• BusinessWeek Europe is reporting about the rapid shift in real estate broker advertising from newspapers to the net. “Three new studies say the $11.6 billion real estate ad market is set to shift hard from print to the Internet.” Find out more about how this move to internet advertising will affect the newspaper business.
• Canada’s CBC News is reporting that housing Sydney, Australia is Booming. “Housing prices have jumped as much as 20 per cent over the past five years. The average home in Sydney now sells for about $77,000.” Although a pittance compared to US housing prices, the market is still very competitive, with homeowners getting multiple offers — some with as many as 27.



• Architects yesterday announced plans for 3 new buildings to surround the Freedom Tower on the World Trade Center site in New York. Have a look at the designs to the right.
• The Los Angeles Times is reporting that sales of existing homes in Ventura County, California fell 27% for the first six months in ‘06 from the same period in ‘05. Despite the slowdown, the economy looks strong in the county and housing prices have not seen a decline yet.
• The National Association of Realtors is starting to lose the never-ending optimism that they’ve showed throughout this housing boom. Yesterday, they announced that they expect sales to continue to fall — “it expected prices nationwide to drop during the next few months, instead of appreciating modestly. If that happens, it would be the first time since 1993 that median home prices have fallen in any given month.” . . . looks like a little dose of reality has finally settled in.

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Tags: advertising, australia, classifieds, county, freedom, housing, NAR, realtor, sydney, tower, trade, ventura, world, wtc