construction

After struggling to find staff during the pandemic, businesses in Singapore have increasingly turned to deploying robots to help carry out a range of tasks, from surveying construction sites to scanning library bookshelves.The city-state relies on foreign workers, but their number fell by 235,700 between December 2019 and September 2021, according to the manpower ministry, which notes how COVID-19 curbs have sped up "the pace of technology adoption and automation" by companies.At a Singapore construction site, a…

A limited height bridge is being constructed at the level crossing gate between Varana stations of Kaprain Ghat on the Kota Division of West Central Railway. Due to the construction work, the movement of several trains on the route will be affected. According to Captain Shashi Kiran, CPRO of Northwestern Railway, due to the construction of a limited height bridge at the level crossing gate between Varana stations of Kaprain Ghat, there will be traffic jams for trains running from Jodhpur and Jaipur to Indore and Mumbai…

Some resort owners think they have found a way to avoid getting stuck with excess inventory when guests cancel at the last minute.It involves converting room nights for sale into nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, that can be bought or sold by hotel guests, similar to the StubHub market for concert and sporting event tickets. Owners say this ensures they get paid for the rooms because guests would sell their reservation in the market if they decide not to go, and appeal to the crypto-enthusiastic traveler. “We can…

Sales of newly built homes in April posted their biggest drop in nine years, the latest sign that higher interest rates are reducing buyer demand. New-home sales fell 16.6% in April from March to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 591,000, the lowest level since April 2020, the Commerce Department said Tuesday. Rising mortgage-interest rates have made homeownership more expensive for buyers. The average rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage was 5.25% last week, up from…

When the Federal Reserve set out to cool the economy and slow inflation in the past, it counted on the housing market to do much of the work. By raising interest rates, the central bank made mortgages more expensive and trimmed the number of buyers.This time, America’s red-hot housing market threatens to make the Fed’s job tougher. With so many buyers competing for so few available properties, home prices in the U.S. rose 18.8% last year, according to a home-price index maintained by S&P Dow Jones Indices and…

Investors who bid up apartment-building prices to record levels over the past year are starting to come under pressure as rapidly rising interest rates squeeze their profits.Steeper borrowing rates make it harder for apartment landlords to pay back their loans. That could also be bad news for tenants, if it encourages building owners to raise rents higher than they might otherwise because that is their primary tool for generating more income. Sales of apartment buildings have been strong for years, but they broke records…

Chinese conglomerate HNA Group Co. must pay its former business partner SL Green Realty Corp. about $185 million in a dispute over a bankrupt Manhattan skyscraper, an arbitrator said. The arbitrator, former judge L. Priscilla Hall, found that real-estate investment trust SL Green was entitled to a $184.6 million payment over an investment that it made in HNA Group’s 245 Park Ave., according to documents made public in a New York state court Friday. SL Green should also be reimbursed for $856,000 in…

Soon after Lizbeth Martinez set out to buy a house near her hometown of Cactus, Texas, she encountered a situation familiar to millions of Zillow-browsing Americans: few decent options.“There is nothing for sale,” Ms. Martinez said. “And, if it is, it is way out of my price range.” After months of searching, Ms. Martinez found an unlikely partner—her employer. The 21-year-old is an accounting clerk at a beef-processing plant in Cactus run by JBS USA Holdings Inc. She expects to close this summer on the…

Lowe’s LOW -0.36% Cos. posted a drop in first-quarter sales, citing cooler weather that delayed some home projects, a day after rival Home Depot Inc. said sales rose in the same conditions. Lowe’s said comparable sales, which strips out effects of store openings and closings, fell 4% in the period. Revenue took a hit as 75% of its customers take on projects themselves rather than hire contractors,…

BEIJING—A monthly measure of new home prices in China fell for the first time in more than six years, offering further evidence of the pain that Beijing’s regulatory campaign is inflicting on a sector that has long served as an economic growth engine.Average new-home prices in 70 major cities edged 0.11% lower in April from a year earlier, according to Wall Street Journal calculations based on data released Wednesday by China’s National Bureau of Statistics. The decline, though slight, marks the first such decrease since…