As DVD sales decline, the studios are looking for new ways to increase profits.
The movie industry plans to stream content directly to consumers in order to reduce piracy. They will premier films before they are released in theaters (and/or 3 months before they are available in DVD) .... People will pay one price per stream similar to pay per view.
Some believe that interrupting or changing the cycle of release Theater > DVD > TV, will destroy the movie industry. Even the theater experience that has been so strong and has survived the surge of VHS and then the DVD, may not survive the lack of theatrical releases with this new streaming media approach.
Today you can find streaming media on hulu.com, iTunes and Amazon's Unbox. With broadband penetration spreading many TV stations are already getting used to people having their own TV schedule (let's not even mention the DVR boxes). The numbers paint the picture of a much different entertainment future (http://www.forbes.com/2007/12/09/tv-online-video-biz-media-cx_lh_1210biztv.html)
The movie industry knows that the idea of spinning a plastic disc to watch a movie will seem positively archaic as the old vinyl disc are today for us. The rise of streaming media will replace the DVDs and if everything works as they plan they will do the same with the theatrical releases.
Fall's big theatrical release of Columbia Pictures’ “2012,” a new Hollywood disaster flick inspired by the end of the Mayan calendar. But down in Guatemala –- the home of a big chunk of the nearly 7 or 8 million living Mayans -– one elder appears more indignant than worried. “The Mayan texts say nothing about this,” said Carlos Barrios, a leading Mayan shaman, over the phone Wednesday. “These guys have been talking about the end of the world … It’s not the end of the world.”
The subject of end of world It's always on people's minds, especially now with wars breaking out and the economy the way it is. The movie is load with special effects and promises be a big hit on numbers!
Still in the same subject, one of our art directors found this very interesting (and fun) link about the end of world. We really believe you will like it.
Enjoy:
Cracked.com asked designers to photoshop for us some of the natural disasters, disease outbreaks and animal swarms will be attacking tourist destinations next.
Fall's big theatrical release of Columbia Pictures’ “2012,” a new Hollywood disaster flick inspired by the end of the Mayan calendar. But down in Guatemala –- the home of a big chunk of the nearly 7 or 8 million living Mayans -– one elder appears more indignant than worried.
“The Mayan texts say nothing about this,” said Carlos Barrios, a leading Mayan shaman, over the phone Wednesday. “These guys have been talking about the end of the world … It’s not the end of the world.”
The subject of end of world It's always on people's minds, especially now with wars breaking out and the economy the way it is. The movie is load with special effects and promises be a big hit on numbers!
Still in the same subject, one of our art directors found this very interesting (and fun) link about the end of world. We really believe you will like it.
Enjoy:
Cracked.com asked designers to photoshop for us some of the natural disasters, disease outbreaks and animal swarms will be attacking tourist destinations next.
Twitter limits users to 140 characters, but sometimes that just isn’t enough. Some Twitter applications have started to take advantage of third-party services that let users post longer messages, and then in the tweet it will provide a link to the text. In many ways this defeats the purpose of Twitter, but sometimes you just can’t fit what you want to say in a mere 140 characters.
Posterous is probably one of the more widely used services for this purpose, and it also lets you include things like images, videos, MP3’s and more. It has pretty much turned into a personal blog for a lot of Twitter users, but a.longreply.com looks to bring the simplicity back to your long tweets.
The homepage pretty much consists of a text box and a submit button. Once you submit your message it will provide you with a link you can use for your tweet that is over 140 characters. When people click through to read the message they will get a fast, lean webpage that even loads quickly on mobile devices. At the end of the message you’ll find the number of times the page has been viewed in addition to how long ago the message was posted. That’s it. No flashy videos or bulky images… just the message you wanted your readers to see.
I’m hoping to see some of the third-party Twitter clients integrate with a.longreply.com because I love how clean it is, but I don’t mind visiting the homepage for the few times I need to bust out of the 140 character barrier.
The word "cloud computing" gets thrown around quite often these days, but in the case of establishing an online presence a cloud of relevant and precise information about our brand is exactly what we are trying to achieve.
Let's have a look at two online services in which you can create online profiles, and how linking the two profiles can improve search engine results. By linking a LookupPage of a business or a professional with a LinkedIn profile, a user is not only making life easier for customers and establishing credibility amongst them, but a correlation is created between the two pages in the eyes of search engines as well. Linking the profiles together increases the probability that the search engine robot will bundle the two profiles for future searches.
Creating a cloud that binds together different online profiles of a professional, a business, or a brand could dramatically improve the Google CV of that entity.
When creating links between profiles what should you be paying attention to?
1. Not all online profile tools are created equal; some online profile tools limit the amount of effective links each profile can create making the additional links nofollow links. For example, a profile created on LinkedIn can have up to 3 links that the search engine robot will take into consideration.LookupPage does not limit the amount of follow links each profile is allowed to have. The practice of not allowing follow links is fairly common; Wikipedia does not allow follow links as it is a user generated content website. Allowing follow links would jam up Wikipedia with a significant amount of spam.
2. Because links are often limited, it is imperative to get the most out of every link you create. Using anchor text [the visible clickable text in a hyperlink] as opposed to just adding the URL of a profile is crucial. Creating anchor text is a way of telling the search engine robot to associate the text [whether it's a name of a brand or a characteristic you wish to promote] with the URL of the profile that is being submitted.
With more businesses and professionals using Twitter than ever before, search for the term “Retweet” has grown immensely.
What does it mean to retweet? To quote Jeremiah Owyang of Altimeter Group, within the Twitter community a "Retweet" is a social gesture indicating endorsement of an idea. It also displays the power of word of mouth. We are more likely to pay attention to recommendations or ideas generated by our friends and colleagues than to information presented to us by strangers. A retweet coming from someone you know is more likely to get your attention.
How do you get people to retweet your stuff?
The absolute best way is to come up with content that will impress your reader. In late August, we wrote a case study about the lacking online reputation management of KFC restaurants. This blog post generated thousands of views in the following days. It also has been retweeted as late as two weeks after its publication.
Another way to increase the probability of a retweet is to engage in endorsing ideas that people who follow you post on Twitter by retweeting them. This is a form of “what goes around – comes around”. By paying respects to content they have put up online you could create a reciprocal relationship in which they promote your tweets.
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Microsoft wants marketers to see it in a different light -- not only as an ad seller but as a smart company full of geeks who can help it solve business problems. And the tech giant is using social media to prove it can do so.
Today Microsoft is taking the wraps off a new platform called Looking Glass, a social-media aggregator and monitoring tool that's still in "proof of concept" stage, meaning it's not yet in the market and will be open to a very small group of testers next month.
The idea is to connect social-media-monitoring tools to the rest of a marketer's organization -- customer databases, work orders, customer-service centers and sales data. Looking Glass will pull in a variety of feeds from platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Flickr and work with third-party data sources as well (the folks behind it have already talked to some firms such as Meteor Solutions and Telligent). All of the data collected will connect into Microsoft's enterprise platforms, such as Outlook and Sharepoint.
Making social media actionable What this also means for marketers is how all that social-media information they're drowning in becomes more actionable.
Here's how: A marketing manager can get an e-mail alert when there's a sudden surge of chatter about his or her brand on Twitter or Facebook, along with the sentiment of that chatter and the influence level of those blogging. That information can then be connected to a customer-relationship-management system to decide whether customer service or PR should respond. Or a cable operator's customer service rep could monitor Twitter for outage reports and send off a repair request straight from the tool. And Looking Glass will hook up to existing customer databases, so a pharmaceutical brand manager would be able to figure out if a person throwing a hissy fit on his blog is an influential doctor or current customer.
"Social isn't a web destination, it's an attribute and an application on some level," said Jamey Tisdale, group product marketing manager for Microsoft's platform strategy group, a small team that serves as a sort of intra-Microsoft incubator for ideas such as Looking Glass. He describes the product as a "bridge between IT and the marketing organization."
It also logs all activity within the tool so, for example, companies can keep track of who posts to their own Twitter feeds.
One of the best uses for Looking Glass, said Marty Taylor Collins, who heads social-media marketing for the Windows 7 team, is to catch a mini web crisis before ity erupts into full-scale disaster. She cites one of her first experiences with Looking Glass as an example.
In January, Windows 7 was opened up for beta testing. The Windows team and put in place a load-balancing plan, meant to control the number of downloads that could happen at a time so the system wouldn't crash, and opened up the beta-testing download period on a Friday at 9 a.m. By 9:30 a.m. a popular tech blogger had posted a way to bypass the load-balancing system and the operating system crashed under the weight.
Tweeting to the angst-ridden "By monitoring the conversation we realized because we said there would be limited downloads, it created this angst," Ms. Collins said. Microsoft reached out to the angst-ridden beta testers, asking them to to watch its Twitter feed, and by Saturday morning it had alerted them the system was back up. Within 30 minutes it got another tweet -- that that download wasn't compatible with a certain browser. From Looking Glass Ms. Collins' team used the tweet to file a high-priority bug and it was fixed within the hour.
"There are so many stories that could have happened [during the beta launch]," said Ms. Collins. "And this was best story that never did."
While the tool is meant to be open and work with a variety for third-party social-media vendors and platforms, it's still meant to tie into and drive sales for Microsoft's Enterprise Group, meaning that its use could be limited for companies that don't use a suite of Microsoft products. As Mr. Tisdale explained, it purposely built something that requires multiple Microsoft teams -- ad sales and enterprise sales -- to do. "It's the only way for us to win," he said.
It also gives Microsoft ad sales reps something more to talk about than banner and search ads.
"We want to change the expectation advertisers have of Microsoft," said Mr. Tisdale. "We can do more than sell you advertising. We can help your business problems -- we're a bunch of geeks, let's see what the geeks can do."
As a company, Whole Foods has impressively embraced social media more than most, gathering over 1.2 million followers on Twitter and 123,000 fans on Facebook in the process. While it is easy to understand why a relatively young company or one started by a tech-savvy founder would so completely embrace social media communication tools, it is quite a bit more remarkable for an almost 30 year old established brick and mortar company with roughly 50,000 employees and over 270 stores worldwide to have done so.
I recently visited the Whole Foods headquarters in Austin, Texas to meet with members of their new media team, including Bill Tolany, the company’s Senior Coordinator of Integrated Media, and Winnie Hsia, who oversees the @wholefoods account. I wanted to know how Whole Foods integrated social media tools into their communications strategy, and what lessons had they learned from doing so. Below are five of the lessons that Whole Foods shared with me during our chat.
1. Make Content Increasingly Relevant
Whole Foods started initially with just the @wholefoods account but as it gathered followers, they realized it had limitations: while it was useful for news with national appeal, it was less so for sharing local information or addressing specific interests of customers. A percentage of their followers, for example, might be interested in an event happening at their New York City store or reviews of certain food items, but many others would not be interested.
To address this, they encouraged all their stores to start their own accounts and tweet about events at their store and news related to that local area. They also created separate accounts for specific issues, such as one for wine and one for cheese, where the head of those departments post and interact with customers. In fact, with over 150 company Twitter accounts and new ones added regularly, they likely have one of the largest corporate presences on Twitter. The goal with so many different accounts is to create increasingly relevant, and often local content.
2. Go Where Your Customers Are
When asked how they initially decided to use Twitter as a platform, which was pre-Oprah and before most other companies their size had done so, they emphasized that their goal has always been to interact with their customers no matter where those customers are. As Twitter gained momentum, they realized that a presence on it made sense, though they never foresaw that they would get over a million followers and how much staff time it would take to manage.
The conversation with customers, however, is essential to the company, whether it happens in person at a store or on a social network. Whole Foods, in fact, is active on numerous social media communication channels, not just Facebook and Twitter: they also have a Flickr page, an actively updated blog with videos on cooking healthy meals, and have employees responding on the customer feedback site Get Satisfaction. The goal is not just to pick one place and force customers to come to them, but to meet customers “on their home court,” wherever that may be.
3. Loosen Control from the Top
Likely the most difficult task for any large company when embracing social media is learning to let go of control. On one hand, most companies will want millions of followers on sites like Twitter, yet on the other hand, large corporations also tend to be cautious when taking risks. They’re unsure how much control they are willing to relinquish when it comes to governing how social media is used.
Whole Foods seems to really understand that such a top-down approach does not work in the age of social media. In fact, I was initially surprised that several people I interviewed while at the company headquarters that managed different corporate Whole Foods Twitter accounts used them quite differently from each other. Some, for example, shared personal information while others kept posts strictly to business. When I asked Tolany, who oversees the department, about it, he said that it did not surprise him at all. While they encourage some basic guidelines, Whole Foods has learned that for social media to work well, whoever is managing an account needs to be authentic, allow his or her personality to come through, and have fun in the process. If management tries to exercise too much control, the account will be less likely to succeed at engaging people.
4. Decide What Channel to Use for What Purpose
With a presence on so many social networks, Whole Foods tries to figure out how best to use each service. For example, they have found that for customer service, Twitter is much more effective than Facebook. On Twitter people can easily @reply a question and they can quickly respond. On the other hand, for “rich media,” including embedding videos or longer posts or responses, Facebook tends to be better. Likewise, for posting original content, their blog serves as the hub, allowing staff from various departments to share material. The company also created a nifty iPhone application with 2,000 searchable recipes and a store locator, which is a great platform for disseminating static information.
5. Let the Conversation Happen
My visit to the Whole Foods headquarter came at an interesting time. The previous week, Facebook, Twitter, and various blogs were ablaze with (mostly negative) comments in response to Whole Foods CEO, John Mackey’s, Op-Ed in The Wall Street Journal titled “The Whole Foods Alternative to ObamaCare.” We did not dive too much into the Mackey Op-Ed issue, but we did talk about whether having such a strong presence on Facebook and Twitter has allowed people to more easily express anger at them. During our conversation it became clear that Whole Foods realizes that people are going to talk about the company, both positively and negatively, whether they are have a presence on social networks or not. It is helpful, though, to know what people are saying and to be able to respond if necessary.
In fact, when Mackey responded to some of the criticism on his company blog, rather than turn off comments to the post, they encouraged people to express their feedback, and greater than 3,000 people did.
Conclusion
The central take away I got from my visit was the importance of engaging with one’s customers no matter where they spend time. When I asked Tolany and Hsia what advice they would give to companies thinking of using social media channels like Twitter, they seemed to both agree that the first task is to know if your customers (or the potential customers you want to engage) are present there. Then and only then does it make sense to invest time on a site.
I also got that part of what has motivated Whole Foods’ efforts in social media — and what can account for much of their success — is a willingness to be bold and take risks. Such boldness can of course have its dangers (such as when writing Op-Ed articles about delicate social issues) yet this has also helped them plow ahead in social media while other businesses their size waited cautiously in the background to see if it was “safe” or if these sites would gain in popularity.
Of course, any time a company opens up and has a presence on a communication channel like Facebook or Twitter, users can use those sites to criticize as much as to praise. Dealing with negative feedback, however, is better than not having a presence at all. I think Whole Foods is showing that the companies who keep such channels open, and listen to the unpleasant along with the pleasant feedback, will better know what matters to their customers and what company policies may need to change, which is likely to win them support in the end.
Whole Foods, like many other companies, is still finding its way in this age of social media, but they are showing that a non-technology company of their size can engage and innovate in this area.
South Florida Business Journal - by Susan R. Miller
South Florida home values fell 4.36 percent in the second quarter, compared to the first quarter, and were down nearly 23 percent, year-over-year, according to Zillow, an online real estate company.
There were a few glimmers of hope. Prices were up, quarter-over-quarter, in higher-priced areas such as Fisher Island, where the average home price is nearly $2 million (up 3.97 percent); Golden Beach, where the average home price is nearly $1.5 million (up 3.68 percent); and Manalapan, where the average home price is $2.5 million (up 14.43 percent).
Vicki Minnaugh, a Realtor with Century 21 AAA in Pembroke Pines, said there is a market for homes on the water.
“People who have that kind of money aren’t worried,” she said. “They are buying that location.”
But, not all of the increases were limited to the multimillion-dollar neighborhoods. For example, in the far western reaches of Palm Beach County’s Belle Glade, where the average price of a home is $112,000, prices ticked up 2.31 percent, quarter-over-quarter. Prices rose 4.58 percent in Broward County’s Hillsboro Beach and 4.84 percent in Miami-Dade County’s Norland neighborhood.
Some of the areas posting the greatest quarter-over-quarter declines were North Bay Village (down 10.68 percent), Pembroke Park (down 13.23 percent) and Sunny Isles Beach (down 14.22 percent).
Minnaugh suggested that the high concentration of condos in Sunny Isles Beach and North Bay Village are to blame for the declines.
“The bulk of those areas are Old Florida homes and condos, and some of the surrounding areas have changed – and that’s all a factor,” she said.
Nationwide, home values posted a 10th consecutive quarterly loss, falling 12.1 percent, year-over-year, according to Zillow. However, the index also found that the rate of decline has shrunk slightly, from 12.4 percent in the first quarter.
Home sales in June fell 23.7 percent compared to a year ago, but were up 3.8 percent over May.
Minnaugh said she saw sales rise in June and July – “and that’s important because until this whole inventory of REOs and short sales clear out, the prices aren’t going to level.”
Foreclosures made up 22 percent of all home sales nationwide in June, and 29.2 percent of all homes were sold for less than what the owner originally paid.
Negative equity continues to plague homeowners, with 23 percent of all single-family homeowners owing more than what their home is worth.
Minnaugh said there are predictions that those who purchased homes in 2007 and 2008 will, by next year, be upside down, as well.
“If people who bought in 2007 and 2008 walk away, they will do a short sale, which will perpetuate more negativity,” she said. “I hope they are wrong.”
Still, 29 percent say they would be at least somewhat likely to sell if they see signs of a turnaround.
“While we are encouraged by the increasing sales in many markets and the overall improvement in the rate of decline in the Zillow Home Value Index, I hate to be overly optimistic for the near future,” said Stan Humphries, Zillow chief economist.
He notes that foreclosures are keeping home values down, and increasing unemployment, coupled with higher rates of negative equity, will create “fertile breeding ground” for more foreclosures.
Low interest rates, combined with a large selection of affordable homes, are luring more potential homebuyers back into the market.
The National Association of Realtors said pending home sales – those homes on which contracts have been written – were up 3.6 percent in June from May and 6.7 percent higher than a year ago.
This is the fifth consecutive monthly gain. The last time there were five consecutive monthly gains was in July 2003, according to NAR.
The Pending Home Sales Index for June jumped 7.1 percent in the South, and is 8.9 percent higher than a year ago.
However, NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun noted that “a monthly rise in home prices and somewhat higher mortgage interest rates led to a modest decline in affordability in June.”
Still, he expects existing-home sales to gradually rise over the rest of the year.
“It appears home sales are on a sounder footing and inventory is gradually being absorbed,” Yun said in a news release.
Not sleeping well? It's a common complaint. Sixty-four million Americans report at least occasional bouts of insomnia. And the anxiety of waking up in the middle of the night can be maddening.
Psychiatrist Thomas Wehr has one consoling message for those who wake up at 2 a.m.: This is likely the way our ancestors slept.
"There are historical records of people sleeping in two bouts at night," Wehr explains. They called the first bout dead sleep, and the second bout was called morning sleep. The wakeful period in between was referred to as watch or watching.
He and his colleagues at the National Institute of Mental Health recruited 15 young, healthy adult volunteers. They went about their normal business during the day, then reported to a sleep lab in the early evening.
"We had our subjects go into the dark at 6 p.m., lie down and rest," Wehr says. "The lights didn't come back on until 8 the next morning; it was a simulated winter day.
The sleep study found that the long night led to two bouts of concentrated sleep — with a wakeful period in the middle, lasting a few hours. The study was published in the American Journal of Physiology in 1993.
"You might think that lying awake for two hours would be a kind of torture," Wehr says. "But it wasn't at all." The people in the sleep study described it as a kind of quiescent, meditative state.
Researchers found similar results in a more recent study of adolescents. The longer night seems to give rise to a sort of "midnight comfort."
Understanding Sleep
Learn more about what our sleep patterns say about our health.
To many of us, the notion of staying in bed — or in the dark — for 12 hours may seem ridiculous or a waste of time. In modern culture, we've adapted to a more efficient way of sleeping: consolidating it into one long stretch.
This works for many people, but as we age, sleep changes.
"Sleep tends to be more fragile in general as we age," says Mary Carskadon, who directs chronobiology and sleep research at Brown University.
One way to assess the age-related changes in sleep is to look at brain waves.
"When we're little, we have a lot of very high, slow brain waves at the beginning of the night," Carskadon says. "And that seems to be the best, most restorative kind of sleep."
But as the decades go by, these peaks diminish. If adolescent brain waves are the Himalayas, then by early adulthood, they're Rocky Mountain peaks. And in the elderly: think Appalachians or just foothills.
As we age, it's easier to wake us, Carskadon explains, "because those high, slow waves are very protective for disturbances in the environment" — things such as a snoring partner, or a barking dog.
Getting Enough Zzzzzzzz
So, if interruptions in sleep are to be expected, what's the best strategy for getting enough of it?
One option is to embrace a longer night. This may work for people who have very flexible schedules, or for those who are retired.
"They can afford, arguably, to spend more time in bed," says Jack Edinger, a sleep expert at Duke University. He says the middle-of-night wake time may not be anxiety-provoking if you know you're going to get another bout of morning sleep.
There's also the siesta model — with naps in the afternoon. But for those of us who need to get up and work all day? There are strategies that can help people consolidate sleep.
One technique, according to Edinger, is to tightly restrict the number of hours in bed. This encourages more efficient sleep.
Edinger stresses that sleep requirements vary from person to person. Six to nine hours is the normal range. But "there are people who fall outside that range and do just fine," he says.
The important thing is to get a good handle on the dose of sleep YOU need, he says. Set your pattern — and stick with it each night.
Most of us will find that's seven or eight hours. Recent studies suggest that people who get less than seven hours each night tend to be more susceptible to the common cold and weight gain
For years the belief was that commercials on Internet sites would never bring in as much as cash as commercials on TV. Total ad spending on TV still dwarfs that of online video streaming site Hulu-dot-com. But marketers like Hulu for, among other things, the captive audience. And so do TV networks in search of ways to keep making money from the programs they produce.
Sales of existing homes continued creeping up statewide and in South Florida, according to data from the Florida Association of Realtors.
Even better news, the statewide median sales price for existing homes was higher than the previous month’s, though prices remain depressed when compared to last year.
Distressed sales make up the lion’s share of the purchases across the state, real estate analyst Jack McCabe said. And, he noted that the clerk of courts offices across the state are swamped with foreclosures they have not been able to process. Add that to the large number of REOs that banks are holding, and McCabe expects the pipeline of inventory will remain blocked well into next year.
“In my mind, we are still going to see pricing pressures until about this time next year,” he said.” That’s when I think we will get through this big wave of foreclosures.”
Miami led the pack in the tri-county area, with sales of existing homes up 54 percent in June, to 680 from 442 a year ago. Median home sale prices rose to $211,400 in June, up from 194,700 in May. However, June prices were down 28 percent from $293,200 in the year-ago period.
Fort Lauderdale existing home sales rose 35 percent, to 862 last month from 639 in June 2008. Median home prices rose to $204,800 from May’s median price of $190,000. But, prices were down 33 percent from a year ago, when the median sales price was $305,400.
West Palm Beach realized a 15 percent gain in sales, to 859 from 744 a year ago. The median price of a home rose to $250,300 in June from $232,900 in May, but fell 25 percent from last June’s median sales price of $334,300.
Existing condos also are selling, with Fort Lauderdale leading the way. Sales rose 58 percent, to 933 in June from 591 a year ago. The median price plummeted 46 percent, to $83,900 in June from $156,200 in the year-ago period. However, prices were up from May’s median of price of $80,400.
Existing condo sales in West Palm Beach rose 29 percent, to 746 from 577. The median price slid 24 percent, to $116,400 from $153,2000, but was up from May’s median price of $107,500.
Miami’s existing condo sales rose 19 percent, to 645 from 542. The median price of a condo in Miami rose to $141,000 in June from $140,400 in May, but fell by 49 percent from a year ago, when the median price was $275,600.
Statewide, existing home sales rose 28 percent last month, with a total of 15,850 homes sold statewide, compared with 12,339 homes sold in June 2008, according to FAR.
Condo sales statewide also rose 39 percent in June, to 5,241 from 3,771. Existing condo sales last month rose 8.3 percent over the total units sold in May.
Florida's median sales price for existing homes last month fell 28 percent, to $148,000 from $205,300.
However, the statewide existing home median price in June increased 2.49 percent over May's median price and was higher than the statewide median price reported each month since the start of 2009.
“Yes, we have seen an increase statewide in sales of 28 percent, but we have also seen a drop in the sales price by that amount,” McCabe noted.
He points out that the person who purchased a home a year ago, when the median home price was $205,500, is now about $57,000 in the hole.
Still, McCabe said, “we are starting to see glimmers of hope that six months ago weren’t visible.”
Nationwide, existing home sales rose 3.6 percent to a seasonally adjusted rate of 4.89 million units in June from a downwardly revised pace of 4.72 million in May, but was still 0.2 percent lower than in June 2008, according to the National Association of Realtors.
The national median existing home price was $181,800 in June, down 15.4 percent from a year ago.
The National Association of Realtors latest housing industry outlook notes the $8,000 tax credit for first-time homebuyers is boosting the sector. "Strong activity by entry level buyers is helping to absorb inventory and allow some existing owners to make a trade," NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun said in a news release. But, he added, “the increase in sales is less than expected because poor appraisals are stalling transactions. The big question is how much the appraisal issue will impact the ability of contracts to go to closing."
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