, there were a lot of major coins that had massive gains, including XRP, which posted the second-highest weekly gain of any coin in the top-50 by market cap behind only Zcash, which we wrote about yesterday. XRP, which is currently has the 5th highest market cap and has been as high as #2 behind Bitcoin, has struggled in the past twelve months, falling from above $3 to under $1 just over a week ago. Even after the rally this week, its price is still down 50% in the past year and is now even over the past six months. The question is whether the overall crypto rally continues or whether prices will slowly trickle back to where they were beforehand. One glimmer of hope is the increase in activity on the XRP Ledger, which could sustain the token’s upwards price trajectory.