Consumer News: The new US tariffs could have a big impact on car prices

The president argues that institutional buyers are driving up the cost of housing

• Trump announced plans to block large institutional investors from purchasing single-family houses

• The proposal would mark the administrations first major move aimed at easing the housing shortage

• Legal hurdles and congressional resistance could complicate any nationwide ban

President Trump says he plans to ban large institutional investors from buying single-family homes, framing the move as a way to ease the nations severe housing shortage and make it easier for families to buy homes.

I am immediately taking steps to ban large institutional investors from buying more single-family homes, and I will be calling on Congress to codify it. People live in homes, not corporations, Trump said in a social-media post.

It remains unclear whether Trump can implement such a ban without congressional approval. Even if enacted, large investors would still be able to retain their existing holdings, which total hundreds of thousands of homes nationwide. Still, housing analysts quoted by the Wall Street Journal say a ban could have significant ripple effects in several major markets.

Wall Streets growing footprint in housing

Institutional investment in housing expanded after the subprime mortgage crisis began in 2007, though large investors have never owned more than a small share of the overall housing market. Estimates generally put institutional ownership at about 2% to 3% nationally.

In certain cities, however, investor ownership is far more concentrated. During the pandemic-era housing boom, investors accounted for more than 20% of all home sales in hot markets such as Houston, Miami, Phoenix and Las Vegas.

Sunbelt cities in particular have attracted institutional buyers. A 2024 Government Accountability Office analysis found that large institutions owned 25% of rental homes in Atlanta and 18% in Charlotte.

Investor activity and rising prices

Investors of all sizes, including small landlords, have spent billions buying homes over the past decade. At the 2022 peak, investors purchased more than one in four single-family homes sold. Most of those purchases were made by smaller investors planning to rent out properties. Buying activity slowed sharply after mortgage rates surged.

Single-family rental companies argue that their business model allows renters to live in higher-end neighborhoods and strong school districts they might not otherwise afford.

But rising home prices and affordability pressures have fueled voter anger and bipartisan scrutiny of investor activity. Lawmakers in Nebraska, California, New York, Minnesota and North Carolina have proposed measures to restrict large investor purchases, though most efforts have stalled as lobbyists bestowed their favors on state legislators.

Home prices are up more than 50% nationally since 2019, and the median existing-home price rose to $409,200 in November. Overall home buying has slowed over the past three years as high prices and elevated mortgage rates have sidelined many buyers.

Competition with first-time buyers

Investor purchases have made it harder for some first-time buyers to compete, particularly when firms make all-cash offers. While institutions do not always bid higher, they can close quickly and typically waive repair negotiations.

Wall Street-backed firms have acquired hundreds of thousands of homes to rent, leading some analysts to argue that investor activity has reduced the supply of homes for sale and pushed up prices in certain neighborhoods.

The U.S. housing shortage is estimated at several million units, depending on methodology. Construction slowed sharply after the 200809 financial crisis, leaving builders cautious and opening the door for large investors to buy foreclosed homes in bulk.

Trump would likely face significant legal and political challenges in implementing a ban. A bipartisan Senate bill last year aimed at boosting housing supply passed unanimously but was blocked in the House by Republicans.

Democrats say they support limiting institutional homeownership but criticized Trumps approach.

Trump should start with getting his own party in the House to support a bipartisan bill to bring down housing costs that passed the Senate unanimously, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) said. And Congress should work on legislation to stop corporate investors from buying up homes.

Market reaction and next steps

Markets reacted sharply to the announcement. Shares of Invitation Homes fell about 6% Wednesday, while American Homes 4 Rent dropped more than 4%. Homebuilder stocks also declined, including D.R. Horton, which fell more than 3%.

Some rental firms are already preparing for a slowdown by shifting toward build-to-rent communities of newly constructed homes rather than acquiring existing ones.

JPMorgan expands its credit-card footprint

• JPMorgan Chase will become the new issuer of Apples credit card, absorbing about $20 billion in balances

• The deal ends Goldman Sachs troubled push into consumer lending

• Mastercard will remain the card network, preserving a major payments partnership with Apple

JPMorgan Chase has reached a deal to take over Apples credit-card program from Goldman Sachs, further cementing its position as the dominant force in U.S. credit cards and bringing an end to Goldmans costly experiment in consumer banking.

The nations largest bank will become the issuer of the Apple Card, one of the biggest co-branded credit-card programs in the country, with roughly $20 billion in outstanding balances. The companies announced the agreement Wednesday, confirming an earlier report byThe Wall Street Journal. The sides had been negotiating for more than a year, according to a Wall Street Journalreport..

A closer tie between banking and tech

The agreement draws together two of the most influential companies in finance and technology at a time when payments are increasingly embedded in phones, watches and other devices. JPMorgan gains access to a large and loyal base of Apple customers it can target with additional financial products, while Apple secures a partner with a vast consumer banking operation to help finance device sales.

Mastercard will remain the cards payment network, fending off competition from Visa and preserving the substantial transaction volume tied to the Apple partnership.

JPMorgans plans for Apple customers

As one of the largest credit-card issuers in the country, JPMorgan has decades of experience underwriting and managing card portfolios. Executives have grown confident they can absorb the Apple program and expand it over time, people familiar with the matter said.

JPMorgan will issue Apple cards to both new and existing cardholders. The bank is also planning to launch a new Apple-branded savings account. Customers who currently hold Apple savings accounts at Goldman will be able to choose whether to remain there or move to JPMorgan, the Journal said.

The transition from Goldman to JPMorgan is expected to take about two years.

The end of Goldmans consumer push

Goldman and Apple launched the Apple Card in 2019 amid significant fanfare, signaling Goldmans ambition to become a Main Street lender and diversify away from its Wall Street roots. By late 2022, mounting losses and regulatory scrutiny prompted the bank to reverse course and begin unwinding much of its consumer-lending business.

With the JPMorgan deal, Goldman closes a chapter on one of the most ambitiousand expensivestrategic shifts in its history, while JPMorgan deepens its dominance in the fast-evolving world of consumer payments.

Simple moves that can knock 2050% off eBay prices

• Think like a marketplace, not a store: On eBay, bad listings, low visibility, and motivated sellers often mean 2050% lower prices.

• Let sellers come to you: Use Sold Items to guide offers and rely on watchlists to trigger private discounts instead of bidding early.

• Buy imperfect on purpose: Open box, refurbished, or cosmetic-flaw items are where the biggest, quietest savings live.

eBay isnt a store, its an ecosystem. Prices arent fixed, sellers behave differently than big retailers, and the rules change depending on timing, listing format, and even how you interact with the seller.

But if you learn to shop it strategically, eBay can usually beat retail prices by 2050% on everything from tech and tools to clothing and collectibles.

Heres how to actually squeeze the most value out of eBay, includingoutside-the-box tips most shoppers never consider.

First, understand what drives prices on eBay

Before you try to save money on eBay, you need to know why their pricesare all over the board in the first place.

These three big forces control most eBay deals:

1. Seller motivation

Its important to understand that some sellers are just trying to clear space in their closet and are perfectly okay with low garage sale prices. These folks often happily accept lowball offers.

Others are full-time resellers who care more about how much cash they have coming in, than how much profit they make. This puts them in aperpetualready to strike a deal posture.

Both types of sellers fall into the motivated seller category which is where the real deals live on eBay.

2. Visibility and competition

The truth of the matter is that eBay listings with poor titles, bad photos, or odd timing (Christmas ornaments in July) attract way fewer buyers.

Most buyers dont want to buy something when you cant tell the real condition by the photos or the item has a cryptic description which makes what you get in the mail a bit of a mystery box.

But smart eBay users use this to their advantage as less eyeballs on an item always means a potentially lower final price.

3. Risk perception

Anything that feels slightly risky to the average shopper, think open box, missing packaging, cosmetic flaws, or refurbished, often gets overlooked by eBay shoppers.

But these items get discounted hard, even when the product is fully functionally, making them great products to seek out.

Hunt for bad listings instead of good deals

This is one of the most powerful eBay tricks, and almost nobody does it intentionally.

Most shoppers search for perfect listings that include the following:

• Clean titles
• Bright photo
• Detailed descriptions

Those listings also attract the most buyers which of course pushes prices up.

So instead, you should intentionally look for the bad listings.

Heres how to make it happen:

• Search using misspellings and awkward phrasing. Example: nik air max, sony hedphones, and north face jaket. Check out the site TypoHound that actually finds these eBay listing for you. You just type in the product youre looking for and theyll find you the badlistings.
• Filter by auction-only listings with no reserve - These are often created by casual sellers who dont optimize their posts. You can often find an ignored listing this way and win the auction with a minimum bid of a buck or less.
• Look for dark, messy, or single-photo listings - Many great items are hidden behind lazy photography. Remember you can always shoot the seller a question and get more clarity on the condition of the item without needing high-quality photos.

These types of listings tend to show up frequently ineBay search results, and experienced resellers often skip them because they take more effort to evaluate. That's when you pounce.

So, if youre willing to spend a little time and zoom in, read carefully, and ask a quick question, you can snag items at prices that would never survive a competitive listing.

This works especially well for the following shopping categories:

• Clothing and shoes
• Older electronics
• Tools
• Hobby gear

Use Make an Offer strategically not emotionally

Most people treat the Make Offer button like a gamble or an insult. They either send a lowball offer out of frustration or ignore it all together.

The smart move is to treat an offer to a selleras a data-driven negotiation where you can greatly increase your chances to score a deal.

Heres the playbook you should try:

1. Filter your search results by Sold Items and Completed Items before you make an offer By doing this, you get to see what the item actually sells for, not the number the seller hopes they can get.
2. Offer 1025% below the lowest recent sold price - This number will feel reasonable to sellers and typically avoids any auto-declines.
3. Add a short, neutral note - Something like: Ready to pay today. Just trying to stay close to the recent sold prices.

Why this works:

• Many sellers initially price their items high, expecting a negotiation to be part of the deal.
• Sellers will often send a counteroffer that lands right in deal territory.
• If the counteroffer is minimal, come back with another offer asking for a 10-15% discount off the counter.

Remember, youre not asking for a favor as many sellers really want to move inventory. The bottom line is if the seller allows you to make an offer, they're expecting you to make an offer.

Watch. Wait. Let the seller come to you

The one thing you want to avoid when shopping on eBay is clicking around and making a bunch of impulse buys simply because the item seems like a decent deal.

Shopping this way is a recipe to overpay on stuff where the buyer will often take significantly lessif you just play the game.

The game? Watch items aggressively at first but do NOT place a bid or send an offer.

When you add an item to your watchlist, a few cool things potentially happen:

• Sellers will often send you a private discount offer.
• Sellers will quietly start to drop their prices when products dont move.
• Other watchers disappear and lose interest, making the seller more likely to accept your eventual low offer.

When it comes to sellers sending you a private discount, many use eBays automated tools which sends out offers only to watchers.

These discounts never appear publicly and can range from 5% to 30% off. Ive even received 50% off offers on Christmas decorations that I had on my watchlist in January.

Even better is that some sellers will lower prices after a listing sits for a while just to trigger renewed interest.

So, the takeaway here is that when you bid early, you lose all of your leverage.

Watch. Wait. And let the seller come to you. Trust me, they eventually will.

Buy returned, open box, and unloved items on purpose

One of eBays biggest advantages over traditional retailers is how it significantly discounts anything that isnt brand new in perfect packaging.

Ive gotten some of my best deals on eBay by being okay with items that arent pristine.

With that said, heres what to target:

Search for open box items - These are often customer returns that were barely used. Packaging damage alone can knock 2040% off.

Look for manufacturer refurbished - These frequently come inspected, tested, and with good warranties. But they scare off casual shoppers whod rather not deal with a potential issue.

Seek out listings with cosmetic flaws - Scratches, dents, missing manuals, or replacement packaging rarely affects performance but will crush the resale price that sellers can realistically ask for.

Pro tip: Be sure to search using phrases like open box, no original packaging, and minor cosmetic wear. Then compare those prices to retail. The gap is often shocking.

In mice, restoring cellular energy balance reversed advanced Alzheimers-like disease a hint of what future therapies might aim for

• A new study found that fixing energy balance in the brain reversed symptoms of advanced Alzheimers in mice.

• Researchers used a drug (P7C3-A20) to restore levels of NAD+, a crucial molecule for cell energy, leading to full cognitive recovery in two mouse models.

• The findings challenge the idea that Alzheimers damage is always permanent but human testing is still needed.

For decades, Alzheimers disease has been seen as a one-way street: once the brain starts to degenerate, the damage is permanent. Thats why most research has focused on slowing the disease or preventing it in the first place.

However, a new study published in Cell Reports Medicine is shaking up that idea by showing that, at least in mice, significant recovery may be possible.

Scientists from Case Western Reserve University, University Hospitals, and the Louis Stokes Cleveland VA Medical Center wanted to know whether brains already deeply affected by Alzheimers-like pathology could actually repair themselves. Their starting point was a molecule called nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD) a natural molecule found in every cell that helps turn food into energy and keeps cells functioning and repairing themselves properly.

They found that NAD levels crash in Alzheimers, both in human brains and in mouse models engineered to develop the disease.

The key takeaway is a message of hope the effects of Alzheimer's disease may not be inevitably permanent, researcher Andrew A. Pieper said in a news release. The damaged brain can, under some conditions, repair itself and regain function.

The study

Because Alzheimers doesnt naturally occur in mice, researchers used genetically engineered animals that mimic major features of the human disease including amyloid and tau problems inside the brain. These features lead to inflammation, nerve cell damage, breakdown of the brains protective barrier, and cognitive decline that looks a lot like human Alzheimers.

The scientists tested whether they could fix the brains energy deficit by giving mice a drug called P7C3-A20, which helps keep NAD levels balanced without overshooting into dangerous territory. This compound was developed in the lab leading the study and has been used in other brain injury models before.

They tried two approaches: treating mice before disease signs appeared, and after the animals already had advanced symptoms. The results in both cases were striking.

The big result: Reversal and recovery

When the researchers restored NAD balance in the animals with advanced Alzheimers-like disease, the mice didnt just stop declining their brains began to recover.

Hallmarks of the disease, such as inflammation, DNA damage, and breakdown of brain systems, were reduced. Most importantly, the mice regained cognitive abilities in tests that measure memory and thinking.

And the recovery wasnt just behavioral. Blood levels of phosphorylated tau-217 a biomarker now used in human Alzheimers research returned to normal, showing that the disease process itself was reversing.

Still, the researchers are clear that this work is preliminary. What works in mice doesnt always work in people, especially in a complex human disease like Alzheimers. Future studies, including carefully designed clinical trials, will be needed to see whether these findings can translate from rodents to humans.

We were very excited and encouraged by our results, Pieper said. Restoring the brain's energy balance achieved pathological and functional recovery in both lines of mice with advanced Alzheimer's. Seeing this effect in two very different animal models, each driven by different genetic causes, strengthens the new idea that recovery from advanced disease might be possible in people with AD when the brain's NAD+ balance is restored.

What this means for consumers

For consumers, this research doesnt change how Alzheimers is treated today, but it does point to where future therapies may be headed.

The study suggests that targeting the brains energy systems rather than focusing only on plaques or slowing decline could one day help restore lost function, at least in some cases.

That said, these results come from animal models, not people, and the drug used in the study is not available as a treatment.

For now, the takeaway is cautious optimism: scientists are uncovering new biological pathways that may eventually lead to more effective Alzheimers treatments, but any potential benefits for patients will require years of further research and clinical testing.

This new therapeutic approach to recovery needs to be moved into carefully designed human clinical trials to determine whether the efficacy seen in animal models translates to human patients, Pieper said. Additional next steps for the laboratory research include pinpointing which aspects of brain energy balance are most important for recovery, identifying and evaluating complementary approaches to Alzheimer's reversal, and investigating whether this recovery approach is also effective in other forms of chronic, age-related neurodegenerative disease.

Why questioning your own uncertainties might actually help you stick with big goals

• When people question the validity of their doubts a process called meta-cognitive doubt it can deepen their commitment to important goals rather than diminish it.

• Researchers used writing tasks and even non-dominant hand writing to nudge people into doubting their thoughts, then measured how that shifted commitment to personal goals.

• This effect showed up among people wrestling with meaningful, long-term identity goals, but experts warn the idea shouldnt be overapplied or used to dismiss real concerns.

If youve ever questioned whether youre on the right path with something deeply important like finishing school, launching a business, or training for a marathon youre not alone.

Psychologists call those moments action crises: times when you seriously wonder whether you should stay the course or throw in the towel.

A team led by psychology professor Patrick Carroll at The Ohio State University wondered whether getting people to literally doubt their own doubts a kind of thinking about thinking known as meta-cognitive doubt might actually change how committed they feel toward their goals.

Instead of boosting confidence directly (as most self-help advice does), they flipped the question: Can questioning your uncertainty make you more committed?

Their answer: yes at least sometimes.

When youre pursuing identity goals, bumps in the roads inevitably arise. There may come a point where the obstacle is big enough to evoke doubts about whether to continue, researcher Dr. Patrick Carroll said in a news release.

What this study found is that inducing doubts in ones doubts can provide a formula for confidence.

The study

Carroll and his colleagues carried out two related experiments to explore this idea.

In the first study, 267 adults started by rating how much they were questioning whether they should continue pursuing a personally meaningful goal an identity goal tied to who they want to become.

Then, participants were given a so-called unrelated writing task: half were asked to write about feeling confident in their thinking, and the other half were asked to write about a time they felt doubtful about their own thoughts. After the writing, everyone rated how committed they felt to their goal.

In a second experiment with 130 college students, the team used a different trick: having participants complete the goal survey using their non-dominant hand, which tends to induce a subtle sense of uncertainty because the shaky writing feels unfamiliar.

The results

In a twist, the first study found that writing about confidence strengthened peoples belief in their original doubts and led to lower commitment. By contrast, writing about their own doubt made people question the reliability of their doubt itself and that nudged some toward greater commitment.

Even with a different method in the second trial, people who were already struggling with doubt about their goals ended up reporting stronger commitment when their confidence in their own thinking was disrupted.

What the results mean and what they dont

This research suggests that the way we evaluate our thoughts matters: when doubt feels like just another thought rather than a rock-solid reason to quit, it may lose some of its power to derail us.

That doesnt mean ignoring all concerns. Carroll and colleagues caution that such techniques should be used carefully and might work best with someone elses guidance (like a therapist or teacher) so you dont slip into overconfidence or dismiss real problems.

You dont want to undermine humility and replace it with overconfidence or premature certainty, Dr. Carroll said. This needs to be used wisely.