Potato I have

Jorn Barger coined the term weblog, sees its original sense being usurped, and so would like to take the term back.

the unit-measure for blogging
is the blogger

I just read this NYT article from a few months ago; buyers in the bubble today are more than ever dependent on further appreciation:

For new home buyers, prices in New York would need to rise roughly another 13 percent over the next five years for the average buyer to do better than the average renter over that span. In Northern California, where the gap between house prices and rents is largest, home values would need to go up about 19 percent by 2010.

Over the next decade, the break-even increase is about 25 percent in New York and 40 percent in California.

From the article we see price/annual rent ratios of 33 in the bay area, and 25 in the next tier including NY, LA, Boston. And while the equation is different here in France (no mortgage writeoff, for example), our current apartment has a ratio of >30.

But to many people, the psychological benefits of buying are almost impossible to overcome. Owning makes them feel that they have achieved the American dream, or it gives them the secure sense that, if nothing else, they have a tangible asset where they can sleep at night.

Those are nice feelings, indeed. The question is how much they are worth to you.

Our case is a little different. While we hate missing the price runups (first in San Francisco, now in Paris), renting has been a conscious decision to keep life simpler and more flexible, and to live in buildings or locations where we wouldn’t or couldn’t purchase. It’s been the difference between doing and not doing a number of things that we’ve appreciated. And now, current housing purchase prices are helping to make this a logical decision as well.

(via Rebecca’s Pocket)