Recession, Uncertainty Hammer Big-Ticket PurchasesWhat to know what’s selling today? Not big-ticket items. On a scale of 1-10 (1 is the lowest, 10 is the highest), here is a shorthand — mine — for the magnitude of various consumer (and business) purchase decisions. Just like the Richter scale, this scale is logarithmic, kind of (8.0...Read More
Latest Unemployment Numbers According to the Labor Department, the U.S. economy shed 598,000 jobs in December. What does that mean for the housing market? In a nutshell: 598,000 fewer home buyers. Statistically, you’d guess that a least a couple thousand of those laid off in December were at various stages of buying a home. That...Read More
Old-Fashioned TechnologyMakes Real Estate Comeback “Nobody goes to that restaurant anymore. It’s too crowded.”–Yogi Berra Yogi Berra could easily say the same things about the Internet today, especially with respect to real estate. Consider: –Online photos are now routinely so overly-flattering, you literally don’t recognize the home when you’re standing in it. –Facebook and MySpace...Read More
