Four years ago I fell into the abyss that would come to be known as the Great Recession. In a matter of weeks, jobs were lost, paychecks vanished, and my lifestyle changed. Read more…
Making Do With Less
Filed under economic crisis, Economy, Emotions, family, life, moods, philosophy, random, thoughts, work, Work & Life
Facing Reality
I created a Facebook page because I realized it was the most annoying thing I could do to my kids. Kids don’t want their parents on a social network they consider their own, and grow especially uncomfortable when their classmates send friend requests to their parents.
Since I’m too old for spring break and too tired to attend many all-night parties, I wasn’t worried about any embarrassing photos showing up on the site. So I was somewhat surprised to realize, with or without business questionable images, that Facebook could create potentially sticky issues. Continue reading
Filed under friends, random, Technology, work
Fear of Falling and Being Followed
Fear of Falling--Icarus
If I could have the superpower of my choice, I’d take the ability to fly. But based on my impulsivity, I’d probably fly too close to the sun, like the Greek god Icarus. So I’d be better off with my second choice…invisibility.
There’s something intriguing about wandering anonymously through the day, going wherever you want, doing whatever you want-no questions asked, no calls from the office.
And this brings me to Twitter, the impossibly popular micro-blogging service that lets users stay connected through the exchange of short status messages. It’s designed to let you answer the question “What are you doing?” -and share those updates with colleagues, family and friends. Continue reading
The Lure of Property Auctions
In the not so distant past, hard to sell properties ended on the rental market. Now they’re more likely to endat auction. Just last month, two New York City real estate executives launched Bid on the City to auction residential and commercial properties.
The founders, Albert Feinstein and Vlad Sapozhnikov, have high hopes for the site. “It’s going to be huge,” Feinstein said. The auction process “speeds the process, makes it more convenient and accomplishes the objective of selling the property.” Continue reading
Filed under Economy, globest, Real Estate, realtybytes, Technology, Technology news
Challenging Multifamily Stereotypes
The National Multi Housing Council is turning to technology to fight stereotypes about apartments and the people who live in them. It created this PowerPoint, based on a keynote speech NMHC President Doug Bibby made before the Federal Reserve Board of Governors last month.
The NMHC calls it a “powerful advocacy tool” designed to make four key points:
- America wants rental housing.
- America needs rental housing.
- Renters—be they affordable renters or lifestyle renters—are not second-class citizens.
- There is a growing disconnect between America’s housing needs and its current housing policy.
“A number of macro factors are converging to make rental housing not only desirable, but necessary,” the NMHC states. “ They include a projected 33 percent surge in population by 2030, a worsening affordable housing shortage and a growing desire to accommodate our population growth in a fiscally and environmentally sustainable manner.”
Numbers Game
If you want to buy or lease real estate, find a broker. But if you just want to get a full picture of the real estate in a specific geographic area, then find the census enumerator that worked the block.
Enumerators walk from property to property, block by block, verifying addresses and sorting residential from commercial properties. They count apartment units, look for hidden units and conclude, in some cases, if a seemingly uninhabitable space is really some body’s home.
It’s a necessary, though time consuming job that legions of temporary workers perform nationwide every 10 years, in advance of the Decennial Census.
The task has remained virtually unchanged since the first US census in 1790. But the tools used to perform it have changed significantly–and the history of those changes effectively mirror the history of technological change.
When the first census was taken, slightly more than a year after George Washington became the nation’s first President, US marshals supervised assistants appointed to collect the data. The enumerators had no printed data sheets to guide them and had to provide their own supplies, including paper and pencils.
More than two centuries later, enumerators are using hand-held computers (HCCs) and GPS to plot, record and update the information on every possible living space in a significantly larger United States. It’s not the most sophisticated technology: the HCCs have little computing power. They’re slow and prone to intermittent freezes. As for the GPS, enumerators concur it’s not the best geographic positioning system on the market.
Even with its problems and glitches, the technology represents a huge advance over the days when every piece of data was collected by hand. It helps standardize the data and make it somewhat more reliable.
It’s useful…but it’s no substitute for the enumerators themselves. They still have to walk from property or property, counting, evaluating and using their intuition as much as their technology. It confirms what everyone in real estate already knows: technology is only as good as the judgment of those who use it.
Filed under globest, life, random, Real Estate, realtybytes, Technology, Technology news, thoughts, US Census, work, Work & Life
