The effects of the recession are still reverberating throughout America. But with the U.S. economy improving, other BusinessWeek blogs will continue the discussion and provide updates from the political, economic, and small business perspectives. Thank you for your readership and comments.
The Poynter Institute's Al Tompkins notes this morning reports that more people are seeking government aid to pay for funerals and that unclaimed bodies are piling up at the Detroit morgue.
Last month, my BusinessWeek colleague Chris Palmeri blogged about withdrawing an all-cash offer for a home in Pomona, Calif., after learning that BW was being put up for sale by the McGraw-Hill Companies.
I'm also feeling jittery about the prospect of losing my job, so jittery in fact that I've decided to put our house up for sale. My husband and I paid $268,000 for a circa 1920 brick bungalow in Beacon, N.Y., in August 2005, a period that many real estate types now refer to as "the top of the market."
In the four years that we've lived in our two-bedroom home, we've spent $21,000 on improvements such as thermal-paned windows, two new sets of outdoor stairs, insulation, and a deck that replaced a falling-down "mud room" attached to the rear of the house.
That $21,000 figure includes labor for my handyman extraordinaire and the cost of materials.
I redid the kitchen on the cheap, keeping the existing cabinets and installing tile (much cheaper than granite!) to replace 1970s-era Formica counters and linoleum flooring.
The renovation project that I'm proudest of? Finding a solid oak door at an antiques store on Beacon's Main Street that I bought for $75. I paid my handyman $150 to paint, trim, and hang the door. It looks much better than the plastic doors from China that are for sale at the Home Depot.
We currently owe $260,000 on our house. The City of Beacon recently lowered our assessed value from $256,000 to $238,000. Local governments are known for inflating the value of properties on their tax rolls in order to maximize revenues, so our house may actually be worth less than $238,000.
Our Realtor at Beacon's Manor House Realty has advised us to list the house for $229,000. Yes, the bank has agreed to accept a short sale.
I'm sure many people will think I'm making a mistake by selling when we're $30,000 or more "under water" and that I'm walking away from an investment that will eventually come back. But I see things differently.
We will not be able to stay in our house if my income is interrupted or reduced, and the $8,000 tax credit for first-time homebuyers that the Obama Administration has in place until Dec. 1 is giving us a window of opportunity to sell our home.
Also weighing on my mind is the upcoming auction of my neighbor's house two doors down. The neighborhood gossips say that he paid $359,000 about five years ago and that the bank has set the opening bid for his house, which is in foreclosure, at $125,000.
I haven't confirmed that, but I assume that if my neighbor's house sells for a fire-sale price, it won't help the already depressed value of our property.
Our story is the mirror image of the previous owners, an architect and his landscaper wife who bought the house in 2000 for $90,000. They rewired, knocked down walls to open up the downstairs, and poured a new basement. Of course, they put in a lot of sweat equity to make their $178,000 profit in five years.
I don't begrudge the "flippers" their profit. However, I envy their sense of timing.
When I was a beginning reporter, I used to do first-day-of-school stories, and one image sticks with me. It was an early September day and the temperature was in the 90s, but most of the elementary school kids lined up outside were in long sleeve shirts and fall outfits. Their parents had shopped for the first day of school and the kids were going to wear the new stuff -- the temperature be damned.
Based on reports from the retail field, however, there are going to be fewer new fall outfits on returning students this year -- whether it's 70 degrees or 90 degrees outside on the first day of school.
The Port Washington, NY, research group NPD reported today that back to school shoppers are cutting spending again this year, but not as deeply as in the fall of 2008, when the financial markets appeared to be in full meltdown.
“Last year we had an even bigger drop-off in spending intentions,” Marshal Cohen, NPD's chief industry analyst, said in the company's report. “So the good news is that the bigger drop off is behind us. And the ‘not so bad news’ is that back-to-school is in line with the current trend of consumers cutting back but not out.”
Hard hits on the playing field may be one thing, but the recession has proved to be too much for the 22-year-old Arena Football League.
The league, which had already canceled its 2009 season but was hoping to regroup for 2010, told its owners last night that it had been unable to find any consensus on restructuring the league and was suspending operations indefinitely, according to the Associated Press.
Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, who also owned the AFL's Dallas Desperadoes, told the AP that economic headwinds were just too tough. "I've always thought the game was an attractive game, but we all know when you get the kind of pressure we're in, in these economic times, and then you have an economic model that really doesn't work, then it's not surprising to see it stop play."
It's not just the secondary leagues that are having trouble in the recession. Major league baseball attendance is down more than 5% so far this year, according to www.baseball-reference.com.
Despite the recession, there are those whose dreams of making it in the sports business remain alive. BW's Greg Spielberg recently reported that a new football league, the United Football League will kick off its premiere season in October.
Any predictions for its success? Or the prospects for other troubled sports leagues? Can they ride out the bad times? What do you think?
Like most people who grew up in the 1960s, I had music class in elementary school. I have many happy memories of singing tunes from the Up With People traveling...
I'll admit to being a little skeptical when I saw the results of this survey about recession spending that was sponsored by ShopDebtFree.com. According to the report, 48% of 1,200...
Like many other people, I threw away my phone books around 1999. I've never liked clutter, and I figured I could get any phone number I wanted by looking it...
A couple of years ago, I decided to search the Internet for the right piece of stained glass to put in a transom window of a circa 1900 red...
I arrived back home in Beacon, N.Y., on July 6 to find the house two doors down abandoned. The swing set and the above-ground pool are still in the backyard,...
The Midwest's farms and factories are being hit hard by the recession. BusinessWeek recently asked students in the business journalism program at the University of Missouri School of Journalism to...
As the U. S. economy slows, the story is often told through broad statistics. In this blog, BusinessWeek reporters travel the country to uncover the stories of how individuals are coping with the downturn.
