[speedingpullet]

Another one!

“Heigth” instead of “height”.

As in “Length, Breadth and Heigth”.

Not.

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ahhh… where to start..

OK, I know, the old quote about the UK vs the US being “two nations divided by a common language” and all, so most of the time I assume its a cultural difference when I come across spelling and grammar that makes my eyes vibrate.

One thing really makes my skin crawl though – using ‘impact’ as a verb or adverb. Ie ‘it impacted the housing industry’ or ‘it was very impactful‘.
It is not now, nor has it ever been, a verb…

With the largest vocabulary of any language on the planet, why oh why take a perfectly good noun and turn it into a verb?

That, and the American abhorrence of the use of the word ‘toilet’. When I go to a restaurant and ask for “the Restrooms” we all know that resting isn’t what I had in mind. Nor am I wanting to take a bath, even though they are also euphemistically called “bathrooms”.
Its a toilet/lavatory/WC/loo etc… why all the coyness?

/rant

OK, better now, normal service will be resumed.

[speedingpullet]

Sadly this is not just an American problem anymore – recent stats from the UK find that kids are way more obese now than they were 10 years ago, for exactly the same reasons over here.
And with the same health implications too.

A lot of it is to do with education – not in the 3R’s sense, but in showing people that eating this stuff, in the quantities they do, will eventually kill them.

A few of you may be familiar with the English chef Jamie Oliver. Last year, after much campaigning, he did a TV series called “School Dinners”. His hypothesis was that is was cheaper and easier to feed kids school lunches that were healthy and nutritous than it was to keep feeding them fries and burgers.
As the father of school-age children, he was interested in what his kids were given for lunch. And was appaled at the quality and choice that his kids were getting. So many kids in the Uk have asthma/excema, weight problems etc..because as thier main meal of the day almost all were eating burger/fries combo washed down with a soda…

And he proved unquestioningly that, per unit, it was more cost effective to produce meals made form fresh vegetables and meat than it was to serve prepacked/refined meals. For some of these kids, this will be thier most important meal of the day (mainly disadvantaged kids eat free school lunches in UK schools), so giving them at least one decent meal a day helps with thier health and growth.

Stragely enough, he got the most resistance from the people who cooked the food! So many had learnt how to use a microwave and deep fat fyer that they just saw having to make meals from scratch as a time consuming pain in the a$$.

And, even more strange, many of the kids over time saw a lessening of thier asthma, excema, allergies and obesity.

Here’s a link to the Channel 4 (UK TV station) site that talks about it:
Jamies’ School Dinners

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I think it was someone on Piggingtons who provided a very plausible explanation. The seller has been battling with thier agent all summer about the price, and eventually the agent gives in and says ‘OK, if you want $x for this place, lets put it on the market at $x and see what happens’…hence they increase the price to what the seller wants, and, well we can all see the results.

Interesting to note that – of the places I’m tracking in L.A – none have had a price increase since before Labor Day.

Almost as if the behind-the-scenes conversation went …seller: “its not the price I want”….agent:”OK, Labor Day Weekend is the last real selling time of the year (and I can’t handle dealing with your unrealistic expectations any more), so price it at what you think is fair (and we can always reduce it again as Fall turns to Winter..).
Or words to that effect, anyway.

I mean no offense to the sellers here – I’m sure the canny Piggintons have already sold, are renting, or have no airy-fairy expectations of what their property will net in the coming few years.

Still, my own personal perennial “Poster Child of the Great 2006 Housing Bubble” is hanging on in there, with only 32 DOM. Many of you have seen it before…

http://www.realtor.com/Prop/1066446865

Recap: 900 sq ft, lot 1900 sq ft, built 1902, on a busy intersection in West Hollywood.
Original Listing Price on 8/15/06 – $949K
Price Increased on 8/18/06 – $999K

I’d like to nominate this one for the Perrier ‘Comedian of the Year’ Award…;-)

Also, I’d love to have been a fly on the wall during conversations between the seller and thier agent….what on earth was going through the seller’s head when they decided that place was worth a million bucks, and what the seller’s agent was smoking to allow them to do it.
it may be West Hollywood, but to the best of my knowledge, this house is not made of gold bricks.

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@ ctlmdjb

OT:

…but Tulse Hill has a BR station, no?

I never understood that “ugh! no Tube!’ mentality

When the Docklands Light Railway was built in Lewisham – my manor 😉 – house prices generally sprouted a ‘1’ in front of them almost overnight. “But…but..you have no Underground system in South East London” my friends north of the river would say…despite the fact that British Rail runs from Lewisham to Charing Cross every 10 minutes and takes a grand total of 15 minutes to get to there.
Once the DLR came everyone suddenly saw places like Deptford/New Cross/Lewisham as ‘viable’ places to live, despite the fact that myself, and a few hundred thousand other people, successfully commuted from that part of London for decades by train.
Oh, how I wish now that I had had the finances, and will, to buy the 5 bed unconverted Edwardian villa with the 150′ garden that was going next door to me -in 1994 – for 85K GBP! Now it worth well north of 1/ 2 a millon…

But I digress.
I remember the housing crash of the late 80’s very well.
Although most of my friends were too young and feckless to buy during that toxic time, I did have a few friends that went into serious ‘negative equity’.

A mate bought a tiny 1 bed 1 bath near Lewisham hospital for an astounding 60K. About a year into the mortgage his interest rate soared to 15% for about 6 months, almost wiping him out.
Suddenly the whole thing unravelled and it was only worth about 35K. He ended up staying in it another 10 years before he started making inroads into the principal again.
He even considered renting out the bedroom – and this is a minute – maybe 600sq ft – apartment, to help with the payments, but fortunately the interest rates fell again from double digits, and he was able – just – to pay the mortgage again. Albeit he was till ‘underwater’ for many years afterwards.

Fortunately, he had bought wisely – in that the place was the right size and the right location for his long-term needs, so wasn’t left holding an ‘albatross’ while he had to find somewhere else.

[speedingpullet]

LOL!

Yeah, its only once you’ve stood up and gone outside into the night air, that you relaise how drunk you are

[speedingpullet]

LOL!

Now, put it back in your trousers…

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It’ll be accurate for the Zipcode in question…

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Yes, it would be interesting to see what the last selling price was. Or even what they’re paying in property tax…

Its always astonishing that anyone could be ‘insulted’ by making 200% profit over the space of 5 years. Or, at least, trying to.

[speedingpullet]

Indeed.

Caught in some odd wave of synchronicity, as I was, about 30 minutes after posting that, I was cold-called by some bozo giving out quotes for exterior paintwork ‘in my area’.

When I told him that a) I rented and b) I was on the National Do Not Call List, his immediate knee-jerk response was ‘oh, they’ve disbanded that‘…. to which I replied ‘ok, put your money where your mouth is – give me your number, and we’ll see who’s right’.

Needless to say, he said something like ‘sorry to bother you’ and hung up before I did.

[speedingpullet]

Make a phone number up….until you actually want to contact them, then all they need is email address.

BTW if you want to be on a National ‘Do Not Call’ list then go to:

https://www.donotcall.gov/default.aspx

It won’t screen out everything, and it takes about 30 days to take effect, but it dies work. Anyone who still rings, tell them that your on the NDNCL. Unless they want to be fined, they won’t call back.

[speedingpullet]

My old West LA apartment complex thereatened on a yearly basis to become condos, but in the 6 years I lived there, only in the last 6 months did they actually convert one apartment as a ‘test’ condo. As far as I know, it has not sold.
In fact, according to other tenants who had lived there for 15 + years, the place was going to be turned into condos since the get-go, but there was always some delay or technical hurdle.
Having said that, we never got to the point of a 180 day notice or a Public Hearing, so I don’t know how much of a fait accompli it has become.

Sounds as if this is a last-gasp attempt to make some money before the market slumps. I’d be surprised if its economically viable at the moment.

[speedingpullet]

That would be a shame….I’ve become quite fond of my ZipRealtor’s face looking at me from the top right corner of the screen.

As for registration – it always pisses me off when online companies start asking for my details. OK, online banking or Amazon does need them, but if I’m registering for an online service then they get my online details and a fake phone number and adddress.
Actually I set up an email account years ago for just that purpose, and only friends have my ‘real’ one. What other reason do they need your personal details, for something that really only requires an emal addy, if not to spam or send you promotions?

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I’d like to chime in on the H1B too…my husband had an H1B (now a Green Card)and is one of 8 people (out of 11 total) in his department who has one. For some reason its very hard to find home-grown computer game programmers…

I’ve seen the myth cited on other blogs, too the “H1Bs get paid less than US Citizens”, and its simply not true. All 8 of my husbands coworkers were offered competitive salaries, get pay rises, bonuses, healthcare, insurance etc… completley in line with thier US Citzien counterparts.

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Lets not forget the hurdles that the US puts up to hamper some sorts of technological innovation. Not old-school Engineering as such, but things like Biotechnology.

As much as the US has moral/religious/ethical problems with things like Stem Cell Research and cloning, the biotech revoloution is here. If scientists are prohibited from doing work in the US, other countries will rise and fill the gap. Other people will make the discoveries that change the world, while the US wrings it hands and complains about how unfair it is.

I find it ironic and sad that, using the only veto he’s ever made, the President stopped in its tracks any meaningful US research into the fastest growing R&D base, for religious reasons…

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