How things change

I was sitting in a meeting with my boss in Vancouver, it was sunday afternoon, we were discussing the bar I am building in Montreal. It is to be the one of the largest bars in Montreal, with 5000 Square feet of interior magnificence and an enormous 4000 square foot rooftop patio – exquisite. The meeting is going well, much progress has been made in the last few months and we have almost completed all the plans and engineers drawings. Then I’m not sure what happened, within a few sentences from my bosses mouth and a couple hours of packing I found myself on a plane to Montreal, I’d be living there for about 3 months. That was it, I had no idea it was coming, but there it was, a new life, a new set of rules, a new language and a whole new world to explore. Some may disagree, but life couldn’t really have been better.

Backup a Second

In regard to my last post (Real Estate) Keep in mind that we cannot rely solely on the past to predict the future, in fact in many cases this is a terrible approach. (Look at Apple twenty years ago until Job’s return). Some may even argue that looking at the past will tell you the opposite of what will happen in the future – statistically something cannot continue to happen in the same way forever. I think with Real estate the situation is a little different. I feel that the past is a good, but by no means perfect indicator of things to come. Yes, I believe that we may see further decreases in value, we may see records broken, but in the long term i truly believe that real estate is a safe and appreciating asset. We need to keep in mind what is happening specifically in a given area, the trends, as well as the plans.  

Why I think Real Estate is Still A Great Investment – Long Term

The article below is written as a negative article, showing how Real estate prices in the US just recorded the greatest quarterly decline in past 21 years (at 2.1%), and a record year-over-year decline of 4.5%

 

My feeling is, that if I can make an investment where the biggest hit I will take, EVER, is 4.5% in a given year, I think you are still doing ok. Especially when you consider the upside – the highest quarterly increase in that same 21 years is 4.55% and the highest year over year increase in that period is 15.68%.

 

See the attached spreadsheet I created from the S&P/Case-Shiller® Home Price Indicex. Basically if you look at the US National home prices as an investment, you would lose money 22% of the time and make money 78% and the most you could ever lose is in a year is 4.5% and the most you could make is 15.7%.

 

Of course these are averages, and they are US, and they are National. So you could have made a bad investment and purchased a year ago in Tampa and made an 11% loss, but still, I thought this was interesting nonetheless.

 

Cheers, 

 

Dino

 

Fortune Article:

 

http://money.cnn.com/2007/11/26/real_estate/Case_Shiller_index_drops/index.htm?section=money_topstories

 

S&P Index site:

 

http://www2.standardandpoors.com/portal/site/sp/en/us/page.topic/indices_csmahp/0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,3,4,0,0,0,0,0.html

The Most Powerful People in Business

Want to know who you’re competing with? Take a look at Fortune’s list of the most power people in business:http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2007/fortune/0711/gallery.power_25.fortune/index.html 

Stylize You Space

Hey, check this out: http://www.molodesign.com/en/products/soft.html An interesting and cool way to accessorize, utilize and customize, all while still staying environmentally friendly! 

The Next LinkedIn!

A new site called NetHooks will be unveiled soon, it will make use of present day technologies, Web 2.0, be targeted at new and young professionals rather than the established executives, and in all probability, I think it will work really well. The problem with LinkedIn today, is that it is so behind the times technologically. it makes no use of Web 2.0 standards, the site can sometimes be difficult to navigate, and there is no connectivity within the site. (If I add you to my network, you can still go on and add me such that we both have add requests – This should never happen) I have registered for invitation to the private beta, hopefully it will be as good as I expect. Take a look here: www.nethooks.com 

Online Real Estate

I have always felt that all online real estate tools feel dated and old. They work, but are far from optimal. Compare Facebook’s prolific use of Web 2.0 Standards against MLS.ca for example. This is where http://www.myrealplace.com/ comes in, it makes great use of Web 2.0 Standards, instead of having to wait for page after page to load while you search, everything happens on one page that is updated as you change your search criteria. It has a Google Map on screen so that you can zoom in or out, then just click on the location you like. There are obviously a few areas that need to be fixed or improved. for one, there are a couple of bugs, like the fact that my Map zooms in or out on its own accord when I use my touch pad to scroll down the page. (yes, this happens even when my mouse is not on the map)There is also a shortage of listings, I think that My Real Place could/should partner with MLS so that it has the full portfolio of listings in its site, rather than a very small number. MLS is used by realtors, it has to be updated when Realtors get a listing or make a sale, therefore it contains all (or should) listings held by realtors. If MyRealPage could provide their site as a service that integrates with the MLS Database we would all be better off! 

Kindle or Kindling

The Amazon Kindle has received a lot of publicity since its release but a few days ago. This e-reader most certainly is the best we have seen thus far, however, it is nowhere near what I would like to see. I don’t want to go into too much detail as this item has been covered by a number of articles and blogs: http://www.amazon.com/, http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/11/amazon-kindle-meet-amazons-e-book-reader/ http://www.michaelhyatt.com/fromwhereisit/2007/11/kindle-first-im.htmlAnd many others. Anyway, a few things I have noticed that I don’t like are that i have to pay for blogs! (unless i just surf to them using Kindle’s online functionality).I also don’t like having to pay 10c to have information sent from my computer, converted to Amazon’s proprietary file type, and emailed to my Kindle, all of which is a pain in the ass itself. I also cannot transfer file from the Kindle to my computer. according to Amazon’s website, the 10c fee is only for sending emails from your personal computer to your Kindle, but not for converting files to work on the kindle. By this understanding, I can have Amazon convert my files to “Kindle” and emailed back to my computer at no charge, and then i can hardwire transfer the file to my kindle using USB. to continue this train of thought, i would technically be able to get digital text files from wherever (lets use Google digital scans of entire Libraries) send them to Amazon to be converted and emailed back to my computer, then hardwired to my Kindle….all at no charge!It may be badly worded on the Amazon website, in which case my theory will be worth nothing, but in the profound confidence I have in my understanding of the english language, the above would be true. Not a bad way to go if you want loads of free reading material in a 10 oz Package, as ugly a package as it might be.A quick corollary, for the next revision of Amazon’s Kindle, i think they should work with Apple’s design department, at least make this machine look decent!That’s it, I’m done! 

OLPC

The OLPC Foundations has designed a program, and a laptop, whereby you can purchase a very child-centric laptop for, presumably, your child, and another one will get shipped to a child in a developing country. The Laptops cost $399, and this is the total price for both. I haven’t done enough research or had a chance to actually use the laptop itself, but in general I like the idea. This is a step in the right direction, initiatives like this make me feel a little bit more warm and fuzzy about the world!http://www.laptop.org/

And we all thought Facebook was the nice guy?

Take a look at this story. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20071121.wgtfacebook1122/BNStory/Technology/?page=rss&id=RTGAM.20071121.wgtfacebook1122The just of it is that Facebook is partnering with online retailers, if you are a facebook user and you purchase something from one of these retailers, then you friends are told about it on their news feed when they log in. This would be fine except for the fact that it is not an opt-in service, you have to specifically choose not to allow this to happen, otherwise it assumes your consent.I’m quite sure that pretty soon this will end or at minimum change, nobody want all their friends to know about everything they are buying online! I’m just waiting for Facebook to partner with the “Naughty Sites” can’t wait for my boss to log on and see all the great vids I’ve been watching and toys I’ve been buying!…