What can I say – 2008 was a lot of fun
1) Music: That’s Not My Name by The Ting Tings
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2) Images: 2008 Year in Review
The forecast for 2009 is out and it’s looking good if you have about $300K to throw at a home. The housing prices in Los Angeles County are expected to drop 25% in 2009.
10 worst real-estate markets for 2009
The housing market hasn’t bottomed out yet. For the third quarter, the closely-watched S&P Case-Shiller national home-price index fell 16.6%, and experts are predicting further declines. Of the top 100 markets, here are 10 with the worst forecasts.
So now is the time to get your ducks in order. Find a loan (the interest rate on a 30yr fixed is very low and could drop even lower), find a home, and wait for it to fall to the price you want to pay.
This is according to Fortune Magazine. But let’s say you are not interested in Los Angeles but you still want to live in California, no problem. 8 of the 10 worst real estate markets for 2009 are in California. Here is the full list:
Here are some stats for the Los Angese, CA Market:
2008 median house price: $375,340
2009 projected change: -24.9% (taking the median house price to $281,800)
2010 projected change: -5.1% (taking the median house price to $267,428)
Personally, I am looking to buy myself a downtown loft or West Side Condo in 2009. If only I could find a good Realtor.
Yes – this is going to be a rant about AT&T Wireless. This will be an act in four parts – enjoy.
The iPhone incident - when the 3G iPhone came out, I wanted one. So I took a half-day at work and lined up at the Apple Store in Marina Del Rey. It was a long line and wrapped around the mall. Several Apple employees would come out and tell us to get your shit in order, this is taking a long time. If you have existing service, call AT&T make sure you qualify for the special rate.
I called AT&T to make sure that I would not have to pay $500 for the iPhone. The “customer service” rep told me that I qualified for the discount and would only have to pay $199 for the iPhone. I stood in line for 7 hours. Once I got into the Apple store, the rep told me I didn’t qualify for the discount price. I was pissed. I called the AT&T customer service and asked them what the hell?
I was told that I didn’t qualify for a discount and would have to pay the full price or wait till November. This was after I waited for 7+ hours in the July sun. I got a sunburn. The people at the Apple store were very sorry for my wasted time and they gave me a $20 Apple gift card. AT&T refused that I had ever called. They had no note of the call.
The “AT&T Store” - how can you have a store but not be connected to anything in the corporate office. We are talking about wireless service. If you buy a phone online, there is no record or access to records in the actual store. What is the point of having a store if none of the records are accessible. I had to pull up my Gmail account to produce a Bill of Sale to prove I bought the phone.
My broken phone - On Saturday night, I plugged in my phone to charge. When I tried to use the phone on Sunday morning, it would not turn on. So, knowing that AT&T sucks, I raced to the store to pick up a replacement. Issue number 1, no record of purchase (see above) followed by attitude from the store rep. As in, “What do you want me to do, call customer service.” With what bitch, my ass – I don’t have a fucking phone. So I picked up the phone in the store and told her to call customer service for me. She did. It was awesome to see her frustration as she navigated through the AT&T menu system.
She finally got hold of a “replacement specialist”. The conversation whet something like this, “Hello, this is Bitch from the AT&T store in Culver City, I need a replacement phone sent out for a custom…Culver City, California…Overland and Washington Blvd…what…why…huh…one second.” She grabs a big book and flips through some pages. “Store number XYZ…Okay, I checked the phone and there is no water damage and the battery looks good…the phone won’t turn on…what…no…can you just send out a replacement?…hold on…yes, the sensors are intact..there is no water damage…okay.” She hands me the phone.
“Customer Service” - I use the term only to describe what AT&T think they offer. Customer service really means, “You can call, but our hands are tied, we can’t do shit.” After the phone is handed to me at the AT&T store, we go through the following steps (the same steps the AT&T rep just went through). I check the phone for water damage and a broken battery. I plug the phone into the charger and test it – nothing. It is determined by the rep that the battery is bad and he will be sending me a new one in about a week.
I don’t think so mo-fo. “Tell you what, I’m at the AT&T store, Bitch over here is going to open up a battery and we will test it in the store.”
“No sir, that is not an authorized AT&T replacement.”
“What – where the fuck am I – I’m in the AT&T store – you’re telling me you don’t sell replacement parts in the AT&T store.”
–SILENCE–I can tell that I have been put on MUTE–
“Sir, go ahead and test the phone with the store battery.”
I test the battery and it fails. I let the guy know.
“Okay sir, I’ll send you out a replacement phone – it takes about a week to arrive, unless you would prefer priority shipping for $15?”
“Are you kidding me, I sign up for $50/month for 24 months ($1200) and I have been a customer for 5+ years and you want me to pay extra for shipping? You should kiss my ass and ship it overnight for free and there should be a ‘We are so sorry for sucking’ note in there and a gift certificate for full release massage in Chinatown.”
“Sir, I can not do that. Your phone will arrive in 5-7 days. Thank you for using the new AT&T, I hope your experience was wonderful.”
“I can’t believe you just read that to me – I hate you and I’ve never met you.”
The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority announced that tourism dropped by 10.2% in October. The drop is the largest since October 2001 when Vegas saw tourism decline by 14.1% in the aftermath of the 9-11 attacks. In addition, the average hotel room price in Southern Nevada dropped by more than 14% to $115.68, and the room occupancy rate was down more than eight points compared to last year, to 83.8%.
If you are not feeling the pinch of the economic downturn – you might want to consider flying (or driving) to Las Vegas this winter. For me, business is pretty much as usual. I have a job (we are pretty stable), my parents are retired and there is no risk of job loss there. My family in general has not really been effected. But this, I understand, is not the norm in America.
So I look to Las Vegas as my model for the economic downturn. I was in the city of sin this weekend for a Nine Inch Nails concert at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino. Let’s compare my last trip with this recent trip.
This trip was short – got to Vegas, played some poker, had dinner, concert, came home. Total time – 15 hours. I have another trip planned for January 1st. We’ll see how that trip pans out.
Overall – I like this empty Vegas. I found poker and craps, there were no lines, and EVERYONE was real nice and polite. Keep the customer happy.
So Christmas is just around the corner. Most people have decided not to exchange gifts this year. But if you look real close, you can find some killer gifts for low low prices.
However, if you have some money, there has never been a better time to be selfish. Here are some gifts I will be buying myself and some great sub-twenty dollar gifts. Enjoy.
So I have been using Yelp! for about nine months. It just keeps getting better. I first heard about Yelp! last November when I attended a Google workshop. At the time, Google was catering to small business and trying to get these business to spend some cash on ad words and ad sense (Google’s online marketing and advertising).
One of the biggest issues with small business is marketing. So many options and no real tracking. In addition, if you are running a small business (especially a retail store or restaurant) you know how precious your time is. You’re busy spending your days on the day-to-day operations and fighting for every dollar. You don’t always have time to research this new thing or that new service.
That brings me to Yellow-Book (aka the Yellow Pages). These guys have been around for quite a while. But they totally missed the boat when it comes to the Internet. But that’s ok because small business owners (the majority) still drop thousands a year on a outdated, antiquated, and dying ‘technology’. In fact, a lot of small businesses use the yellow pages as their primary source of advertising. Do you know how many people you are missing? If you are under the age of thirty-five, you most likely have not opened up a phone book in a long time.
When you want something, you turn to the Internet. You want to know the following items:
This type of feedback can not be found on an outdated piece of yellow paper. The yellow pages do not and did not look to present this information to you online. They sat on their asses and continued to milk the small business owner. Now their time has passed and Yelp! has created a market online that should be dominated by YellowBook but is not.
What – you want an example…fine.
Where are you going to start your food search?
If you are a small business owner, check out Modern Gorilla dot com. They can assist you in your small business marketing package. The web is a great marketing tool, but it’s just a single tool. There are hundreds of opportunities you can be taking advantage of in the new digital era.
So I met a girl at a bar (it was a birthday party actually) and I felt a bit of a connection. She asked me if I was on Facebook and I told her I USED to be on Facebook (and MySpace) but I canceled my account because I was tired of the spam and poke-wall-2-wall-pirates-V-ninjas emails I received on a daily basis. Her suggestion, try it is again and look me up.
So I did and now I am back on Facebook and I can’t stop updating my status and commenting on peoples photos and misc. other stuff. I am happy to report that people have slowed down with the pokes and ninjas and I find Facebook a pretty great way to communicate. I have even reconnected with some old friends from Damien as well as Cal State Fullerton.