Realtors

  Shopify Inc. SHOP-T +5.99% increase chief executive officer Tobi Lutke and his wife Fiona McKean said Thursday that they would donate $26million to a Canada-wide network of children’s hospital foundations through their private charitable organization. Thirteen acute-care hospital foundations will receive $2million each, including those of the IWK Health Centre in Halifax, the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario in Ottawa, Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children, and the BC Children’s Hospital in Vancouver. Ms. McKean and Mr. Lutke worked with two organizations, Canada’s Children’s Hospital Foundations and Children’s Healthcare Canada, to coordinate the new hospital funding. The gift, they said, is intended to help children affected by the pandemic both directly and indirectly, including those whose access to child development, mental health, and surgical services has been affected by the pressure COVID-19 has put on health care systems.   How Shopify’s CEO and his wife pivot...

  NEW YORK (AP) — Target will no longer open its stores on Thanksgiving Day, making permanent a shift to the unofficial start of the holiday season that was suspended during the pandemic. To limit crowds in stores, retailers last year were forced to turn what had become a weekend shopping blitz into an extended event, with big holiday discounts beginning as early as October. U.S. holiday sales last November and December rose 8.2% in 2020 from the previous year, according to The National Retail Federation, the nation’s largest retail trade group. The trade group predicts 2021 could shatter that record, growing between 8.5% and 10.5%. Americans, able to get the same offers over a broader timespan and relieved from some of the stresses that go hand in hand with the holidays, appeared to embrace the change, which has also resonated with workers, Target said. NEW YORK (AP) — Target will no longer open its stores on Thanksgiving Day, making permanent a shift to the unofficial start of th...

Patagonia  saw an astounding $10 million in Black Friday sales ― five times its own expectations ― and, as promised, will donate every cent toward helping save the environment. The high-end outdoor apparel and gear retailer announced the record-breaking haul Monday, saying the “enormous love” its customers showed to the planet will benefit hundreds of grassroots environmental organizations around the world. Company spokeswoman Corley Kenna told The Huffington Post that the idea ― which customers reportedly took to calling a “fundraiser for the earth” ― surfaced during an internal brainstorming meeting following the U.S. presidential election. Patagonia, she said, was looking for something to showcase the importance of the environment and climate change. “We felt that these were issues that united us and I think this is a demonstration that people agree,” Kenna told HuffPost. “Our customers agree.” Patagonia gear will no doubt be a common sight this winter s...

The rapid growth of the build-to-rent housing industry seems ominous for would-be homebuyers, particularly when the inventory for sale is so low. While the size of the industry is still small relative to the entire U.S. housing market, every little bit counts when rising demand is already pushing prices higher — especially for first-time homebuyers. Now with institutional investors such as KKR & Co. buying up houses to rent, the impact could be felt sooner than appreciated. For a little perspective, there were  64,000 homes built to rent  in the U.S. in 2020, up from  37,000 in 2017 . That's significant growth in a few years, but in a country with  over 80 million owner-occupied housing units , we're still talking about less than 0.1% of the existing stock.  That's not the whole story, though. The build-to-rent industry is a much bigger percentage of the annual production of new homes. After a decade of reduced construction following the 200...

Coca-Cola Company has announced that it is testing a more sustainable paper bottle in Hungary, with limited online sales of the product starting this summer. The company’s Brussels-based research and development team is working with Danish startup The Paper Bottle Company on this project, with an ultimate goal for bottles that ‘can be recycled as paper.’ It’s no secret that the planet is filled with plastic waste, including consumer products like plastic bottles — ones quickly used, then discarded, often making their way into landfills, lakes, and the ocean. Consumers are increasingly turning to more Eco-friendly products, reducing their meat consumption and cutting down on personal waste. It’s no surprise, then, that Coca-Cola is looking into fully recyclable bottles that may one day replace ordinary plastic bottles. The company plans a run of 2,000 bottles of AdeZ, a beverage, which will be sold online through the website Kifli.hu. The Paper Bottle Company (Paboco) developed t...

  Too many companies bet on having a cut-throat, high-pressure, take-no-prisoners culture to drive their financial success. But a large and growing body of research on positive organizational psychology demonstrates that not only is a cut-throat environment harmful to productivity over time, but that a positive environment will lead to dramatic benefits for employers, employees, and the bottom line. Although there’s an assumption that stress and pressure push employees to perform more, better, and faster, what cutthroat organizations fail to recognize is the hidden costs incurred. First, health care expenditures at high-pressure companies are nearly 50 %  greater  than at other organizations. The American Psychological Association estimates that more than $500 billion is siphoned off from the U.S. economy because of workplace stress, and 550 million workdays are lost each year due to stress on the job. Sixty percent to 80% of workplace accidents are at...

  Are you looking to change of scene as soon as the pandemic allows it? The health crisis caused by COVID-19 has highlighted the intention of people to locate in safe and more connected cities, especially to do telework. The Lamudi real estate platform found that the location of your home is no longer a determining factor in choosing a home, since the home office has shown that the same work can be done from any state thanks to the internet and that has opened the doors to real estate to a good price and no security issues. "The migratory effect towards secondary cities as a result of the health contingency, revalued the real estate market in areas where its inhabitants have a low perception of insecurity, which gives a plus to the investment made", explained Daniel Narváez, Marketing VP of Lamudi . According to the National Survey of Urban Public Safety , developed by INEGI, in the third quarter of 2020 cities such as Mérida, San Pedro Garza García, San Nicolás de l...