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Posts Tagged ‘Housing’


Our Daily Bleg: The Old Roommate/Rent Dilemma

Conor Hunt, an I.T. consultant in Chicago, writes with a dilemma that, while common, seems to be always unsatisfactorily solved. Two friends — a merchandising analyst and a law student — and I are attempting to split up rent of a three-bedroom apartment with two common bathrooms. All rooms have their pros and cons, with the major differentiators being closet . . .



Our Daily Bleg: A Real-Estate Dilemma

Mike, a 30-year-old engineer, writes in with a real-estate dilemma in which he’s considering a tricky tradeoff: is it worth sabotaging his own credit rating in order to walk away from a house that’s worth far less than his mortgage? Already Been Blegged Here’s what Freakonomics readers have been blegging for lately. How to Handicap a Multi-Race Challenge? Book-Club Questions . . .



How Far Should Your Sympathies Go?

Over the past few months, the press has deluged Americans with weepy stories about people who are in danger of losing their houses because their sub-prime mortgages now exceed the value of their houses, which the recession and the popping of housing bubbles have caused to drop. I am sympathetic; and I, and other taxpayers, am being asked to provide . . .



Who Benefits From the Subprime Crisis?

The parties who are suffering from the subprime crisis are vast and varied, as well as in the newspapers every day. One reason the crisis has gotten so much attention, in fact, is because these parties are so vast and varied. The typical financial crisis has one or two big villains (think Enron) and a vague coterie of victims (think . . .



The FREAK-est Links

What Hitwise can say about mortgage rates. (Earlier) Will the housing bubble lead to baby bundles? (Earlier) What will become of the “Tipping Point”? Climate change and impending doom? (Earlier)



Lost: $720 Billion. If Found, Please Return to Owner, Preferably in Cash

According to the S&P/Case-Shiller index of housing prices, home prices have fallen by about 6 percent in the United States on average over the last twelve months. By my rough calculations, that means that home owners have lost about $720 billion in wealth as a consequence. That is about $2,400 for every person in America, and $18,000 for the average . . .



The FREAK-est Links

E.P.A. denies states’ requests to set their own emissions standards. (Earlier) Study indicates that insured cancer patients have better chance of survival. The one place where the Patriots lose: the point spread. Sellers offered extra incentives to buy in stagnating home market.



The FREAK-est Links

Home sales hit five-year low. (Earlier) Second Life’s future: “bigger than the Web“?(Earlier) Delta starts a blog. (Earlier) Risk analyst sets next year’s median of U.S. terrorism deaths at zero. (Earlier)



More From the “Economic Naturalist” Robert Frank

We recently posted a series of excerpts from The Economic Naturalist, a new book by the Cornell economist Robert Frank (who has another new book out this week, Falling Behind, a brief treatise on income inequality). Because the Economic Naturalist excerpts were well received and vigorously debated, we asked Frank if he would reply to some of the feedback. Kindly, . . .



The FREAKest Links: Smaller Homes, Free Burritos, and the Price of Death Edition

Bad news for retirees (and others) who want gigantic houses in Boulder, Colo.: local officials may enact home size restrictions. Under the proposal, residents would be allowed to build homes larger than 4,000 square feet only if they agree to invest in the preservation of agricultural or rural land in other regions. (Hat tip: J.C. O’Connell.) Here’s more on the . . .



The FREAKest Links: Shantytowns and Dreams Edition

In stark contrast to tales of 60-story homes being built in Mumbai, reader Aparna Vemuri wrote in with this story about the bootstrap entrepreneurship of Dharavi, the largest shantytown in Asia, in which nearly every resident produces a good. While the region’s poverty is undeniable, results are starting to show: as of 2006, all homes had 24-hour electricity and running . . .



The FREAKest Links: Skyscraper Homes and Pay-Per-Class Edition

From reader Paul O’Keef: Architectural Record reports that India’s richest man is building a sixty-story house for his family, including six floors for parking, a health club and a rooftop helipad. The University of Georgia is offering a new incentive to make student-athletes show up for class: fining them $10 per unexcused absence. In the policy’s first month, the number . . .



Real-Estate Sleight of Hand

Itzhak Ben-David is a Ph.D. candidate in finance at the University of Chicago’s Graduate School of Business. (Levitt is one of his dissertation advisors.) While pursuing his original research idea — the degree to which housing prices efficiently incorporate anticipated tax increases — Ben-David stumbled upon a slightly juicier topic: a real-estate sleight of hand known as the “cashback transaction,” . . .



DisLocation: A new film by Sudhir Venkatesh

Sudhir Venkatesh, the amazing sociologist who was my co-author on the gangs research that we write about in Freakonomics, has a great new documentary. It will be showing on WTTW, Chicago’s PBS affiliate at Thursday, Nov. 17th, 9pm Friday, Nov. 18th, 10pm. If you don’t live in Chicago, you are out of luck, at least for now. I have seen . . .