REAL ESTATE: StreetEasy.com offers unusual feature August 6, 2008

by Sree Sreenivasan, technology reporter

There’s an interesting feature on a real estate site called StreetEasy.com (NYC and parts of NJ only). It allows you to filter the advanced search results by price changes (5 percent lower, 10 percent lower, or any increases). To see it in action, go to http://www.streeteasy.com/nyc/process/sales/edit_search

Example of what I found just now:

Sales in NYC
We found 172 listings where price changed less than 7 days ago where price changed
at least 5 %

Median price: $699,000 Median size: 1,065 ft² Median price per ft²: $798

MONEY: Strange ideas people have about money January 20, 2008

– by Sree Sreenivasan, technology reporter

A story about the kinds of strange ideas people have about money. From LATimes.com, “Why people believe weird things about money – Evolution accounts for a lot of our strange ideas about finances”:

Would you rather earn $50,000 a year while other people make $25,000, or would you rather earn $100,000 a year while other people get $250,000? Assume for the moment that prices of goods and services will stay the same.
Surprisingly — stunningly, in fact — research shows that the majority of people select the first option; they would rather make twice as much as others even if that meant earning half as much as they could otherwise have. How irrational is that?

This result is one among thousands of experiments in behavioral economics, neuroeconomics and evolutionary economics conclusively demonstrating that we are every bit as irrational when it comes to money as we are in most other aspects of our lives. In this case, relative social ranking trumps absolute financial status.

Lots of other fascinating stuff in the article. Take a look.