× Like us and you'll find top breaking news in your Facebook newsfeed. Sign up for our daily email newsletter and get top stories and breaking news delivered to your inbox. Thursday, January 3, 2013, by Amy Schellenbaum
Showing posts with label Daily. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Daily. Show all posts
Thursday, January 10, 2013
Saturday, March 31, 2012
[In The Media] Yahoo! Finance’s The Daily Ticker 3-22-12
Posted by Jonathan J. Miller -Friday, March 23, 2012, 8:40 PM
No Comments
Had a fun discussion with Aaron Task and Dan Gross over at Yahoo! Finance’s The Daily Ticker.
Dan Gross wrote a column based on the interview called: Should Fannie Mae Sell Foreclosed Homes in Bulk to Hedge Funds? Dan asks the question:
What could go wrong? Well, as Aaron Task and I discuss with Jonathan Miller, president and chief executive officer of appraisal firm Miller Samuel and proprietor of the authoritative Matrix real estate blog, pretty much everything.
From the heavy comment volume on the post, I’d say the take for Yahoo! Finance readers to Dan’s question was: NO
Friday, February 17, 2012
How To Wrangle up All Your Daily Deals
If you're like us you may catch yourself snagging a daily deal from the likes of Groupon every now and then. With the flood of daily deal competitors out there (LivingSocial, Google Offers, Eversave, etc) however, the hard part is keeping track of them all. Click past the break for some tips we use to corral up all those dogies.
An estimated 20% of daily deals purchased go unused and forgotten. Here's what you can do to make sure you're not on the wrong side of that stat.
1. Utilize your Smartphone or Tablet
Go to your Favorite To-do app and make a Tab, Folder, or Category for all your daily deals. Don't have a favorite to-do app? Then now might be the time for you to download Wunderlist. This great app is available for iOS, Android, Mac and PC and best of all it is F-R-E-E! Buy deals of various types? Make separate tabs or folders for each kind of deal so you can browse them when deciding where to go eat or shop.
2. Get disciplined
Each time you buy a deal, open the app on your smartphone or computer and then add the deal to the folder you created. For clarity put in as much detail as possible - the value of the coupon, the expiration date, and most importantly which site you purchased it from.
3. Add Reminders and Alerts
These deals expire, so set an alert or reminder weeks before the due date so you have time to use it. We set alerts 45 days ahead of the due date to avoid being in the middle of mass-redemption rush at restaurants or stores. From our experience it seems most people wait until the last week to use these deals, and you might be either hard-pressed finding a table, the restaurant is out of all the good stuff, or the store is cleared out of everything of value. We feel the 45 days is a good amount of cushion to avoid that potential fiasco.
4. Go Green while Saving Green
Lots of the daily deal sites have their own smartphone apps as well, allowing you to go paper-free. Put them all in a convenient folder on your iPhone or all on a page of your Android device. When it's time to use the deal all you have to do is cue up the app, find your deal, and give the redemption number to the waiter or merchant.If you know you're going ahead of time it might be smart to open up the app at home and take a snapshot of the redemption number with your smartphone (press home and power button simultaneously on an iPhone). This is in case there are network issues at the restaurant or merchant and you have trouble loading the coupon when you need it most. Trust us, it happens.
5. Mark them off
Finally when you do use your deals be sure to mark them off your phone and mark them as redeemed on the site. The daily deal sites often don't manage this for us, so this last step is critical for avoiding having a deal you used but not sure you really did.
Don't have a smartphone or not into all the App hysteria?
The same steps work for your Google Calendar. Look under 'My calendars' and click on 'Tasks'. The Tasks window will appear on the right side of your calendar. Now simply relabel it to something more meaningful (such as 'Daily Deals') and then roll in all your deals. Rawhide!
Thursday, October 13, 2011
The Daily Scavenger: Eastern Edition
• BALTIMORE: Mid Century Chrome Rocker — $350
• BALTIMORE: Green Velvet Armchair — $20
• BALTIMORE: Carved Round End Table — $20
• HARTFORD: (2) Elephant Side Tables — $300
• HARTFORD: Fruit Wood Credenza — $125
• HARTFORD: Moosehead End Table — $75
• BOSTON: Moroccan Rug — $1400
• BOSTON: Vintage Drop Leaf Table — $150
• BOSTON: Drafting Table — $245
• PROVIDENCE: White Desk — $50
• PROVIDENCE: Maple Dry Sink — $25
• PROVIDENCE: Vintage Vinyl Ottoman — $15
• NEW YORK: Venetian Glass Table — $499
• NEW YORK: Handsome Wine Cabinet — $300
• NEW YORK: Custom Mahogany Table — $295
• PHILADELPHIA: Gray Console Table — $150
• PHILADELPHIA: (2) Panton Chairs — $90
• WASHINGTON DC: Vintage Dollhouse — $175
• WASHINGTON DC: Mid Century Desk — $300
• WASHINGTON DC: Leather Couch — $150
Apartment Therapy is not the seller of these items. This is an edited selection of our favorite offerings from other independent sources. Please check the item's link for the original source. Happy Scavenging!
Monday, May 30, 2011
At Home With David Cameron: Today the Daily Mail takes a...
× Like us and you'll find top breaking news in your Facebook newsfeed. Sign up for our daily email newsletter and get top stories and breaking news delivered to your inbox. Wednesday, May 25, 2011, by Sarah Firshein
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Thursday, May 5, 2011
Steady stream of <b>real estate</b> inquiries (page 1) | Otago Daily <b>...</b>
Mr Elford, of Edinburgh Realty, was fielding "steady inquiries" from Christchurch businesses for service and light manufacturing sites.
At this stage, inquiries were "tentative" because of uncertainty over contracts and insurance policies.
Most businesses were trying to find alternative premises in Christchurch. Other centres would likely receive the "over-flow", too, he said.
He had been contacted by Dunedin landlords, who were keen to help, rather than profit from the disaster, he said,South Dunedin property was more likely to be in demand than the CBD, he said.
Commercial real estate agent Tim Barnett also had had inquiries, but people were "clarifying" their insurance and other obligations before making plans.
Nidd Realty principal Liz Nidd, also Real Estate Institute of New Zealand Otago president, said her residential property management office was going "ballistic".
Quake refugees were trying to outbid each other for properties.
Most inquiries were for rentals, she said.
Some people were relocating for business even though firms were unable to make firm decisions about commercial real estate, she said.
"[Businesses] need to know the status of their [commercial] rental contracts and leases before they can make definite decisions.
"They are looking, but I don't think there are people letting [properties] at this stage."
Saturday, February 5, 2011
The Allure of <b>Real Estate</b> - Fred Buzzeo - Mises Daily
These days everyone is sitting at the edge of their seats waiting for a real-estate recovery. Indeed, during the past ten years, everyone has become a real-estate addict. It is hard for me to walk down the street without someone telling me that the market has "hit bottom" or that the market is on the "rebound."
Do I know anyone interested in this piece of property, they ask? Is the timing right? Can I put together a deal? These are the questions that I am constantly bombarded with by the real-estate "junkies" that I encounter while making my rounds trying to find the next deal — and my next paycheck.
Most people are attracted to real estate because they perceive it to be a high-powered game. They envision building empires the way that most of us have done on the Monopoly board. People like real estate because it is a sexy investment. And unlike stocks and bonds, it can actually be touched and admired. You can even live in it. It is part of the American dream.
As a developer, I can tell you from personal experience that completing a project, no matter how small, gives one a great sense of accomplishment. I have colleagues in the business that have transformed entire city skylines. Wow! It gives me a rush just thinking about it.
These attributes, however, are what makes real estate so volatile and, therefore, dangerous. Fortunes have been made and lost — sometimes within the course of the same business cycle. And the fact of the matter is that most of the real-estate-development process is not even under your control. You can be stymied in all of your efforts by some government planner who has never risked a dollar of his own money and who has never even added a single unit to the real-estate inventory. A notable mention should also be given to the roller-coaster ride that most developers are given by the erratic monetary policy of the Federal Reserve.
Because the real-estate market constitutes a large portion of GDP, the government closely watches over real-estate activity. Housing inventory and vacancy rates are studied. Even the number of building permits filed is monitored along with a dozen of other statistics that relate to real-estate activity.
There is no denying that real estate is an important component of the economy. In fact, the world economy is currently in a tailspin caused by the malinvestment that found its way into the real-estate development process.
Therefore, the government is focused on stabilizing the market. Each day that you read the paper, you will find some new government concoction aimed at reversing the real-estate meltdown. In fact, you read about all sorts of ideas aimed at stabilizing the real-estate market so that economic growth can be stimulated.
Nevertheless, all the "support" that the government has given to the real-estate market in the last few years has done very little. Even the S&P/Case-Shiller Index has indicated that the real-estate market has weakened further. According to the recently released numbers, six cities have hit new bottoms. This is not good news for the government whiz kids working on the real-estate recovery.
Therefore, the real question to ask is, can you spur economic activity by getting the real-estate market moving upward again? It seems to me that this is like putting the proverbial cart before the horse. Let me explain:
In order to get the housing market moving again, there must be willing and able buyers. People are usually willing and able to buy when they have jobs. Without economic expansion, there is no job creation. Without jobs, people do not have the confidence or the purchasing power to consider buying or investing in real estate.
Once again, we can turn to Say's law for guidance here. An increase in productive activity, and hence job growth, will create the demand for products in general, including the demand for homes and other real-estate assets.
With an unemployment rate above 9 percent, not to mention the current rate of underemployment, the US economy is not positioned to create significant job growth. The small business man, the main engine of job growth, is still financially strapped and unable to expand and create value. Unless this situation is altered, there will be no significant growth in real-estate assets. This is not rocket science.
So it seems to me that the main focus should be aimed at increasing US productive capacity. As a free-market operative, I may be biased. My prescription is therefore simple — let the free market operate and we will reach a new equilibrium in the shortest amount of time possible. The Depression of 1920–21 proves this conclusively. It was over in one year and has been labeled "our last natural recovery to full employment." This short duration and the minimal amount of government interference are the reasons that this economic downturn is conveniently "forgotten" by the mainstream.
My next suggestion is going to shock many nonbelievers: stop trying to stabilize the market. Let the market deflate. Real-estate prices are still too high in many areas. Therefore, seasoned investors — at least those who still have some money left — are not buying. The risk–return ratio is still not positive, or at least still not acceptable.
Prices must drop to a point where mortgage payments are not consuming an entire paycheck. After all, there is still milk and bread to buy, not to mention little Johnny's tuition payments. And let's not focus simply on the Housing Affordability Index, a statistic that just before the meltdown was telling us how cheap it was to own.
The proper way to look at this is to compare the cost of buying a house to the cost of renting a similar unit. If after you factor in the tax expenditure and any possible appreciation, it still makes more sense to rent than to buy, then the price is too high. When I am marketing a unit, this is the first analysis that I perform to determine value. Obviously, valuation is more complicated with larger investment properties where we must employ discounted-cash-flow analysis and other financial modeling. But the crux of the problems that we are experiencing today is in the primary and secondary home markets.
"You can be stymied in all of your efforts by some government planner who has never risked a dollar of his own money."A deflation in the market will also restore the confidence of prospective buyers. No one is going to buy a home that is underwater on the date of closing. Everyone wants to feel that there is some value in the asset that they buy. We have not reached that point yet.
From a personal perspective — I look at real-estate assets nearly every day — I am still not finding any deals that make sense. Short sales are the only game in town and many of them are still not reasonable given the amount of work necessary to bring the unit to a marketable state. In addition, most short sales wind up not closing. To protect against this, title companies that I deal with want the title-search fee up-front when they realize that they are working on a short sale.
It is only when prices drop to the point where the deal makes sense that housing inventory will drop to normal levels — a sign that the "bottom" has been reached. Even today, inventory in many markets is too high. As of December 2010, the national inventory level is at 10.5 months. It is much higher in specific markets. For example, it will take over 20 months to absorb the roughly several thousand units priced over 500K that are currently for sale in Miami-Dade County. A healthy inventory of homes is somewhere between 4 and 6 months. Therefore, prices are still too high.
I am all for workouts for buyers who put down a substantial down payment and have equity in their homes but simply cannot make the mortgage payment due to a reduction in personal income. This is a free-market approach that many smart bankers are employing. However, those homes that are underwater and cannot be saved should be heading straight to foreclosure. The quicker that this happens, the quicker the market will reach bottom and the quicker that the homeowner will be free of a heavy financial burden. This deflation, a condition that is simply an economic adjustment, is a necessary requirement to subdue an overheated market.
The same scenario is applicable to the commercial real-estate market. Everywhere you look you can see vacant commercial spaces that were occupied for years by the same tenant. If small businessmen experience a loss, they will eventually shut down and vacate the spaces they once occupied. Unless small business begins to grow, the spaces will remain empty. There is, therefore, no way to help the commercial real-estate market unless you can generate a healthy rate of small-business formation.
Finally, I should like to point out that all of the TARP money given to banks did absolutely nothing to help the ordinary consumer. All it did was positively adjust the balance sheets of the "too-big-to-fail" institutions. Most banks are sitting on cash and simply not lending unless they are in an extremely favorable position. This sounds ironic because it was their unhampered lending that created the mess in the first place.
Contrary to the thinking of the government economists, banks are not going to lend money, even if it rightfully belongs to the taxpayer, simply to increase the number of nonperforming loans on their balance sheets. Why aggravate the situation? Anyhow, does anyone really think that the bailouts were aimed at helping the consumer?
Fred Buzzeo is a real-estate developer and a consultant to small property owners in the New York City area. He resides with his wife and two sons in the Town of Oyster Bay, (Long Island), NY. During the 1990s, he held executive positions in city municipal government. It is during this employment that he saw firsthand the pitfalls of government intervention and regulation. Send him mail. See Fred Buzzeo's article archives.
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Saturday, January 22, 2011
Behind the Scenes With Photog. Evan Joseph: Today's New York Daily News profiles...
× Like us and you'll find top breaking news in your Facebook newsfeed. Sign up for our daily email newsletter and get top stories and breaking news delivered to your inbox. Friday, January 7, 2011, by Sarah
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