New home sales in the Greater Sacramento region were down almost 57% in the last fiscal quarter of zzzzzzzzzzz. But the news is somewhat mitigated by the detail that new home sales were down only 18% for all of 2005.
Category: Business
I’ll just come down there and show you…
An unnamed correspondent sent me the following instant-messaging conversation.
Sac_Chick: i called the old sac vistiors center
to ask about that store
river_city_dude: was i right?
Sac_Chick: i said i'm looking for a store there that
sells russian dolls
Sac_Chick: and she's like what?
Sac_Chick: what?
Sac_Chick: it sells what?
Double-plus ungood security at Raley’s
Tonight my family and I found ourselves at Raley’s on Folsom Blvd (in the “famous colleges” part of town–Raley’s is actually between Notre Dame Dr and Julliard Dr). After a very successful weekly shopping trip with our two young ladies, we finally made it to the checkout stand, where we found ourselves second in line. And that’s when I noticed that the customer ahead of us was purchasing about a dozen of a certain item, and that said item was being kept by Raley’s in a plastic security device (like they used to use for CDs) which had to be unlocked by the cashier using a specialized tool. This was going to take some time, time that I no longer had. Now, there are a lot of dangerous and/or highly stealable items in your average supermarket–gallons and gallons of liquor, mens magazines, prophylactics, duct tape–so it’s no surprise Raleys would need to take some precautions. This particular item? Infant formula.
The only thing I could think is that, like every single food item in the entire store, infant formula lends itself to being opened and secreted out of the store using all manner of cloak-and-dagger shenanigans, like putting some of it in a bottle to feed your baby because you’re broke and desperate. Is it common to use security protections on infant formula that are not used on any other food item in the store? Is this Raley’s corporate policy, or was it borne of the genius of this particular store?
(And if you’re wondering: no, I’ve never even cracked the cover of 1984. But I think that’s pretty obvious since I think I’m mangling the reference.)
A Christmas (tree) miracle
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Got a great deal on this puppy at the Home Depot, my local branch at Folsom & Howe/Power Inn. It was tagged as a 6-7′ Doug fir, which tree afficionados will know is the cheaper kind. But as you can see, this one has a kind of sparse quality to it that gives it the air of the more expensiver Noble fir. Plus, as you can kinda tell from the photo, this tree is Yao Ming on a bad day (the star basically touches the ceiling, which is 8’2″, and yes, the extra 2″ makes all the difference). Before the Depot crew trimmed the bottom of this beast (they trim and bag them, free of charge) it was probably closer to 9′ than 7′. But the damage was only $23, and that’s one heck of a tree.
And yes, that blue book up on top of the bookshelf is my blackmail archive. Wouldn’t you like to know if you’re in it?
Real Real Estate Blogging
When John linked earlier today to the Sacramento Real Estate Blog I was confused, because when I ran across(t) that site a few months ago I assumed it was a real estate business pretending to be a blog. But now I see it’s got actual blogging going on, and a link to us truly, so check it out.
Re: Libeskind and Sacramento
Amanda from My Urban Vista beat me to the punch on the giant sign advertising the designer of Aura, a future 36-story residential building going up opposite the Downtown Plaza. She’s got real smarty-smart book learnt things to say about it, so all I’ll add is that it looks to me like the building developers are trying to do that Target thing, where they sell us the product by selling us the designer. That trend is getting ridiculous at Target–at first when it was Isaac Mizrahi, that worked because he had name recognition for more than a handful of fashion-lovers–and using it on an architect is simply weird.
Home Sales Skepticism
CoolDMZ is many things. I was told recently by my 2-year-old that I’m “just a man who loves stickers,” for example. But one of the things I am not is a real estate or economics expert. So take the following with a few dashes of salt (to taste).
When I read that there are indicators of slowing home sales, I expect to be told of the number of actual home sales, since a sale indicates an actual transaction–demand being met by supply, capital being exchanged for capital. So in the above article, as in so many others, I only get the number of houses being supplied by the market, my skepticism alarm goes off. If three times as many homes are for sale this month as there were last year, that means crap to me about home sales unless I know how many of those homes were bought. Maybe there is a terminology problem here–maybe “home sales” really does mean “for sale signs posted.”
Continue reading “Home Sales Skepticism”
More Marketing of Sactown
The marketing blitz we spoke of yesterday is apparently going to heed my words and focus on attracting locals to Old Sac. Although, short of forcibly moving out the myriad t-shirt and Icee shops or modifying global DNA to make humans not want to walk around looking for crap to buy, I’m not sure how exactly you turn that place into a local-friendly attraction.
Also, what’s with this ominous quote?
After struggling with rowdy crowds and a saturation of police officers, nightlife has changed from turntables to bands.
I know that the downtown area has had its share of violence and hooliganism, but how exactly has this change in the nightlife ocurred? Was I just not aware that Fanny Ann’s had turned into a ragtime joint? (Do they even have music at Fanny Anns?)
Notatomato
Via Heckasac, apparently regional business busybodies are busy trying to brand Sacramento in an effort to remain the top busybodies. This is the stuff I’m talking about when I say “There’s an attitude of, ‘It’s not what’s here now, it’s what Sacramento is going to be.'”
I’d like to open up the comments section of this post for “Some other ideas” of Sac Rag devotees. I’ll start the bidding with Big Riv’.
“Black Friday” Falls Upon Local Retailers
So it’s Friday morning and I have been watching local news stations inform me about “Black Friday” over and over. At first I thought, “Oh no, another catastrophic stock market crash?” Then I realized that this phrase refers to retailers who can move out of the red and into the black with strong sales leading into Christmas. There has to be a better phrase, right?
Historically, the term “black” has been used to describe other disastrous days in financial markets. For example, Tuesday, October 29th, 1929, a day the market fell precipitously, has been coined Black Tuesday, signaling the start of the Great Depression. Additionally, the largest one-day drop in stock market history occurred on Black Monday, October 19th, 1987, when the DJIA plummeted more than 22%.
As chronicled here recently, local folks were willing yet again to wait in a line as early as 4 p.m. yesterday to grab a laptop computer for $400 or a flat panel television for $250. Check that, for a chance to grab a laptop or flat panel TV. I know, I know, as SinghCity pointed out recently, this stuff isn’t really news so I won’t waste your time piling on. That is, until “Cyber Monday” strikes…
The Sac Rag 