Post I never hit Publish on - November 2007 Real Estate

Housing prices down only 4.5%, but unsold backlog reaches 10 months

In earlier posts (Sunk-cost fallacy in real estate), we documented the reluctance of homeowners to sell at a loss. Now the Wall St Journal reports that housing prices have fallen only 4.5% from their March 2006 peak and, due to the reluctance of sellers to reduce price, there is a ten month backlog of unsold houses.Keeping your house on the market can cost as much as 1% of the house value each month. Their advice:Ask your real-estate agent how many properties are on the market in your town today and how many sold in each of the past six months, advises Chris Mayer, director of Columbia Business School's Milstein Center for Real Estate. "If there are 2,000 houses on the market and 200 houses sold last month, that means it's taking 10 months to sell a house," Prof. Mayer says. "That's pretty simple math, but nobody ever does it. If you price your house like everybody else, it might

take 10 months to sell it."

"Just How Realistic is 'Government 2.0'?" - not

Having been inside many governmental organizations, I can tell you that it will take a LOT more effort to get people to change. One of oft misunderstood positives of a government organization is that they aren't driven by profit or the bottom line. Sometimes lethargy can actually be good in a giant and vast bureaucracy.

One of the main inhibitors to governmental adoption of "web 2.0" technology is the power curve and adoption models. Government tends to not invest in technology until the private sector has done so and figured it out some (though that doesn't help the government much in integrating it well). So until companies can figure out how to profit from wikis and other tools, don't look for it too much in the government. The more important factor is the government workers themselves, who skew old. Many government workers are actually technically savvie. However, getting the majority of workers to use a new set of tools is very challenging.

Just How Realistic is "Government 2.0"?

via HarvardBusiness.org on 5/20/08

I don't doubt that these tools will have some impact on how governmental information and services are delivered. I also don't have any doubt that they will not drive as much change as Don (and his co-author Anthony Williamson as quoted in a CIO Insight article ) apparently believe they will. Don said that "government 2.0" was the most important change for government in more than a century. Williamson (and Tapscott, to a slightly lesser degree) "foresees Web 2.0 technologies being employed to transform service delivery, make smarter policies, flatten silos and, most importantly, reinvigorate democracy."

Of course, there may be a few hitches in this miraculous transformation. One caller who works in the U.S. federal government called in to Don today, saying something like, "I can't even get a replacement for my six year old computer—how will the federal government be able to transform itself with wikis?" Don basically replied, "Sure, there will be some cultural obstacles, but this sort of change is inevitable."

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Our votingin experiment tonight

Here is the voting experiment we're trying tonight:



More Free SelectSmart.com Widgets

One selection for . . . Stephen Colbert!!! And that wasn't mine! The real result was for Duncan Hunter, and next most in it candidate Mitt Romney (that was a surprise).

Your tax dollars at work (on a map)

Ever wondered where all your tax dollars go? Sure, we all do.

Ever wondered where they go GEOGRAPHICALLY?? Thank you tireless researchers and Google Earth!

Here are the "1,500 earmarks in the House Defense Appropriations bill":



via: http://lifehacker.com/software/google-earth/map-where-congress-budgets-your-taxes-319889.php
originally: http://www.sunlightfoundation.com/node/4172
Google Earth KML: http://www.sunlightlabs.com/earmarks/house_defense_earmarks_08.kml


The click through data (once you view in Google Earth) aren't always stellar (data is plural, remember), but there are hidden gems for sure. The sheer volume of money is worth it.

No more debates for at least 5 months

A never was, a hag, a never will be and a guy who is photogenic but has no substance:


But at least people know them (there was a recent poll saying over 50% of Americans couldn't name a Republican candidate, there's hope for you Ron Paul!).

WaPo is live blogging the non-story debate. Would having that job be considered torture by the UN? Would Dick Cheney consider it worse than waterboarding?

Odds are no one said anything new, no one convinced voters that they are good, but money and valuable electrons were wasted.

Here's to you, 21st Century American politics! (remember, someone once voted for Howard Taft and Martun Van Buren...)