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Fraud remains a huge issue, with reports increasing 25% between 2023 and 2024, according to recently released data from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). That amounted to consumers losing more than $12.5 billion to various frauds and scams. Those eye-popping figures are what spurred AT&T to beef up its fraud-prevention smartphone application, ActiveArmor, with a slate of new features, says Matt Bailey, AT&Ts AVP of product management and development. And interestingly enough, the app will also provide protection for your physical propertyincluding your credit and debit cards and even your drivers license. On Wednesday, AT&T announced the five new features being added to the app: Lost wallet recovery ID restoration A password manager A password manager web extension Social media identity protection With the lost wallet recovery feature, AT&T says it will help you replace important items such as a driver’s license or checkbook with a one-click call to its recovery specialists. The service also cancels lost credit or debit cards and “restores other sensitive financial items,” according to the company’s description. Combined, Bailey says the new features will help fewer people become victims of various scams. The biggest impetus to our focus on security is the fact that consumers are consistently being victimized by fraudulent activity, and that its increasing, he says. Thats the key concern that our customers have been telling us about, and weve been focused on security relentlessly. Robocalls and other modern-day rackets Bailey says that while the ActiveArmor app was originally launched in 2016 to root out robocalls, its since become what he thinks is the most comprehensive security app out there. And its also available to everyonenot just AT&T customers. AT&T customers will not be charged anything extra, but those on other networks who download and install the app will face a $3.99-per-month charge. And as for why AT&Twhich is primarily a digital and wireless companydecided to add protection for physical cards, drivers licenses, and even checkbooks? Bailey says that the company already has a dedicated team to help customers replace some of those items, so it made sense to put the physical stuff into the mix, too. We thought it was a pretty natural tie-in to help customers remain protected, he says.
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E-Commerce
Want more housing market stories from Lance Lamberts ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter. Speaking to investors earlier this month, D.R. Horton CEO Paul Romanowski said that the spring 2025 selling season for Americas-largest homebuilder is off to a slower-than-normal start. This years spring selling season started slower than expected as potential homebuyers have been more cautious due to continued affordability constraints and declining consumer confidence, Romanowski said on the company’s earnings call. It isnt just D.R. Horton. We do not see the seasonal pickup typically associated with the beginning of the spring selling season,” Lennar co-CEO Jon Jaffe told investors on March. “So we continue to lean into our machine focusing on converting leads and appointments and adjusting incentives as needed to maintain sales pace. These adjustments came in the form of mortgage rate buydowns, price reductions, and closing cost assistance. Last quarter, Lennar spent the equivalent of 13% of home sales on buyer incentivesup from 1.5% in Q2 2022 at the height of the pandemic housing boom. A 13% incentive on a $400,000 home translates to $52,000 in incentives. This weaker housing demand environment is causing unsold inventory to tick up. Indeed, since the pandemic housing boom fizzled out, the number of unsold completed U.S. new single-family homes has been rising: March 2018: 62,000 March 2019: 77,000 March 2020: 76,000 March 2021: 34,000 March 2022: 32,000 March 2023: 70,000 March 2024: 89,000 March 2025: 119,000 The March 2025 figure (119,000 unsold completed new homes) published this month is the highest level since July 2009 (126,000). Lets take a closer look at the data to better understand what this could mean. To put the number of unsold completed new single-family homes into historic context, we created a new index: ResiClubs Finished Homes Supply Index. The index is one simple calculation: The number of unsold completed U.S. new single-family homes divided by the annualized rate of U.S. single-family housing starts. A higher index score indicates a softer national new construction market with greater supply slack, while a lower index score signifies a tighter new construction market with less supply slack. If you look at unsold completed single-family new builds as a share of single-family housing starts (see chart below), it still shows we’ve gained slack; however, it puts us closer to pre-pandemic 2019 levels than the Great Recession of 20072009. While the U.S. Census Bureau doesn’t give us a greater market-by-market breakdown on these unsold new builds, we have a good idea where they are based on total active inventory homes for sale (including existing homes) that have spiked above pre-pandemic 2019 levels. Most of those areas are in the Sun Belt around the Gulf. Builders are facing pricing pressure in some housing markets, especially in key Florida and Texas markets, where active inventory has jumped back above pre-pandemic 2019 levels. !function(){"use strict";window.addEventListener("message",(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var e=document.querySelectorAll("iframe");for(var t in a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var r,i=0;r=e[i];i++)if(r.contentWindow===a.source){var d=a.data["datawrapper-height"][t]+"px";r.style.height=d}}}))}(); Big picture: Theres greater slack in the new construction market now than a few years ago, giving buyers some leverage in certain markets to negotiate better deals with homebuilders.
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E-Commerce
Google CEO Sundar Pichai is expected to take the stand on Wednesday morning at a trial in Washington where antitrust enforcers seek an order forcing the company to sell its Chrome web browser and take other measures to boost competition among online search providers. Pichai will testify in the Alphabet unit’s defense against proposals by the U.S. Department of Justice that the company has said would cause unintended harm to browser developers, smartphone makers and internet users. The outcome of the case could fundamentally reshape the internet by potentially unseating Google as the go-to portal for information online. The DOJ and a broad coalition of state attorneys general are pressing for remedies to restore competition even as search evolves to overlap with generative AI products such as ChatGPT. Prosecutors are concerned that Google’s dominance in search could extend to AI. U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta ruled last year that Google, the site and app where most U.S. internet users search for information, “has no true competitor.” Google maintained its monopoly in part by paying billions of dollars to companies including Apple, Samsung, AT&T and Verizon to be the default search engine on new mobile devices, the judge said. The DOJ wants the judge to end those payments and require Google to share search data with competitors. Google has said the proposals would give away its hard work, and jeopardize its users’ privacy and endanger smaller companies like Mozilla, the developer of the Firefox browser, that rely on Google for revenue. The company recently loosened its agreements to allow device makers and carriers to pre-install other search and AI apps, according to evidence shown at trial. Google has said it plans to appeal once the judge makes a final ruling. Jody Godoy, Reuters
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E-Commerce
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