2008-03-21 (Friday) by Gregory Tucker.

There is no correlation between population density and energy usage that I can identify.

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2008-03-21 (Friday) by Gregory Tucker.

It is widely known California is suffering the collapse of a real estate bubble. Need evidence? This blog documents a recent suburban and light industrial development that has collapsed completely. It is like something out of a movie, where all humanity dies.

http://sacrealstats.blogspot.com/2008/02/natomas-area-commercial-real-estate.html

Meanwhile, back in Portland… Portland ranks 35th among the 50 largest markets in affordability, which compares housing prices with incomes. Prices must still decline 30% to reach historically sustainable levels.

http://www.bizjournals.com/specials/pages/160.html 

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2008-03-18 (Tuesday) by Gregory Tucker.

In my spare time I have started a project to “make sense” of energy consumption. I believe we are all concerned about energy consumption, energy sources, and the effect our effect our use of energy is having on our planet, especially with respect to global climate change. We hear a lot of claims about what can and cannot be done in the future. Some way solar power is our only alternative. Some say nuclear power. I admit I do not understand these claims, but I want to.

Energy is important because our way of life and standard of living depend on energy. My first challenge was to establish a connection between GDP and energy consumption. I pulled per capita GDP numbers from the CIA World FactBook. I pulled per capita energy consumption data from the Energy  Information Administration (2005). Neither source was entirely complete, but I found a sample of 197 countries with statistics from both. I ignored the small colonies or protectorates of the United States and Europe which house military bases, because these regions have very high energy consumption relative to GDP, and arguably these numbers should be rolled up into their parent countries.

With a sample of 197, the data shows a correlation coefficient (r) of 0.829 and a coefficient of determination (r-squared) of .687. The statistician would say that 68.7% of the variation in energy consumption can be explained by economic production. This is a pretty strong correlation and confirms my belief.

Next I want to investigate the correlation between energy consumption and population density.

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2008-03-18 (Tuesday) by Gregory Tucker.

We are in the market for a new house. We found one at 6319 SE Windsor Ct.  The seller is asking $364K, and we offered $350K. The seller countered at $358K, which we rejected with no further action.

I did some more extensive research on the housing market in Portland, by looking at some more of the raw data and browsing through the discussion forums. I found that we are turning down quite a bit too. The year on year (2006 to 2007) number is positive (6%), which is what the real estate agents always throw around. In reality the positive numbers reflect the first half of the year, while the latter half started going negative. The “stable” markets like Portland and Seattle were slower to turn down than the rest of the country, the market is now in a full fledged downturn. The best site is here:

http://portlandhousing.blogspot.com/2008/03/portland-rlms-market-report-february.html

I also learned that a major component of the appreciation of the market is due to flippers. The statistics measure the appreciation of same house sales. Because Portland houses are older, the market is rife with flippers who buy a house, put $15,000 of work, and resell for $50K higher. This is where most of the appreciation in the Portland market is going. So if we want our house to increase in value too, we have to do it the DIY way.

The seller of 6319 SE Windsor, as with most houses, is in total denial about the realities of the current market. I think the seller expected us to get into a counter haggling war, but we didn’t want to play. I am pretty sure they will regret rejecting our offer. My next offer will be even lower.

It is strange that there seems to be a sense of entitlement about housing prices going up. The seller bought the house 1.5 years ago for $325K and now they reject $350K in a weak market with minimal upgrades. How’s that for entitlement? Now that prices are going down, many people (all over the country) who are upside down on their mortgage are simply handing the properties back to the banks. If they don’t get their entitlement, they get out completely, in violation of common sense. I find this attitude towards housing very strange, and reflecting a deeply broken market.

The real estate agents are in denial too. I am not sure if they are simply lying to us about the actual state of the market, or they truly believe their rhetoric. Either way, the agents have been misleading us. I am pretty sure housing prices will be significantly better by summer, and may continue dropping into 2009. Additionally, because Michiko has a whole laundry list of criteria to meet, it helps to have more inventory to look at. The inventory will improve into the summer, peaking around September. So I am more confident waiting in order to find a better house at a better price.

We will also keep our eyes on the Windsor house, hoping the seller will come to their senses over the next couple months.

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2008-03-16 (Sunday) by Gregory Tucker.

Although I generally dislike Microsoft Windows Vista, because it is slow and buggy, I have discovered one new feature that I really like. Because Vista is so buggy, I find I have to reboot a lot. I wanted to enable the Automatic Login feature, while retaining security. It turns out, a gentleman named Ryan Baker has already figured it out.

http://tech.norabble.com/2008/01/secure-automatic-login-for-vista.html

At a high level, you do the following:

1. Run netplwiz to enable automatic login

2. Run the Automated Tasks wizard from Administration Tools to lock the terminal upon login, using these values: %SYSTEMROOT%\system32\rundll32.exe. Last, in Add arguments, type user32.dll, LockWorkStation

However, I believe all my Microsoft headaches will go away if I just upgrade to a Mac. The new MacBooks look very tempting right now. More on that later.

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