Thursday, June 23, 2005
Television channel, HGTV comes to Philadelphia. Smarter Agent is local realty host.
Television channel HGTV comes to Philadelphia to find out how much house you get for the money.
House and Garden TV’s top rated show “What You Get For the Money” is shooting in Philadelphia this week (Thursday & Friday). Local techno-realty firm Smarter Agent (http://www.smarteragent.com/) is the featured Realtor in this episode. 4 downtown townhomes and condos to be featured.
The premise of the show is to find out what your money really can buy.
The show shoots in cities across the United States looking at what homes sell for: from a 500-square-foot urban dwelling to a five-bedroom rural house.
Each episode tells personal stories, investigates varied lifestyles and explores communities while boldly answering the invasive question: "How much did that cost?" The show airs Wednesdays at 10:30PM on the HGTV channel.
In Philadelphia, the show will be looking at condo’s and town homes ranging from $400,000 to $1million dollars selected by Smarter Agent Realtors. Smarter Agent Michele Lamm is the local realty host.
Smarter Agent, a realty firm with offices in PA, NJ, CA & FL, has received national attention for how it empowers consumers with easy to use internet and wireless tools to search for homes and real estate.
The shows stars host is Mike Siegel. He can be seen nationally every week as host of What You Get For the Money, as well as The Movie Break on TBS. He began his TV hosting career as a VH-1 on-air personality, and followed up as host of the NBC hidden-camera special, Payback. He has performed standup on numerous television shows, including Late Friday (NBC), Comedy Showcase with Louie Anderson (NBC), Stand-up, Stand-up (Comedy Central), and Friday Night (NBC). Mike's also been a recurring guest star on the CBS drama "JAG", and had supporting roles in such shows as 24 (FOX), Less Than Perfect (ABC), Eve (UPN), Strong Medicine (Lifetime), Andy Richter Controls the Universe (FOX) and Sabrina (WB). He also has roles in the highly acclaimed Steven Soderbergh drama Traffic, starring Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones, the independent feature The Godfather of Green Bay with Lauren Holly, and played a lead in Inside Out, a short film directed by L. Zane.
RELATED LINKS
HGTV website: http://www.hgtv.com/hgtv/shows_hgftmWhat You Get for the Money
http://www.smarteragent.com/
House and Garden TV’s top rated show “What You Get For the Money” is shooting in Philadelphia this week (Thursday & Friday). Local techno-realty firm Smarter Agent (http://www.smarteragent.com/) is the featured Realtor in this episode. 4 downtown townhomes and condos to be featured.
The premise of the show is to find out what your money really can buy.
The show shoots in cities across the United States looking at what homes sell for: from a 500-square-foot urban dwelling to a five-bedroom rural house.
Each episode tells personal stories, investigates varied lifestyles and explores communities while boldly answering the invasive question: "How much did that cost?" The show airs Wednesdays at 10:30PM on the HGTV channel.
In Philadelphia, the show will be looking at condo’s and town homes ranging from $400,000 to $1million dollars selected by Smarter Agent Realtors. Smarter Agent Michele Lamm is the local realty host.
Smarter Agent, a realty firm with offices in PA, NJ, CA & FL, has received national attention for how it empowers consumers with easy to use internet and wireless tools to search for homes and real estate.
The shows stars host is Mike Siegel. He can be seen nationally every week as host of What You Get For the Money, as well as The Movie Break on TBS. He began his TV hosting career as a VH-1 on-air personality, and followed up as host of the NBC hidden-camera special, Payback. He has performed standup on numerous television shows, including Late Friday (NBC), Comedy Showcase with Louie Anderson (NBC), Stand-up, Stand-up (Comedy Central), and Friday Night (NBC). Mike's also been a recurring guest star on the CBS drama "JAG", and had supporting roles in such shows as 24 (FOX), Less Than Perfect (ABC), Eve (UPN), Strong Medicine (Lifetime), Andy Richter Controls the Universe (FOX) and Sabrina (WB). He also has roles in the highly acclaimed Steven Soderbergh drama Traffic, starring Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones, the independent feature The Godfather of Green Bay with Lauren Holly, and played a lead in Inside Out, a short film directed by L. Zane.
RELATED LINKS
HGTV website: http://www.hgtv.com/hgtv/shows_hgftmWhat You Get for the Money
http://www.smarteragent.com/
Monday, June 20, 2005
Think of your home as the place you want to live, not as an investment you plan to flip
We made a similar market beware call about a year ago - we warned: buy the home you can comfortably afford, expect interest rates to climb, expect your property taxes to go up, and expect the market value of your home to dip 15% in the next 5 years.
We stand by that call. Bottom line, do not expect real estate prices to always go up - they go down too!
When we saw the economist for the National Association of Realtors publish a book last month entitled "Are you missing the real estate boom?", we shuddered knowing that most busts occur because of poor analysis. No wonder people don't trust Realtors to act in their best interest. I read in Barron's that a Yale economist said that book reminded him of a 1999 book entitled "Dow 36000". The market crashed fairly close to when books like that proclaimed there are new economics in play!
Here's a thought from a May 30 Barron's article:
"There seems to be a bubble in news coverage about the housing bubble, which shows editors aren't much different from investors trying to latch onto a trend. But which stories should contrarians bet against - ones warning of the bubble bursting or those explaining why housing prices are unlikely to crash. In the late 1990's, when tomes forcasting Dow 10,000 came out, bears were slaughtered before they were vindicated. Indeed, the final blowoff is the most violent phase. We could be at a point in housing analogous to 3000 on the Nasdaq - which hit 5000 before crashing to 1200."
We stand by that call. Bottom line, do not expect real estate prices to always go up - they go down too!
When we saw the economist for the National Association of Realtors publish a book last month entitled "Are you missing the real estate boom?", we shuddered knowing that most busts occur because of poor analysis. No wonder people don't trust Realtors to act in their best interest. I read in Barron's that a Yale economist said that book reminded him of a 1999 book entitled "Dow 36000". The market crashed fairly close to when books like that proclaimed there are new economics in play!
Here's a thought from a May 30 Barron's article:
"There seems to be a bubble in news coverage about the housing bubble, which shows editors aren't much different from investors trying to latch onto a trend. But which stories should contrarians bet against - ones warning of the bubble bursting or those explaining why housing prices are unlikely to crash. In the late 1990's, when tomes forcasting Dow 10,000 came out, bears were slaughtered before they were vindicated. Indeed, the final blowoff is the most violent phase. We could be at a point in housing analogous to 3000 on the Nasdaq - which hit 5000 before crashing to 1200."
