Daily Business Report: Friday, Feb. 17, 2023
New UC San Diego model predicts housing
prices to fall as much as 18 percent this year
By Christine Clark
A new model of forecasting home prices based on consumer demand predicts that prices for housing will decrease by 5 percent nationally and 12 percent in San Diego County by the end of this year. The model, which highlights online search activity, was recently published in a new study from the University of California San Diego’s Rady School of Management.
The model’s predictions have a proven accuracy rate of up to 70 percent and are unique to other price predictors — such as Zillow, Goldman Sachs and Redfin —because those consider a variety of factors like interest rates, wage growth, unemployment and housing supply. Whereas the housing search index created by Allan Timmermann of the Rady School and collaborators at Arhus University in Denmark, focuses on consumer demand by tracking the rate at which prospective buyers use the internet to search for homes.
“It is one of the purest measures of potential demand that you can get because the first thing you do when you’re looking for a house or interested in buying a house, is to go to the internet and look at what is available,” said Timmermann, a distinguished professor of finance at the Rady School. “Those in the market for a home leave a big footprint with their online search activity because of the time it takes – often several months – to find something that is the right fit.”
Top Illustration: Adragan/iStock
URW sells Escondido’s North County Mall
Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield (URW) has sold the North County Mall, a 1.2-million-square-foot shopping center in Escondido. URW will maintain its leasehold interest in the shopping center until it expires in June 2053. The mall was purchased by Bridge Group Investment and Steerpoint Capital for an undisclosed price.
Previously known as Westfield North County Fair, North County Mall is located at 272 E. Via Rancho Parkway, on an 83-acre site adjacent to Interstate 15.
The retail mall is anchored by Macy’s, JCPenney and Target. Other tenants include Forever 21, H&M, MAC, Apple, Game Stop and 24 Hour Fitness. The center also includes restaurants, including Black Angus Steakhouse, BJ’s Restaurant and Brewhouse, The Cheesecake Factory and Chipotle.
Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield is Europe’s largest mall owner.
Newly homeless continue to outpace newly housed
For the tenth month in a row, countywide data shows the number of San Diegans who fell into homelessness outpaced the number moving into homes.
The Regional Task Force on Homelessness reports that 1,211 people sought homeless services in San Diego County for the first time in January. Just over 660 people moved into housing.
The Task Force’s monthly data also once again showed that the majority of San Diegans who exited homelessness ended up renting their own units without ongoing aid.
— Voice of San Diego
Nearly $5 million in properties
to be auctioned by San Diego County
Diego County Treasurer-Tax Collector Dan McAllister announced bidder registration is now open for the 2023 online property tax auction. A total of 421 properties have been in default for over five years and, in accordance with the California Revenue & Taxation Code, are now for sale.
“These properties have been in tax default for five or more years. It’s time to get the properties back on the tax roll generating revenue for important public services,” said McAllister. “Our online system makes it simple to research and bid on a variety of properties across San Diego County.”
The properties include 50+ residential and commercial; 300+ timeshares; and 70 parcels of land. Anyone can bid during the online property tax auction from March 10-15. To participate, bidders must register before March 2 at the Treasurer-Tax Collector’s tax auction website, sdttc.mytaxsale.com. They must also submit a refundable $1,000 deposit and a non-refundable $35 processing fee (some parcels may require a larger deposit).
“Potential bidders are encouraged to sign up for e-notifications at sdttc.com.”
$580,000 in fededral funding secured for
USD’s Violence, Inequality and Power Lab
$580,000 in federal funding has been secured to help expand the work of the University of San Diego’s Violence, Inequality, and Power Lab (VIP Lab) at the Joan B. Kroc School of Peace Studies. The VIP Lab examines how different socio-political inequalities intersect, creating systemic issues that often facilitate violence and manipulate understandings of how to address it. This funding will help expand the VIP Lab’s work by launching a new fellowship program.
Rep. Sara Jacobs advocated for the program and helped secure the funding through Congress’ 2023 Omnibus Appropriations Bill. Jacobs is a former Scholar in Residence at the Joan B. Kroc School of Peace Studies.
Calibr and Bill & Melinda Gates Medical Research Institute
announce licensing agreement for tuberculosis treatment
Calibr, a division of Scripps Research dedicated to the “bench to bedside” development of transformative medicines, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Medical Research Institute, announced a strategic licensing agreement to advance development of a novel investigational compound for tuberculosis treatment. Under the agreement, Calibr is granting Gates MRI an exclusive license to continue the development of the investigational compound CLB073 for tuberculosis treatment. Calibr will transition CLB073 to Gates MRI for further development.
Sanford Burnham Prebys earns
highest rating from Charity Navigator
Sanford Burnham Prebys has received a four-star rating from Charity Navigator, America’s largest and most-utilized independent charity evaluator. A top rating on Charity Navigator means Sanford Burnham Prebys is among the most trusted charities nationwide in terms of financial health and accountability.
Only about a quarter of charities in the country have earned this coveted status.
“This four-star rating is further validation that our supporters can trust our commitment to good governance and financial health,” said Christine Dittmer, chief development officer at Sanford Burnham Prebys. “We hope that it will introduce our work to new supporters who can help us advance our mission to discover tomorrow’s cures.”
Charitable donations make up a significant portion of the Institute’s revenue each year. Recently, the Institute received a landmark gift from benefactor and namesake T. Denny Sanford to recruit up to 20 new faculty members in research areas including cancer, neurodegeneration and computational biology.
Wiliot names Thaddeus Segura as vice
president of data products and algorithms
SAN DIEGO — Wiliot, the Internet of Things pioneer whose ambient IoT platform is enabling trillions of “things” to gain intelligence, announced the appointment of Thaddeus Segura to the position of vice president of data products and algorithms, overseeing the company’s newly created Data Division. Segura joins Wiliot after a decade at Walmart, where he was most recently responsible for evaluating emerging technologies and leading a team tasked with supply chain modernization. At Wiliot, Segura will lead the company’s newest division, creating products and services that help companies derive unprecedented business intelligence and value from Wiliot’s breakthrough ambient IoT platform.
TruCare expands health services with
new pediatric dental clinic in Oceanside
OCEANSIDE — TrueCare has opened a pediatric dental clinic in Oceanside, located at the community health center’s Mission Mesa campus, Suite 100, at 2210 Mesa Drive. This site serves the communities of North County, providing quality dental care for children of all ages in a kid-friendly environment. TrueCare’s new pediatric dental program provides preventive, maintenance, and restorative dental care for children, including routine exams and cleanings, fluoride treatments, sealants, and more. The clinic is designed for children, with innovative features like screens streaming child-appropriate educational content in each of its six exam areas for a fun, low-stress experience.
General Atomics partners with Divergent Technologies Inc.
General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc. (GA-ASI) is partnering with Divergent Technologies Inc. to support its Additive Manufacturing applications development efforts and implement a full digital manufacturing process for GA-ASI’s products. Divergent has developed a data-driven approach to design, fabricate and assemble vehicle structures called the Divergent Adaptive Production System (DAPS). GA-ASI is working with Divergent to apply this capability to manufacturing its line of UAS.
City of San Diego repairing holes in streets
The City of San Diego has dramatically reduced a backlog of pothole repair reports, a decrease of more than 80 percent, thanks to an increase in staffing and resources devoted to patching potholes. Since Jan. 1, city crews have repaired more than 14,000 potholes in total across San Diego. Pothole reports spiked last month, following several days of heavy rain.
City teams were assigned to make repairs seven days per week, including some night work. The city’s Transportation Department deployed nine patching trucks, along with 30 two-person teams carrying bagged asphalt, and a dump truck repurposed to carry hot asphalt.
Wildfire Systems launches 2 new products
SAN DIEGO — Wildfire Systems Inc., an innovative fintech platform that powers white-label reward programs and shopping companions, announced two new platform innovations designed to provide partners with the ability to quickly build and deploy powerful rewards programs. In addition, Wildfire announced the successful completion of two important security certifications which demonstrates the companies commitment to adhering to strict security standards for the benefit of clients and their end users. Read more
Drata ushers a new era of trust with Open API
SAN DIEGO — Drata, a continuous security and compliance automation platform, launched Open API, a powerful new product leading the movement to open and democratized compliance. Open API puts customers in the driver’s seat with deeper connections and integrations to architect creative solutions for their risk and compliance needs. “Open API is a momentous step in our efforts of democratizing compliance and moving to a truly open platform,” said Adam Markowitz, co-founder and CEO of Drata.
Pearson Fuels opens 300th E85 retail site
SANTEE — Pearson Fuels, the country’s largest E85 distributor, has opened its 300th retail E85 site. The latest addition to the San Diego-based company’s E85 network is located at 8617 Cuyamaca St. in Santee. “E85 is a valuable profit center at our existing stations; we see it as a fuel that will grow in the future,” said Martin Salem, owner of the Santee location. Salem offers E85 at five of his other retail stations and plans to add E85 to several additional locations. E85 is a renewable, biomass-based, low-carbon, high-octane fuel compatible with flex fuel vehicles (FFVs).
DiversyFund announces
first cash divident distributions
SAN DIEGO — DiversyFund has made the first cash distributions to investors in the DF Growth REIT LLC fund. This disbursement totaled $4 million and represents an approximate 6.1 percemt annualized return for REIT I investors. Initial distributions were made on Dec. 31, 2022. The annualized return for this disbursement is based on the sale of assets in the portfolio and does not represent the prospective total return for Growth REIT I. The fund is continuing to perform as expected.
Wrike teams up with Unio
to bring Miro integration to users
SAN DIEGO — Wrike, a powerful work management platform, announced an expanded partnership with integration automation platform Unito that allows Wrike tasks and projects to connect and sync with visual collaboration platform Miro. This partnership unlocks greater collaboration capabilities for Wrike users that rely on Miro to capture their creative thinking and, previously, had to manually transfer ideas into Wrike for execution or to share with broader teams. Available now. the fully embeddable, no-code Wrike add-on allows customers to automatically create Wrike tasks based on Miro cards and keep those work items updated in real-time via two-way sync.
Resilience signs multi-year biomanufacturing
partnership with pharmaceutical company
SAN DIEGO — National Resilience Inc., a technology-focused manufacturing company dedicated to broadening access to complex medicines, announced a 10-year biomanufacturing partnership with a leading pharmaceutical company for its portfolio of services across Process and Analytical Development, Drug Substance, and Drug Product manufacturing. The broad agreement encompasses the potential manufacturing for Biologics, Vaccines, Nucleic Acids, Cell and Gene Therapy modalities. The first product under the agreement will be manufactured at Resilience’s newly acquired site in Cincinnati, Ohio’
