I have repeatedly blogged about the impending housing market crisis. While not as apocalyptic as my stated position, SmartMoney story “Home Crunch” warns of problems on the coasts, where inflated home prices and risky mortgages will pinch many home owners.
In my neighborhood, signs of a sales slowdown are everywhere. Two houses around the corner have been on the market for months. A year ago, they would have sold within a week. Some houses are selling, but the turnover clearly is slowing down.
Ah, the power of the single voice, amplified by the reach of the World Wide Web. Today’s New York Times story, “AOL Said, ‘If You Leave Me I’ll Do Something Crazy’“, once again highlights the power of the Web, particularly Weblogs or content-sharing sites like YouTube. Randall Stross’ story is also a tell-tale account of how difficult can be account cancellation.
The story starts with a Bronx man’s 21-minute phone call seeking to cancel his AOL account: “Vincent Ferrari, 30, of the Bronx…recorded the five minutes of interaction with the AOL customer service representative and, a week later, posted the audio file on his blog, Insignificant Thoughts. Shortly thereafter, those five minutes became the online equivalent of a top-of-the-charts single”.
This evening, I stopped into Penn Camera to pick up that spare Nikon D200 battery ordered about a week earlier. I waited behind a guy spending big on a digital camera, although it was uncertain if he understood what he was buying.
Thomas Hawk might appreciate this: A Canon EOS 5D, Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM lens, Canon Speedlite 430EX flash, memory card, and some other stuff I couldn’t quite make out. The buyer seemed somewhat perplexed by the $5,500 total. I thought, “It’s what you pay for a full-frame sensor”. Turns out, Canon rebates would put more than 500 bucks back in his pocket—$300 off the 5D. The camera is practically a steal at $2,699 after rebate.