Tag Archives: economybeat

Sky high

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Stuyvesant Town, NYC/Credit: Flickr User Marianne OLeary

Stuyvesant Town, NYC/Credit: Flickr User Marianne O'Leary

Skyscrapers are going up, but are they getting sold?

EconomyBeat.org reports on the Skyscraper Index, a calculation that finds big buildings go up during financial crises to prove a country’s strength, but often they foretell economic disaster instead.

V, Double dip (W) or L recession? Things look bad for the EURO if the skyscraper index is right. We have heard recently about problems in the Eurozone. Is the worst over or is the worst still to come? The skyscraper index indicates: Trouble ahead.

Trouble is no stranger to the Stuyvesant Town/Peter Cooper Village residential complex in Lower Manhattan. The biggest real estate deal in New York City history went bust this week as two major developers backed out of a plan to buy the area.

WNYC reported that tenants are nervous about the instability the fallout will bring.

“This is a community that’s been here for 60 years,” says Al Doyle, president of the Tenants Association. “We want to protect the affordability. We want to protect the tenants and we want to make sure the property is adequately maintained.”

We've got the beat

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From stock market charts to music parodies, the economy definitely has some rhythm, and maybe that’s why a few new projects that are taking music as an inspiration, both literally and figuratively, as public media covers the economy.

A big “ewww!” was my first reaction to this week’s PRX EconomyBeat podcast, which takes us dumpster diving behind an organic grocery store in Detroit, Michigan. But hearing from a woman who says she’s only spent $50 in the past five years on food? Priceless.

At The American Prospect, the Beat the Press blog is taking a critical look at how various media outlets are reporting on economic issues. One recent post from Dean Baker, co-director of the http://www.cepr.net/ Center for Economic and Policy Research, asks tough questions about the coverage of the homebuyer tax credit:

Remarkably, no one even wants to talk about the issue. The $8,000 tax credit is equal to just under 5 percent of the median house price. This certainly was one of the factors in the recent turnaround of house prices. Is it a good policy for the government to temporarily prop up prices so that people buying now are likely to sell at lower real prices in the future?

For some real musical stylings about the economy, the latest installment from In the Loop at Minnesota Public Radio has Jeff Horwich crooning about how it feels to be on top of the financial world as a CEO.

When’s the real estate rebound?

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For Sale sign/ Credit: Flickr user Casey Serin

For Sale sign/ Credit: Flickr user Casey Serin

While there have been fewer layoffs and other positive signs in the overall economy, economists are still waiting on a change in the real estate market. Only a few areas in the U.S. saw an uptick in new home sales in August and lower housing prices haven’t instilled confidence in some of the hardest-hit areas of the country.

This week’s audio Q&A with Patchwork Nation Director Dante Chinni discusses the downside of lower home prices, and in turn, slower consumer spending in these types of areas.

“A lot of people have been counting on their homes as their nest egg, their retirement plan and they’ve been using it to finance a lot of things,” Chinni said. “And unless those prices start coming up, it’s hard to imagine how those places are going to be willing or able to spend a lot to get us out of the recession.”

Play audio: Patchwork Nation Q&A

In Columbus, Ohio, WOSU reported that home sales in the area rose one percent compared to July. Columbus is in Franklin County, one of Patchwork Nation’s Industrial Metropolis communities. But that change is so slight compared with how much prices have dropped that it’s unclear what the long-term impact will be.

On EconomyBeat.org, blogger Jon Brooks finds a real estate predictor blog that shows even less optimism for a real estate comeback, specifically for California, which was slammed by the mortgage crisis.

In May, KCET program SoCalConnected looked at communities in Southern California where housing prices have dropped significantly to help determine whether it is the right time to buy.

Making the mortgage crisis personal

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The mortgage crisis has forced people to be creative in moving on with their lives after losing a home. A new blog from PRX, EconomyBeat, found two bloggers who are upbeat, despite tough times.

In Michigan, where the auto industry layoffs have been forcing more and more foreclosures, Michigan Public Radio spoke with people who are having trouble picking up the pieces as the recession doesn’t seem to be letting up in the Midwest.

And in St. Louis, KETC hosted a town hall this week discussing the impact of the mortgage crisis from political, financial and personal angles. Participants and viewers were also able to contact advisers directly for more advice after the broadcast.