I didn't see this but maybe I just looked over it. I'd like a link to a page where I could browse through all your topic tags. I'd also like a link to a page that I could naviagate to older posts by month/year.
AMZN is a friggin RETAILER that needs diesel trucks and drivers to personally deliver every single item. Good business model with $120 oil. Gotta love their prospects!
on SBUX:
What's killing them isn't the recession exactly. Its that every Suzy Orman style financial advisor out there spouts off about the "latte factor"- that spending $5 a day at Starbucks could instead be saved and, through the magic of compounding interest, keep you comfortable for a year in retirement.
It was even on friggin Oprah! You can't fight Oprah!
Now the "savers" avoiding Starbucks are probably still paying 25% interest on their credit cards, but, hey, at least they feel like they took the first steps and can tell their spouse their trying to cut back.
Just another company reporting disappointing sales.
NOT!
SBUX is the quintessential company that believed only in the upside of economic cycles. Their management philosophy and business model was based on the unlimited ability of the American consumer to keep spending more and more money on frills, ad infinitum.
SBUX developed a unique formula for minting money in a time of consumer excess. They could have said: We'll put 70% of our foot on the gas and 30% on the brake. We'll plan for the next downturn, whenever it is and however deep it is.
They didn't.
SBUX isn't overleveraged financially like a lot of other restaurant chains that expanded too fast, without any market feasibility analysis.
But they are overleveraged in locations, leases, leasehold improvements and employees.
I like the new layout but was disappointed the commenting system is the same. I would rather see them as /. style, clicking on comments brings you to the "below the fold" page and the comments are under the story. The popup window is annoying.
Right now, McDonald's is heavily advertising its espresso products on TV, in ads that are making fun of pseudosophisticates who think it is cool to hang out in a coffeehouse.
Brutal stuff.
Starbucks is an easy place to cut expenses. In fact, just buy the beans or ground coffee and cut out the middleman.
But people don't buy coffee at Starbucks, they buy a dessert with a little coffee flavor. Like everything else in the US, a simple cup of coffee gets bloated into an oversweet, fat-laden coffee-flavored drink.
I hope Dunkin Donuts is taking an equal hit. Of all the useless places, DD has to be the bottom.
Not going to Starbucks is an easy way to pick up $5 off the floor.
Somebody earlier this year was touting how Starbucks is all about lifestyle and doesn't compete with McDonalds or Dunkin Donuts. I don't think that theory is holding. Pretty soon, people won't even be going to McDonalds or Dunkin Donuts for the coffee, but they'll be going for the food in dumpster out back.
Hmmh, if people are cutting back on coffee at Starbucks, do you think they'd be buying new cars? And, with gas at $3.54, do you think most would buy anything other than a small car with high mpg?
Rest of the year will be scary for the auto industry.
Good point. Daily Lattes are always on the hit-list of financial fix-it advisors...
But I think their biggest problem, (other than the obvious fact that consumers are getting squeezed) is the tarnishing of their brand with cheap-looking locations everywhere.
Did I rant about how this is the same guy who sold the Sonics (NBA) to an out-of-town group, and then was so suprised the new owners wanted to move the team to their hometown?
"SBUX isn't overleveraged financially like a lot of other restaurant chains that expanded too fast, without any market feasibility analysis. But they are overleveraged in locations, leases, leasehold improvements and employees."
In my town, Starbucks bought a corner property ~2 years ago for a new store. But nothing was ever built; property just sits there, an abandoned Der Weinerschnitzel of all things.
Makes you wonder how much unused real estate they've got right now.
Retired, yet still v. serious, graphic designer here. Re. new layout:
main positive: I like the single vs. dbl. sidebar
main negative: font. Too large (less text fits on a screen than before even w/o 2nd sidebar) and -most important- serif fonts are more comfortable to read than sans-serif for any serious amt. of text.
Some kind of tag/label-based topic access in the sidebar would be very nice.
Needs some kind of section head to introduce the off-site links (Krugman, housing wire, etc.). That off-site link bkgd. is too dark and your eye goes to it.. makes it seem like the major aim of the blog. That section needs to be have a subtle bkgd. -match the value of the blue of "Recent Analysis".
Mixing of 90°-corner boxes and rounded-corner boxes -yuck. They should all be one or the other; treat them all the same. Same story w/ outline box vs. no-outline box. When something is different, start by using ONE aspect to distinguish it: either color OR outline (then as a last resort -I would say never- box shape).
The header is a bit cheezy (not even cheezy.. it's nowhere) and it's a big step back from the old one. Doesn't convey "I know whereof I speak" anywhere near as much as before, even given that the old one was v.. simple. Serif font, again, would help, but that's just the first step.
Stuff that does not align (as in header)=> cheap-looking. Mixing stuff that is flush left with stuff that is centered => cheap-looking.
Overpaying for corners is exactly how so many of those chain drug stores went out of business. They would pay as much as 3x comps. Now most are distant memories.
Has anybody noticed a troubling trend with earnings? Those who've done well have done so either (a) because they had nice gains from foreign sales and Forex gains or (b) because they deal in products jacked up in price, such as commodities producers.
What happens when the lag of our consumer slowdown (and you can add the UK and other debtor nations to that as well) starts to hammer foreign companies and their consumers?
And what happens when the commodities price jumps start to cause consumers worldwide to cut back on non-essentials?
We've got a major crash in world aggregate demand coming. I think IBM/CAT/AAPL strong earnings are the final spasm of this earnings bubble.
ShortCourage,
If you mean the national economy is in the dumps and the rest of the world will slow, too, I've noticed. The question is, does the sh## hit the fan when it actually hits the fan or when Wall Street says it does? Is your leg broken when you break it or when the doctor tells you it is?
Starbucks is just an indicator, and as many have said here, this is the best way to cut back. But it's not just them that will take a hit, it's DD and all the other ones too. Around here there have to be 20 DDs within a 5 mile radius of my house. Only one SBUX though.
And if you just go in for a cup of coffee, SBUX isn't much more than any place else. It's just when you get one of those soccer mom drinks that it gets pricey. Just order an Americano, or coffee of the day. Or better yet, buy a bag and get the free coffee that comes with it and then brew it in the morning at home. That's what I do.
Starbucks is just an indicator, and as many have said here, this is the best way to cut back. But it's not just them that will take a hit, it's DD and all the other ones too. Around here there have to be 20 DDs within a 5 mile radius of my house. Only one SBUX though.
And if you just go in for a cup of coffee, SBUX isn't much more than any place else. It's just when you get one of those soccer mom drinks that it gets pricey. Just order an Americano, or coffee of the day. Or better yet, buy a bag and get the free coffee that comes with it and then brew it in the morning at home. That's what I do.
Not just another company. A company that cons people into thinking that strong bitter coffee is "premium" coffee and deserves a super high price. When money gets tight, people tend to wake up to cons.
New design: "War Kittens?" "No, just regular kittens."
SBUX; I've been there 3-4 times and Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf and even a few Dunkin's. Dunkin's excepted their business model is seriously exposed. Their job is to pick up discretionary time, travel and money. Gee what is contracting? Unless they switch to job hunt resource centres their future is bleak. Dunkin's can always go back to donuts.
Starbuck's biggest problem has to be CRE leases at peak prices. They don't go away when the store closes.
I am not sure how I ran across this site, but it is interesting.
I call it the Doom and Gloom site...obviously from some folks that got seriously burned in the RE bubble with a determination to accentuate the negatives.
"Not just another company. A company that cons people into thinking that strong bitter coffee is "premium" coffee and deserves a super high price. When money gets tight, people tend to wake up to cons."
That's what I'm hoping for with cell phone, cable, "high speed" Internet, and consumer telecom in general.
Starbucks said Wednesday that it customer research shows that customers are visiting Starbucks stores less often but are not substituting other coffee products for Starbucks
That answers the competition question and the beverage mix question. I'd be willing to bet there's less expensive drink sales.
No left column is a big plus - that way on symbian browser for mobile, no scrolling to the right to get to the middle of the page. Flush left = good.
As for comments...when Im on symbian mobile, they already opened in a new window anyway, but with Mozilla firefox, it was pretty easy to just right click comments and choose "open in new tab", so that wasnt a big deal.
Dont like the header...screams of, Im nowhere, on some lame blog by some lame high school kid. Needs more presence.
Blue is also my fav color, but Ive become accustomed to green. I'll deal.
Font size is way too big.
Right column is too wide - ratio with left is all wrong.
The font is not easy on the eyes. There are sans serifs which work better - arial or something.
The new design doesn't float right. It should fill the whole screen. With a 22W monitor it just sits all compressed on the left. Also, when you adjust the font to a larger size (65, old eyes) you can only see about 10 lines of narrow text. Better would be a fixed width right sidebar and left side that adjusts to fill the rest of the screen.
"once the smart money moves quickly through the exits"
I am with you, sort of. My last couple of months have been spent trying to figure out where this smart money is gonna go. Last bubble it went to housing. Now a lot has gone to commodities. IF the FOMC comes out with an annoucement that spooks commodities markets and there's a rush for the exits (my thoughts), WHERE DOES IT GO?
I am wondering if it heads into companies with good balance sheets and cash flow. But I seriously don't know. It has to go somewhere, and the bond market won't be the place because it'll come screaming out of there too.
Out of curiosity, does anyone remember when we used to go to war to get out of a recession? Maybe we could go to war in '09..... oh wait, nevermind.....
BTW, I am not from Gallup, but the "forest trail" seems to be garnering more support than Hillary.
I agree with SteelCurtain. Why not have 2 sites? One for mobile and one for computers. There are a lot of ways to create content once and have both sites use it.
CR, the new site looks nice, but this one is fine, too.
Don't worry about optimizing for PDAs, though; mobile Internet access and cell phones for all-in-the-family are next on the chopping block, right after coffee at Starbucks.
some other blogs allow you to post a reply directly under a comment.....but if CR has that feature I guess JJ and Seb would make a long chain.....so never mind....
All SBUX tastes the same 'cause they use cheap Robusto coffee beans and cook the hell out of them. Thats why it allsways tastes burnt. Whats that old joke about the next new SBUX is in the parking lot of the last one to open.
Not going to Starbucks is an easy way to pick up $5 off the floor.
Sue | 04.23.08 - 7:22 pm | #
I agree with Sue I find it a waste of money. I have three Starbucks gift cards in my wallet and I still dont go often. I also have an eleven year old and she is only allowed to eat fast food once a month. This is a perfect example of people wasting money. IMO
Re layout - need Mortgage Pig in there somewhere. Definitely like having the author at the top, and eliminating the left side bar is cleaner. Maybe make the right side bar a little narrower and give that space back to the main text column. The font on the right side is easier to read than in the main text. Header needs a little more punch - it's overpowered by the ad and doesn't convey as much as the old header.
I have three Starbucks gift cards in my wallet and I still dont go often
Stores love that! Free money for them if you don't use them!
The coffee experience is subjective and, frankly, SBUX don't market to you and you're not hurting their business. It's the people that like the coffee, like the store, but are cutting back. That's where the concern lies. So when they look at strategy, they're asking themselves "how do we get people on the margin or who only buy coffe out once in a while in here, and how do we keep the people that buy our product from not buying in a challenging market?"
So you see free refills, less emphasis on expensive drinks, and upsells at the register. And they'll cut back expansion and try to mend the brand...although i'm not sure they can do that now that lines are full of proles and not the arty types/work on the road people. the air of something special took a back seat to volume.
Speaking of economic indicators... Barry over at TBP hits on a different one...
With all the news out there i'm surprised he got that up. It was a little turgid, but i think there is play in what he says...
actually we did a massive study of the pr0n business in bschool. it was a lot of fun and interesting stuff. i'm not sure sales in general are down, but they are suffering from the same disintermediation that the movie/music biz is right now. it's hard to quantify the total amount spent on pr0n, but it is huge. the sales of traditional media are no indication of the use...the internet has it everywhere, and for free too! look at sites like xtube.
It's not just SBUX. A couple of non-chain, bagel+coffee places in my NYC neighborhood have seen a dramatic downturn over the last month -- breakfast sales are OK-ish, but afternoon traffic has nearly disappeared. People aren't coming in to buy water or soda. Or so the managers tell me.
Especially compared to Highway Starbucks... they have started plopping these 'McStarbucks' stores on interstate rest areas & exit ramp intersections and the coffee is no where near as good as your typical city StarB's. I shun these impostors like food poisoning.
McD's coffee on the other hand is way better than these rural Starbucks and McD's isn't that great - just 'surprisingly 'OK'.
stores on interstate rest areas & exit ramp intersections and the coffee is no where near as good as your typical city StarB's
that's part of their problem too. i used to be that these stores and the airport ones too were not manned by SBUX employees, but were done by subcontractors. they also shipped them their lowest grade stuff to push out for just "coffee". I think they changed some of that, but i'm sure most of these are not SBUX owned and, therefore, they don't care as much about the product.
ipodius writes: \t
I have three Starbucks gift cards in my wallet and I still dont go often
Stores love that! Free money for them if you don't use them!
I didnt pay for them. Im aware stores make billions on people who dont spend gift cards. . Ill use them eventually for sure but I will not get in my car and drive there just for that
lol, all my friends think i'm an uber-bear! it's just the mean here is even more bearish than that. unlike seb, i think we are in recession and that it will be long, but shallow.
and there is always reason to be optimistic about the opportunities in any market...if you get your face off the sidewalk and look.
I alone will cop to loving SBUX on the thread. They are the ones who brought lattes to the States and my office building, so that I no longer had to brew my own espresso at home, foam my own milk, and forgo my hit for the watery crap most Americans call coffee while I was at work.
With the incessant destruction of open hangout space, I also appreciate their attempts to recreate a space for hanging out that doesn't involve spending money on alcohol. I know, I know, kids can always hang out at the Fry's...
As to the downturn, coffee is the drug of the working masses, even something as expensive as a latte, and I can always compare what I spend on a higher octane push from what I have to chip in to the office coffee racket, where, yes, I get whatever is on sale, but I will spend $50 a month on the illusion of comfort (which gets me back to work). On the other hand, if I am no longer working, then who needs the coffee? Stimulants for the up times, depressants for the down ones. See you at the bar!
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CR: I click on the "new look" link and I get somekind of email loging stuff. You ain't thinking of going NR's way, are you?
IMHO, that would be a big mistake. I didn't see your new layout but whatever you do, don't make people login to use your blog.
MarketWatch
Markets that missed the boom now sport rising home prices
Monday April 21, 1:37 pm ET
By Amy Hoak
In some housing markets, homes aren't only retaining value -- they're gaining
CHICAGO (MarketWatch) -- Challenging real estate markets can be found across the U.S. as home prices decline, sales fall and foreclosures rise. But in some places the biggest challenge has been convincing would-be buyers and sellers that local conditions don't resemble the national trends.
1
It's a challenge that Randy Jeffers, chairman of the Texas Association of Realtors, faces all the time.
While the number of sales has fallen somewhat, he still regards his market of Amarillo, Texas, as a seller's market right now. The median price of an existing single-family home in Amarillo was up an annualized 11% in the fourth quarter, according to the National Association of Realtors.
"Often they're surprised about what is going on locally or statewide," he said of his clients. As the country's collective housing ills land bold headlines, locals incorrectly extrapolate the information to their own markets, Jeffers added.
The housing problems largely aren't national but regional in nature, said Susan Wachter, a real estate professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School.
"The interesting thing is that there are parts of the country where housing prices are doing fine, thank you," she said. In fact, only five states are in what she would consider a housing recession: California, Arizona, Nevada, Florida and Michigan.
In the fourth quarter of 2007, 73 out of 150 metropolitan areas showed an increase in the median existing single-family home price compared with the same quarter in 2006, according to statistics from the national Realtors group.
That isn't to say these markets are immune from some national trends.
For one, stricter lending standards put in place in the wake of poor mortgage performance in many parts of the country are affecting people regardless of where they live. Requirements of larger down payments and higher credit scores are keeping some people from buying homes, especially first-time buyers, and are often driving down the volume of sales.
If the job picture weakens as a result of a slowing economy, that could also affect some of the most stable markets.
Recently, however, the places where homes seem to be holding the most value are those where prices didn't surge during the boom years and where economies are staying strong. In large cities, it's often the areas that are located closest to the city's core.
Places the boom forgot
Single-digit appreciation may have looked meager in the years of the boom, when red-hot markets experienced bidding wars and high investor interest. Now, as some markets experience steep price drops, those rates aren't looking so bad after all.
Areas in upstate New York, Texas, some Rocky Mountain states and the Carolinas are faring better than the rest of the country in terms of price appreciation these days, said Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the National Association of Realtors.
In general, there weren't caravans of speculators in these areas driving up prices. Plus -- unlike some trouble spots in the Midwest such as Detroit -- many of the local economies in these markets remained stable.
Utah -- where home prices rose 9.27% in the fourth quarter of 2007 compared with the fourth quarter of 2006 -- was the state with the highest appreciation rate, according to the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight. Utah was followed by Wyoming, where prices rose 8.27% over the year, North Dakota, where prices rose 7.87%, and Montana, where prices rose 6.90%.
Still, in Billings, Mont., buyers often say they're waiting for prices to come down, said Dan Wagner, president of the Montana State Association of Realtors. But because they never soared during the boom years, prices likely aren't in need of a correction, he said.
Where the jobs are
The strong employment picture in Seattle caused home prices there to rise after other major cities reached their peaks. Appreciation there in the fourth quarter was just over 1%, according to NAR, but it is believed that the city's employment landscape is keeping Seattle housing from losing value.
A similar situation is shaping up in other markets.
Home-prices in major cities fell 10.7% in January compared with January 2007, according to the Case-Shiller home price index. The index tracks 20 cities, and 19 of them saw year-over-year declines. But one market experienced modest home-price gains over the year: Charlotte, N.C., another market that never saw a huge run-up in prices during the boom.
An influx of banking and research jobs in the Carolinas -- especially in Charlotte and the Research Triangle -- has been important to its stability, said Marty Frame, general manager of Cyberhomes.com. About 15,000 jobs were created in the Charlotte area last year, said Dot Munson, president of the Charlotte Regional Realtor Association. Large employers in the area include US Airways, Bank of America and Wachovia.
The jobs are luring people to the city, she said, and one of the biggest challenges transplants have is getting their former homes sold if they're coming from a market that is sluggish.
"They have to rent for a while or do something creative for a place to live," Munson said.
Job growth has also been strong in Texas, where the oil and gas industries are big employers. In March, the Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown metropolitan area experienced the fastest year-over-year rate of job growth among the nation's major metropolitan areas, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Second place went to the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington market.
Texas ranked eighth in OFHEO's list of states with the highest year-over-year appreciation during the fourth quarter of last year, preceded by Alaska, Washington and New Mexico.
Close to the core
In metropolitan areas, including San Francisco, Washington and New York, homes are typically retaining more of their value the closer they are to the city's core, Wachter said. In fact, declining home values in an area's suburbs are tending to drag down the average for the rest of the metropolitan area, she said.
Manhattan, however, tends to be a real-estate juggernaut all its own.
The average price of a Manhattan apartment was up 47% in the first quarter, compared with the first quarter of 2007, according to Brown Harris Stevens, a provider of real-estate services in the area. The boost was largely due to an increase in high-end sales that occurred at two luxury condo developments.
But the median price of a Manhattan apartment, which is less impacted by high-end activity, also rose 13% over the year, according to the firm.
One driver of the market: A rising demand for three- and four-bedroom units in Manhattan, said Jim Gricar, executive vice president of Brown Harris Stevens. More families are opting to live in the city as opposed to seeking larger homes in the suburbs, as was common in the 1980s and early 1990s, he said.
"After years of the city reinventing itself... (Manhattan is) attracting families and keeping people who might have moved to Scarsdale," he said.
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riddler | 04.23.08 - 9:56 pm | #
same here - was looking fwd to seeing the new layout
Discretionary spending = $0.00 for most - just trying to fill the worthless, unsellable SUV to get to work to make enough $ to fill your tank back up is putting holes in a lot of pockets (and lining the pockets of the credit card companies, most likely)
"" obviously from some folks that got seriously burned in the RE bubble with a determination to accentuate the negatives. ""
Entitled to your opinion, dj.... but keep in mind that many here were bearish when it wasn't popular at all.... and made out quite well shorting homebuilders and financial firms.
Think about it. If we were all that poor, we'd be hanging out around SBUX all day, lookin' for a latte handout.
But hey, stick around and learn something. You'd be flat out amazed at what people know.
If you were poor, you wouldn't know how to spell "latte" and you wouldn't care.
I will stick around occassionally, and will be amazed if, in fact, I am amazed. The persistent negativity of CR is amazing, however, rivaling the levels being reached in the Democratic primary.
dj | 04.23.08 - 10:17 pm | #
Dj you are breaking eticket. CR ain't about long posts. use the link. Short sweet and clever makes the day around here. Just an opinion, I am an "outsider".
Could the new layout include ink drawings of Tanta and CR like the Wall Street? Tanta can use a decade old photo for her drawing like the blonde Lexus loving realtors do. A face with a name is always helpful.
Not trying to make anyone's day...just trying to shine a bit of real light on the doomsday monotony.
dj | 04.23.08 - 10:58 pm | #
Heck,I actually am looking at picking up some more rentals with the parents here pretty soon. We just need to find properties that will cash flow at the rents we know we can get. It's getting close here in SW Florida.
Heck I worked more OT in the last 3 weeks than the last 3 years combined. No capex = more money for maintenance.
I do miss all the shiny new trucks though.
ipodius is nothing like Sebastion. ipodius is serious. Sebastian isn't - he's a benign kind of troll. ipodius is a lot more bearish than Sebastian pretends to be as well. Besides, I'm mostly on the same page as ipodius in expectation although I suffer intermittent panics where I fear it's all going to h***. The bond and stock markets are on that page too and I think the locals overdiscount the market. If the collective assets of the world are betting on particular outcomes it's wise to at least consider the possibility that they're right as opposed to assuming there's some massive market-manipulating conspiracy.
sdtsf,
It's not "not sticky" anymore. I am going to call it lubricated. Housing prices are lubricated. Nobody liked (actually they flipped out of their Chicago School of Economics loafers) when I used the term "not sticky." So, being the diplomat, it is now LUBRICATED.
Re: SBUX Maybe this is just the usual weird Texas stuff, but the Starbucks down the street still has a drive-thru line that has 8 to 10 huge SUVs in it everytime I go inside...when I come out, most of them are still sitting there burning gas and wasting time....Starbucks blew their image when they put in these damn drive-thru lines for the lazy affluent sorts. Would you like extra air pollution with that latte, sir?
In the workaday world I have 3 tenacious vices: coffee, tea and chocolate.
Oddly, we were talking about this at the office. The junior staff doesn't care about quality - weren't thrilled about Kona - will be getting Folgers. The (4) senior staff will be paying for our own high-quality coffee. We figure the sbux savings will pay for it, and we'll get better coffee to boot.
Took the wife's car to the full service car wash yesterday. Live in an apartment so it's the only way to keep it clean. In line it was me and 5 of the biggest SUVs on the market, all newish. So, as I'm standing next to the guy with the big new Yukon, I ask him how he likes it. He tells me he needs the room for all the kids, and..."It's really pretty good on gas, it's got a 40 gallon tank so I hardly ever have to fill it." He goes on to explain that his last one wasn't nearly so good because he had to fill it twice as often. So, there you have it, his definition of good gas mileage was how far you can go between fill ups.
I think they changed some of that, but i'm sure most of these are not SBUX owned and, therefore, they don't care as much about the product.
I always wondered why SBUX insisted on a "one-brand-fits-all" approach instead of reserving the "Starbucks" cachet for the prime city-center / promenade locations and doing some sort of "Starbucks Express" equivalent for the airports, James Fenimore NJT rest stops, etc.
When I stop in a Borders Express store at an airport, I don't expect them to have 150,000 titles in stock or for the employees to be able to quote Proust.
But when I pull off the Turnpike and pay the same $4.39 for a "Starbucks" latte that tastes as though it was made by a hot-dog vendor and is plopped in front of me by a surly high-school dropout ... well, can you say "dilution of brand equity"?
All, we are working on a new blog layout, and I'd appreciate any comments or suggestions. See here
for a new proposed layout.
Best to all, CR
Gold agai
I'll have a tall decaf skim recession, please.
I'm concerned about a doppio-dip recession, myself.
The new design would be much better with a picture of a forest trail at the top.
Any chance of switching to arial narrow? That wide font is going to make Tanta's posts look extra long.
CR,
I like the new look. Clean and simple.
As for SBUX, DIE! DIE NOW!
I think the picture should be from the top of Mt whitney looking down into Death valley, but i'm an optimist.
Love the new layout.
I hope the obnoxious scrolling ad for finding people I happily left behind in high school doesn't get to come along.
New Format: Slick, good production value, I hope there's a cleaner interface to my mobile browser.
Starbucks: Shlock, production line feeling, fabric chairs where I operate my mobile device need a post-non-paying-customer delousing.
I prefer the "old school" forest look.
layout - Looks great!
Second the request for the nature scene.
All, we are working on a new blog layout, and I'd appreciate any comments or suggestions. See here for a new proposed layout.
"If it ain't broke..."
SBUX - Aspirational buyers going on life support this year - On Respirator buyers.
Expect A LOT of store closings in 08.
CR,
I didn't see this but maybe I just looked over it. I'd like a link to a page where I could browse through all your topic tags. I'd also like a link to a page that I could naviagate to older posts by month/year.
Other than those two small items it looks great.
Best,
PDX
I think the price of gas has more to do with soft sales. But hey, at least they did not say it was weather related.
I second the request for a narrower font (though not the reason--I just find it easier on the eye).
Layout: Looks good. Please use light colours instead of dark gray.
AAPL limped back to even.
AMZN is a friggin RETAILER that needs diesel trucks and drivers to personally deliver every single item. Good business model with $120 oil. Gotta love their prospects!
I can haz new layout? Need forest view.
LOL Cat
I vote for the forest trail. wait, isn't that saying that I've been reading this for a while???
on SBUX:
What's killing them isn't the recession exactly. Its that every Suzy Orman style financial advisor out there spouts off about the "latte factor"- that spending $5 a day at Starbucks could instead be saved and, through the magic of compounding interest, keep you comfortable for a year in retirement.
It was even on friggin Oprah! You can't fight Oprah!
Now the "savers" avoiding Starbucks are probably still paying 25% interest on their credit cards, but, hey, at least they feel like they took the first steps and can tell their spouse their trying to cut back.
NOT!
SBUX is the quintessential company that believed only in the upside of economic cycles. Their management philosophy and business model was based on the unlimited ability of the American consumer to keep spending more and more money on frills, ad infinitum.
SBUX developed a unique formula for minting money in a time of consumer excess. They could have said: We'll put 70% of our foot on the gas and 30% on the brake. We'll plan for the next downturn, whenever it is and however deep it is.
They didn't.
SBUX isn't overleveraged financially like a lot of other restaurant chains that expanded too fast, without any market feasibility analysis.
But they are overleveraged in locations, leases, leasehold improvements and employees.
They are gonna shrink at big cost.
I view pages on a relatively large monitor and for me page centering works better than shifting it to the left
CR - I've got an even better idea than putting the nature trail back on the top of the page !
How 'bout a big lanscape picture of the Federal Reserve bldg? OK?
CR:
You should be ashamed. You ambushed your own thread!
And you forgot to say first!
It looks alright. Seems to load quickly which is important.
Well frankly Starbucks is an unnecessary expense. I'm surprised they're not taking more of a hit.
I vote for the nature trail.
New layout is good, you won't get rid of us that easily
Starbucks problem is that its to easy to substitute with a similar quality product that is cheaper..
I like the new layout but was disappointed the commenting system is the same. I would rather see them as /. style, clicking on comments brings you to the "below the fold" page and the comments are under the story. The popup window is annoying.
RE: SBUX. Well, at least they have stopped blaming these things on the weather.
Right now, McDonald's is heavily advertising its espresso products on TV, in ads that are making fun of pseudosophisticates who think it is cool to hang out in a coffeehouse.
Brutal stuff.
Starbucks is an easy place to cut expenses. In fact, just buy the beans or ground coffee and cut out the middleman.
But people don't buy coffee at Starbucks, they buy a dessert with a little coffee flavor. Like everything else in the US, a simple cup of coffee gets bloated into an oversweet, fat-laden coffee-flavored drink.
I hope Dunkin Donuts is taking an equal hit. Of all the useless places, DD has to be the bottom.
Not going to Starbucks is an easy way to pick up $5 off the floor.
Somebody earlier this year was touting how Starbucks is all about lifestyle and doesn't compete with McDonalds or Dunkin Donuts. I don't think that theory is holding. Pretty soon, people won't even be going to McDonalds or Dunkin Donuts for the coffee, but they'll be going for the food in dumpster out back.
OT: Added audio of the Bloomberg Ambac discussion here-
drop.io sacrealstats001
Starbucks not necessary?
whoooooaaaaaa....
it'll be the first sign of recession recovery!
Hmmh, if people are cutting back on coffee at Starbucks, do you think they'd be buying new cars? And, with gas at $3.54, do you think most would buy anything other than a small car with high mpg?
Rest of the year will be scary for the auto industry.
CR, I like the new layout. However, I wish you'd keep the monthly archive going. It is a good reference.
It's tie to drop the "B" from the ticker symbol.
How about a forest trail with a Mortgage Pig(TM) hiking by...
hopeinsd,
Good point. Daily Lattes are always on the hit-list of financial fix-it advisors...
But I think their biggest problem, (other than the obvious fact that consumers are getting squeezed) is the tarnishing of their brand with cheap-looking locations everywhere.
"the sharp weakness in the U.S. consumer environment,"
Yeah, it's not because of the competition and overbuilding of stores...it's always not the fault of the management.
"not the fault of the management"
actually there were big changes 2-3 months ago and 5 months ago they put the brakes on new outlets..
btw...McDs coffee is not so bad, actually enjoyed the java at 1/2 the cost of Buckys
Did I rant about how this is the same guy who sold the Sonics (NBA) to an out-of-town group, and then was so suprised the new owners wanted to move the team to their hometown?
"SBUX isn't overleveraged financially like a lot of other restaurant chains that expanded too fast, without any market feasibility analysis. But they are overleveraged in locations, leases, leasehold improvements and employees."
In my town, Starbucks bought a corner property ~2 years ago for a new store. But nothing was ever built; property just sits there, an abandoned Der Weinerschnitzel of all things.
Makes you wonder how much unused real estate they've got right now.
Retired, yet still v. serious, graphic designer here. Re. new layout:
main positive: I like the single vs. dbl. sidebar
main negative: font. Too large (less text fits on a screen than before even w/o 2nd sidebar) and -most important- serif fonts are more comfortable to read than sans-serif for any serious amt. of text.
Some kind of tag/label-based topic access in the sidebar would be very nice.
Needs some kind of section head to introduce the off-site links (Krugman, housing wire, etc.). That off-site link bkgd. is too dark and your eye goes to it.. makes it seem like the major aim of the blog. That section needs to be have a subtle bkgd. -match the value of the blue of "Recent Analysis".
Mixing of 90°-corner boxes and rounded-corner boxes -yuck. They should all be one or the other; treat them all the same. Same story w/ outline box vs. no-outline box. When something is different, start by using ONE aspect to distinguish it: either color OR outline (then as a last resort -I would say never- box shape).
The header is a bit cheezy (not even cheezy.. it's nowhere) and it's a big step back from the old one. Doesn't convey "I know whereof I speak" anywhere near as much as before, even given that the old one was v.. simple. Serif font, again, would help, but that's just the first step.
Stuff that does not align (as in header)=> cheap-looking. Mixing stuff that is flush left with stuff that is centered => cheap-looking.
Just my .02 oops .07, .13, .84..
Overpaying for corners is exactly how so many of those chain drug stores went out of business. They would pay as much as 3x comps. Now most are distant memories.
Has anybody noticed a troubling trend with earnings? Those who've done well have done so either (a) because they had nice gains from foreign sales and Forex gains or (b) because they deal in products jacked up in price, such as commodities producers.
What happens when the lag of our consumer slowdown (and you can add the UK and other debtor nations to that as well) starts to hammer foreign companies and their consumers?
And what happens when the commodities price jumps start to cause consumers worldwide to cut back on non-essentials?
We've got a major crash in world aggregate demand coming. I think IBM/CAT/AAPL strong earnings are the final spasm of this earnings bubble.
CR:
The new layout looks fine, nice and simple. I like having the author name up top.
PDA readability is important these days, so anything you need to do along those lines, you should do.
p.s. I LOVE the comments in a separate window. I hate the extra clicks to go back and forth if I want to review more posts.
Wow, are you guys really running around reading CR on your PDA devices!?
CR, you're big time now.
I have to admit, I'd probably do the same, if I had a decent PDA.
ShortCourage,
If you mean the national economy is in the dumps and the rest of the world will slow, too, I've noticed. The question is, does the sh## hit the fan when it actually hits the fan or when Wall Street says it does? Is your leg broken when you break it or when the doctor tells you it is?
Starbucks is just an indicator, and as many have said here, this is the best way to cut back. But it's not just them that will take a hit, it's DD and all the other ones too. Around here there have to be 20 DDs within a 5 mile radius of my house. Only one SBUX though.
And if you just go in for a cup of coffee, SBUX isn't much more than any place else. It's just when you get one of those soccer mom drinks that it gets pricey. Just order an Americano, or coffee of the day. Or better yet, buy a bag and get the free coffee that comes with it and then brew it in the morning at home. That's what I do.
Starbucks is just an indicator, and as many have said here, this is the best way to cut back. But it's not just them that will take a hit, it's DD and all the other ones too. Around here there have to be 20 DDs within a 5 mile radius of my house. Only one SBUX though.
And if you just go in for a cup of coffee, SBUX isn't much more than any place else. It's just when you get one of those soccer mom drinks that it gets pricey. Just order an Americano, or coffee of the day. Or better yet, buy a bag and get the free coffee that comes with it and then brew it in the morning at home. That's what I do.
Not just another company. A company that cons people into thinking that strong bitter coffee is "premium" coffee and deserves a super high price. When money gets tight, people tend to wake up to cons.
"Wow, are you guys really running around reading CR on your PDA devices!? "
Not me. But some people I know live and die by handhelds; they barely even touch their laptops anymore.
With fewer injections of frappacinnos and caramel macchiato, I'm worried about the national productivity.
In sugar and caffeine, we trust!
Elvis,
I think Wall Street can only keep the game going for so long. It will move in a herd, once the smart money moves quickly through the exits.
New design: "War Kittens?" "No, just regular kittens."
SBUX; I've been there 3-4 times and Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf and even a few Dunkin's. Dunkin's excepted their business model is seriously exposed. Their job is to pick up discretionary time, travel and money. Gee what is contracting? Unless they switch to job hunt resource centres their future is bleak. Dunkin's can always go back to donuts.
Starbuck's biggest problem has to be CRE leases at peak prices. They don't go away when the store closes.
I am not sure how I ran across this site, but it is interesting.
I call it the Doom and Gloom site...obviously from some folks that got seriously burned in the RE bubble with a determination to accentuate the negatives.
"Not just another company. A company that cons people into thinking that strong bitter coffee is "premium" coffee and deserves a super high price. When money gets tight, people tend to wake up to cons."
That's what I'm hoping for with cell phone, cable, "high speed" Internet, and consumer telecom in general.
Starbucks said Wednesday that it customer research shows that customers are visiting Starbucks stores less often but are not substituting other coffee products for Starbucks
That answers the competition question and the beverage mix question. I'd be willing to bet there's less expensive drink sales.
Layout looks good. Try not to mix rounded corners with 90 degree corners - go for the rounded corners!
No left column is a big plus - that way on symbian browser for mobile, no scrolling to the right to get to the middle of the page. Flush left = good.
As for comments...when Im on symbian mobile, they already opened in a new window anyway, but with Mozilla firefox, it was pretty easy to just right click comments and choose "open in new tab", so that wasnt a big deal.
Dont like the header...screams of, Im nowhere, on some lame blog by some lame high school kid. Needs more presence.
Blue is also my fav color, but Ive become accustomed to green. I'll deal.
Font size is way too big.
Right column is too wide - ratio with left is all wrong.
The font is not easy on the eyes. There are sans serifs which work better - arial or something.
The new design doesn't float right. It should fill the whole screen. With a 22W monitor it just sits all compressed on the left. Also, when you adjust the font to a larger size (65, old eyes) you can only see about 10 lines of narrow text. Better would be a fixed width right sidebar and left side that adjusts to fill the rest of the screen.
I really miss the peaceful, forest trail at the top...
"once the smart money moves quickly through the exits"
I am with you, sort of. My last couple of months have been spent trying to figure out where this smart money is gonna go. Last bubble it went to housing. Now a lot has gone to commodities. IF the FOMC comes out with an annoucement that spooks commodities markets and there's a rush for the exits (my thoughts), WHERE DOES IT GO?
I am wondering if it heads into companies with good balance sheets and cash flow. But I seriously don't know. It has to go somewhere, and the bond market won't be the place because it'll come screaming out of there too.
Anyone know how to get the comments to work when you are using your blackberry?
Yes, people need a hit of CR when they are on the road. It's intellectual meth.
Out of curiosity, does anyone remember when we used to go to war to get out of a recession? Maybe we could go to war in '09..... oh wait, nevermind.....
BTW, I am not from Gallup, but the "forest trail" seems to be garnering more support than Hillary.
Nescafe, anyone?
I agree with SteelCurtain. Why not have 2 sites? One for mobile and one for computers. There are a lot of ways to create content once and have both sites use it.
The best part of waking up
Is the Folgers in your cup!
What's for breakfast? The cold, leftover bullshit from last night.
layout - Looks great!
Lots of comedians here!
CR, the new site looks nice, but this one is fine, too.
Don't worry about optimizing for PDAs, though; mobile Internet access and cell phones for all-in-the-family are next on the chopping block, right after coffee at Starbucks.
Yeah, like the new layout. And, it goes great with a late afternoon espresso.
some other blogs allow you to post a reply directly under a comment.....but if CR has that feature I guess JJ and Seb would make a long chain.....so never mind....
All SBUX tastes the same 'cause they use cheap Robusto coffee beans and cook the hell out of them. Thats why it allsways tastes burnt. Whats that old joke about the next new SBUX is in the parking lot of the last one to open.
I like the suggestion to include Mortgage Pig somehow in your new site header.
The Mortgage Pig art always makes me smile.
umbersman-
I think you might be referring to this gem:
"New Starbucks Opens In Rest Room Of Existing Starbucks"
New Starbucks Opens In Rest Room Of Existing Starbucks
Housing Wire is reporting more downgrades on RMBS
Regarding the comments about the rice shortage: I hope this doesnt cut into the Sake production!
Not going to Starbucks is an easy way to pick up $5 off the floor.
Sue | 04.23.08 - 7:22 pm | #
I agree with Sue I find it a waste of money. I have three Starbucks gift cards in my wallet and I still dont go often. I also have an eleven year old and she is only allowed to eat fast food once a month. This is a perfect example of people wasting money. IMO
Speaking of economic indicators... Barry over at TBP hits on a different one...
Dirty Economic Indicator of the Month
Hard to get up for that though... as indicators go, it seems a bit limp.
Re layout - need Mortgage Pig in there somewhere. Definitely like having the author at the top, and eliminating the left side bar is cleaner. Maybe make the right side bar a little narrower and give that space back to the main text column. The font on the right side is easier to read than in the main text. Header needs a little more punch - it's overpowered by the ad and doesn't convey as much as the old header.
I have three Starbucks gift cards in my wallet and I still dont go often
Stores love that! Free money for them if you don't use them!
The coffee experience is subjective and, frankly, SBUX don't market to you and you're not hurting their business. It's the people that like the coffee, like the store, but are cutting back. That's where the concern lies. So when they look at strategy, they're asking themselves "how do we get people on the margin or who only buy coffe out once in a while in here, and how do we keep the people that buy our product from not buying in a challenging market?"
So you see free refills, less emphasis on expensive drinks, and upsells at the register. And they'll cut back expansion and try to mend the brand...although i'm not sure they can do that now that lines are full of proles and not the arty types/work on the road people. the air of something special took a back seat to volume.
Does anyone remember when we used to go to war to get out of a recession?
There's always Iran. Wait, Syria. I meant North Korea.
McD's coffee is surprisingly OK.
This rice thingy is very odd.
New site, if it's not broken ... why?
That's where the concern lies.
Bingo - power users.
What? Mortgage Pig in the Starbucks Rest Room? Where? What?
Speaking of economic indicators... Barry over at TBP hits on a different one...
With all the news out there i'm surprised he got that up. It was a little turgid, but i think there is play in what he says...
actually we did a massive study of the pr0n business in bschool. it was a lot of fun and interesting stuff. i'm not sure sales in general are down, but they are suffering from the same disintermediation that the movie/music biz is right now. it's hard to quantify the total amount spent on pr0n, but it is huge. the sales of traditional media are no indication of the use...the internet has it everywhere, and for free too! look at sites like xtube.
It's not just SBUX. A couple of non-chain, bagel+coffee places in my NYC neighborhood have seen a dramatic downturn over the last month -- breakfast sales are OK-ish, but afternoon traffic has nearly disappeared. People aren't coming in to buy water or soda. Or so the managers tell me.
McD's coffee is surprisingly OK.
Especially compared to Highway Starbucks... they have started plopping these 'McStarbucks' stores on interstate rest areas & exit ramp intersections and the coffee is no where near as good as your typical city StarB's. I shun these impostors like food poisoning.
McD's coffee on the other hand is way better than these rural Starbucks and McD's isn't that great - just 'surprisingly 'OK'.
stores on interstate rest areas & exit ramp intersections and the coffee is no where near as good as your typical city StarB's
that's part of their problem too. i used to be that these stores and the airport ones too were not manned by SBUX employees, but were done by subcontractors. they also shipped them their lowest grade stuff to push out for just "coffee". I think they changed some of that, but i'm sure most of these are not SBUX owned and, therefore, they don't care as much about the product.
ipodius writes: \t
I have three Starbucks gift cards in my wallet and I still dont go often
Stores love that! Free money for them if you don't use them!
I didnt pay for them. Im aware stores make billions on people who dont spend gift cards. . Ill use them eventually for sure but I will not get in my car and drive there just for that
dj writes:
I call it the Doom and Gloom site...
jg writes:
Lots of comedians here!
Speaking of which:
Elvis writes:
but they'll be going for the food in dumpster out back.
Gotta watch out, that dumpster food is sticky on the way down.
See? Doom, no Gloom!
I want a foto of CR and Tanta.
I want replies to nest.
I want avatars.
I want.
I
Is ipodious becoming the new Sebastian?
Is ipodious becoming the new Sebastian?
lol, all my friends think i'm an uber-bear! it's just the mean here is even more bearish than that. unlike seb, i think we are in recession and that it will be long, but shallow.
and there is always reason to be optimistic about the opportunities in any market...if you get your face off the sidewalk and look.
I alone will cop to loving SBUX on the thread. They are the ones who brought lattes to the States and my office building, so that I no longer had to brew my own espresso at home, foam my own milk, and forgo my hit for the watery crap most Americans call coffee while I was at work.
With the incessant destruction of open hangout space, I also appreciate their attempts to recreate a space for hanging out that doesn't involve spending money on alcohol. I know, I know, kids can always hang out at the Fry's...
As to the downturn, coffee is the drug of the working masses, even something as expensive as a latte, and I can always compare what I spend on a higher octane push from what I have to chip in to the office coffee racket, where, yes, I get whatever is on sale, but I will spend $50 a month on the illusion of comfort (which gets me back to work). On the other hand, if I am no longer working, then who needs the coffee? Stimulants for the up times, depressants for the down ones. See you at the bar!
Is ipodious becoming the new Sebastian?
Ipodius, please stick around. Your comments are great and your positivity is too.
50% if not more of the RE bubble was caused by and occurred in CA.......always on the bleeding edge......freaks.
I tried out the new link, and received:
This blog is open to invited readers only
proposed layout
It doesn't look like you have been invited to read this blog. If you think this is a mistake, you might want to contact the blog author and request an invitation.
Dear CR
You could put this site in ASCII text and I would come back and read it.
New site looks fine...is it easier for you to post stuff? Use it.
I do miss that uphill hike through the trees...!
Thanks for the insights.
CR: I click on the "new look" link and I get somekind of email loging stuff. You ain't thinking of going NR's way, are you?
IMHO, that would be a big mistake. I didn't see your new layout but whatever you do, don't make people login to use your blog.
MarketWatch
Markets that missed the boom now sport rising home prices
Monday April 21, 1:37 pm ET
By Amy Hoak
In some housing markets, homes aren't only retaining value -- they're gaining
CHICAGO (MarketWatch) -- Challenging real estate markets can be found across the U.S. as home prices decline, sales fall and foreclosures rise. But in some places the biggest challenge has been convincing would-be buyers and sellers that local conditions don't resemble the national trends.
1
It's a challenge that Randy Jeffers, chairman of the Texas Association of Realtors, faces all the time.
While the number of sales has fallen somewhat, he still regards his market of Amarillo, Texas, as a seller's market right now. The median price of an existing single-family home in Amarillo was up an annualized 11% in the fourth quarter, according to the National Association of Realtors.
"Often they're surprised about what is going on locally or statewide," he said of his clients. As the country's collective housing ills land bold headlines, locals incorrectly extrapolate the information to their own markets, Jeffers added.
The housing problems largely aren't national but regional in nature, said Susan Wachter, a real estate professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School.
"The interesting thing is that there are parts of the country where housing prices are doing fine, thank you," she said. In fact, only five states are in what she would consider a housing recession: California, Arizona, Nevada, Florida and Michigan.
In the fourth quarter of 2007, 73 out of 150 metropolitan areas showed an increase in the median existing single-family home price compared with the same quarter in 2006, according to statistics from the national Realtors group.
That isn't to say these markets are immune from some national trends.
For one, stricter lending standards put in place in the wake of poor mortgage performance in many parts of the country are affecting people regardless of where they live. Requirements of larger down payments and higher credit scores are keeping some people from buying homes, especially first-time buyers, and are often driving down the volume of sales.
If the job picture weakens as a result of a slowing economy, that could also affect some of the most stable markets.
Recently, however, the places where homes seem to be holding the most value are those where prices didn't surge during the boom years and where economies are staying strong. In large cities, it's often the areas that are located closest to the city's core.
Places the boom forgot
Single-digit appreciation may have looked meager in the years of the boom, when red-hot markets experienced bidding wars and high investor interest. Now, as some markets experience steep price drops, those rates aren't looking so bad after all.
Areas in upstate New York, Texas, some Rocky Mountain states and the Carolinas are faring better than the rest of the country in terms of price appreciation these days, said Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the National Association of Realtors.
In general, there weren't caravans of speculators in these areas driving up prices. Plus -- unlike some trouble spots in the Midwest such as Detroit -- many of the local economies in these markets remained stable.
Utah -- where home prices rose 9.27% in the fourth quarter of 2007 compared with the fourth quarter of 2006 -- was the state with the highest appreciation rate, according to the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight. Utah was followed by Wyoming, where prices rose 8.27% over the year, North Dakota, where prices rose 7.87%, and Montana, where prices rose 6.90%.
Still, in Billings, Mont., buyers often say they're waiting for prices to come down, said Dan Wagner, president of the Montana State Association of Realtors. But because they never soared during the boom years, prices likely aren't in need of a correction, he said.
Where the jobs are
The strong employment picture in Seattle caused home prices there to rise after other major cities reached their peaks. Appreciation there in the fourth quarter was just over 1%, according to NAR, but it is believed that the city's employment landscape is keeping Seattle housing from losing value.
A similar situation is shaping up in other markets.
Home-prices in major cities fell 10.7% in January compared with January 2007, according to the Case-Shiller home price index. The index tracks 20 cities, and 19 of them saw year-over-year declines. But one market experienced modest home-price gains over the year: Charlotte, N.C., another market that never saw a huge run-up in prices during the boom.
An influx of banking and research jobs in the Carolinas -- especially in Charlotte and the Research Triangle -- has been important to its stability, said Marty Frame, general manager of Cyberhomes.com. About 15,000 jobs were created in the Charlotte area last year, said Dot Munson, president of the Charlotte Regional Realtor Association. Large employers in the area include US Airways, Bank of America and Wachovia.
The jobs are luring people to the city, she said, and one of the biggest challenges transplants have is getting their former homes sold if they're coming from a market that is sluggish.
"They have to rent for a while or do something creative for a place to live," Munson said.
Job growth has also been strong in Texas, where the oil and gas industries are big employers. In March, the Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown metropolitan area experienced the fastest year-over-year rate of job growth among the nation's major metropolitan areas, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Second place went to the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington market.
Texas ranked eighth in OFHEO's list of states with the highest year-over-year appreciation during the fourth quarter of last year, preceded by Alaska, Washington and New Mexico.
Close to the core
In metropolitan areas, including San Francisco, Washington and New York, homes are typically retaining more of their value the closer they are to the city's core, Wachter said. In fact, declining home values in an area's suburbs are tending to drag down the average for the rest of the metropolitan area, she said.
Manhattan, however, tends to be a real-estate juggernaut all its own.
The average price of a Manhattan apartment was up 47% in the first quarter, compared with the first quarter of 2007, according to Brown Harris Stevens, a provider of real-estate services in the area. The boost was largely due to an increase in high-end sales that occurred at two luxury condo developments.
But the median price of a Manhattan apartment, which is less impacted by high-end activity, also rose 13% over the year, according to the firm.
One driver of the market: A rising demand for three- and four-bedroom units in Manhattan, said Jim Gricar, executive vice president of Brown Harris Stevens. More families are opting to live in the city as opposed to seeking larger homes in the suburbs, as was common in the 1980s and early 1990s, he said.
"After years of the city reinventing itself... (Manhattan is) attracting families and keeping people who might have moved to Scarsdale," he said.
riddler writes:
I tried out the new link, and received:
This blog is open to invited readers only
proposed layout
It doesn't look like you have been invited to read this blog. If you think this is a mistake, you might want to contact the blog author and request an invitation.
riddler | 04.23.08 - 9:56 pm | #
same here - was looking fwd to seeing the new layout
Discretionary spending = $0.00 for most - just trying to fill the worthless, unsellable SUV to get to work to make enough $ to fill your tank back up is putting holes in a lot of pockets (and lining the pockets of the credit card companies, most likely)
dj
"" obviously from some folks that got seriously burned in the RE bubble with a determination to accentuate the negatives. ""
Entitled to your opinion, dj.... but keep in mind that many here were bearish when it wasn't popular at all.... and made out quite well shorting homebuilders and financial firms.
Think about it. If we were all that poor, we'd be hanging out around SBUX all day, lookin' for a latte handout.
But hey, stick around and learn something. You'd be flat out amazed at what people know.
If you were poor, you wouldn't know how to spell "latte" and you wouldn't care.
I will stick around occassionally, and will be amazed if, in fact, I am amazed. The persistent negativity of CR is amazing, however, rivaling the levels being reached in the Democratic primary.
Party goes on in Asia. I guess the guys are a bit behind the curve.
dj | 04.23.08 - 10:17 pm | #
Dj you are breaking eticket. CR ain't about long posts. use the link. Short sweet and clever makes the day around here. Just an opinion, I am an "outsider".
Could the new layout include ink drawings of Tanta and CR like the Wall Street? Tanta can use a decade old photo for her drawing like the blonde Lexus loving realtors do. A face with a name is always helpful.
I am assuming that "breaking eticket" was intended to say "breaking etiquette." Too funny.
Not trying to make anyone's day...just trying to shine a bit of real light on the doomsday monotony.
dj, go to costco and get in a fistfight over the chance to buy a bag of rice, if this isn't enough fun for you.
ip-, Mr. Porn student in B-school; is that what your old girlfriend called you, '...long and shallow...'
You can take the guy out of the Navy...
Not trying to make anyone's day...just trying to shine a bit of real light on the doomsday monotony.
dj | 04.23.08 - 10:58 pm | #
Heck,I actually am looking at picking up some more rentals with the parents here pretty soon. We just need to find properties that will cash flow at the rents we know we can get. It's getting close here in SW Florida.
Heck I worked more OT in the last 3 weeks than the last 3 years combined. No capex = more money for maintenance.
I do miss all the shiny new trucks though.
It's not all doom and gloom.
Chris
ipodius is nothing like Sebastion. ipodius is serious. Sebastian isn't - he's a benign kind of troll. ipodius is a lot more bearish than Sebastian pretends to be as well. Besides, I'm mostly on the same page as ipodius in expectation although I suffer intermittent panics where I fear it's all going to h***. The bond and stock markets are on that page too and I think the locals overdiscount the market. If the collective assets of the world are betting on particular outcomes it's wise to at least consider the possibility that they're right as opposed to assuming there's some massive market-manipulating conspiracy.
sdtsf,
It's not "not sticky" anymore. I am going to call it lubricated. Housing prices are lubricated. Nobody liked (actually they flipped out of their Chicago School of Economics loafers) when I used the term "not sticky." So, being the diplomat, it is now LUBRICATED.
Re: SBUX Maybe this is just the usual weird Texas stuff, but the Starbucks down the street still has a drive-thru line that has 8 to 10 huge SUVs in it everytime I go inside...when I come out, most of them are still sitting there burning gas and wasting time....Starbucks blew their image when they put in these damn drive-thru lines for the lazy affluent sorts. Would you like extra air pollution with that latte, sir?
In the workaday world I have 3 tenacious vices: coffee, tea and chocolate.
Oddly, we were talking about this at the office. The junior staff doesn't care about quality - weren't thrilled about Kona - will be getting Folgers. The (4) senior staff will be paying for our own high-quality coffee. We figure the sbux savings will pay for it, and we'll get better coffee to boot.
Latte?...Mortgage?...Latte?...Mortgage?
Oh, screw it, I'll take the e-class and give me the shiny rims. Now, that's no down, no payments for a year, right?
Took the wife's car to the full service car wash yesterday. Live in an apartment so it's the only way to keep it clean. In line it was me and 5 of the biggest SUVs on the market, all newish. So, as I'm standing next to the guy with the big new Yukon, I ask him how he likes it. He tells me he needs the room for all the kids, and..."It's really pretty good on gas, it's got a 40 gallon tank so I hardly ever have to fill it." He goes on to explain that his last one wasn't nearly so good because he had to fill it twice as often. So, there you have it, his definition of good gas mileage was how far you can go between fill ups.
This world is not my home.
I think they changed some of that, but i'm sure most of these are not SBUX owned and, therefore, they don't care as much about the product.
I always wondered why SBUX insisted on a "one-brand-fits-all" approach instead of reserving the "Starbucks" cachet for the prime city-center / promenade locations and doing some sort of "Starbucks Express" equivalent for the airports, James Fenimore NJT rest stops, etc.
When I stop in a Borders Express store at an airport, I don't expect them to have 150,000 titles in stock or for the employees to be able to quote Proust.
But when I pull off the Turnpike and pay the same $4.39 for a "Starbucks" latte that tastes as though it was made by a hot-dog vendor and is plopped in front of me by a surly high-school dropout ... well, can you say "dilution of brand equity"?