global thought bubble

NYT Says Take Blogs Seriously
In a 367-word editorial The New York Times editors told the world today that it takes the blogosphere seriously. The underlying message is we all should follow their lead. The editors wrote…

It’s natural enough to think of the growth of the blogosphere as a merely technical phenomenon. But it’s also a profoundly human phenomenon, a way of expanding and, in some sense, reifying the ephemeral daily conversation that humans engage in. Every day the blogosphere captures a little more of the strange immediacy of the life that is passing before us. Think of it as the global thought bubble of a single voluble species.

Friday, August 05, 2005

http://www.micropersuasion.com/2005/08/nyt_says_take_b.html

Related Articles

Three Percent Drop or The China Scenario?

Globe_neep1_1Two weeks after we challenged frothy assertions
about the housing market in a page one story in the Boston Globe, the
real estate bubble is back on the front page.  This time instead of
quoting brokers and builders, the Globe turned to a more credible
source:  the New England Economic Partnership.  They forecast "a modest
housing slump in Massachusetts that will last through early 2007, with prices,
at the bottom, declining about 3 percent." 

While NEEP projects that falling prices will be offset by a strengthening regional economy, Princeton Economist Paul Krugman paints a much bleaker scenario in his editorial, The Chinese Connection, in today’s New York Times. Here’s a snippet:

"Here’s what I think will happen if and when China changes its currency
policy, and those cheap loans [to the US treasury] are no longer available. U.S. interest
rates will rise; the housing bubble will probably burst; construction
employment and consumer spending will both fall; falling home prices
may lead to a wave of bankruptcies. And we’ll suddenly wonder why
anyone thought financing the budget deficit was easy."

Earlier this week, Krugman told an audience in Bangkok, "There is a real bubble mentality in the US housing market,” adding that prices of US housing were 250% of their real values.

So if one’s perception of the regional, national, and global
economies determines one’s belief about whether the housing bubble will
deflate or burst, where do you stand?  We’d love to hear your
perspective, particularly if
you are buying or selling this Spring.  (If you do decide to buy
despite the real estate bubble debate, we invite you to use our commission rebates as a cushion against a loss in value.  If you’re selling, why not try for sale by owner to maximize your equity particularly if prices begin to slide in the second half of 2005?)

Co-authored by Bill Wendel and Douglas McCarroll, our newest real estate consultant / buyer agent at The Real Estate Cafe

A weblog Article with plenty of links

Blogpressure1_2For the past 50 days, The Real Estate Cafe has been living it’s own
case study, trying to find out whether blogging really influences how
many people visit our site.  Yes, during our mini-sabbatical, we’ve been
working on some exciting things behind the scenes and collecting lots
of audio files for a podcast.  And yes, we were interviewed by the
Center for Realtor Technology (even though we are NOT Realtors) for
their report on blogging in real estate which was released today.
But most importantly, we participated in
RadioOpenSource.org‘s program on "The Beginning of the End of the Real
Estate Bubble
," and two clips from our real estate bubble audio time
capsule
were played on the national broadcast (which was their first on XM
radio!  Exciting!)

Truth be told, we have also been suffering (at least tongue in cheek)
from "Bloggers Depression."  But after reading this remarkable publication, complete with reassuring
illustrations like the one above, it’s a relief to know we are not
alone and that we no longer need to suffer in silence!

Single family sales drop 10% in MA

Rerealitycheck1_1Real estate headlines seem to be everywhere these days, from today’s lead story in USA Today, — the second in two weeks, to Monday’s "Condo a Go-Go" story and slide show in the New York Times, to Saturday’s story in the Washington Post about a Playboy centerfold who is giving up her modeling to become a real estate investor. 

Despite those sexy news angles and industry spin that "everything is coming up roses," the most revealing finding for home buyers and sellers in Massachusetts is today’s Boston Globe Business headline: 

State home sales sag 10% in April

According to the Massachusetts Association of Realtors, the number of single-family homes sold in April was down 10.4 percent
from 2004, marking the first double-digit
decline since April 2003.

Will price corrections revive slumping market?

Nytimes_pg1_100405_3After a series of front page stories on the real estate bubble in the Boston Globe this year, their parent company, The New York Times, put this headline on page one today: "Slowing Is Seen in Housing Prices in Hot Markets."  Citing statistics about slowing sales, rising inventories, and flattening prices in Boston and elsewhere…

The question remains whether all of this represents a momentary cooling
off of some overheated housing markets, or it presages a more
pronounced downturn that would end a decade-long boom.

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