Friday 28 December 2012

London calling

Made a last minute decision to go to London and been here since wednesday.....Ill try to uppdaterad later.

Sunday 23 December 2012

4th Advent

Good Morning this fourth Sunday of Advent!



Up early with a cup of coffee in my hand. Need to get ready and head out to buy last gifts and want to be there as early as possible to avoid the crowds....

My shopping list


  • Gift card for brother
  • CD + hockey game tickets for dad
  • Bracelet for dad´s wife
  • Charity donation for dad´s wife´s father
  • ...what am I forgetting?


Saturday 22 December 2012

Last Minute Christmas Gift Tips

ATTENTION! These are gift suggestions of presents intended for relatives and friends. Have you still not gotten anything for your loved one I´d say you´re in trouble...


- Good dockingstation for Android/Iphone (must be able to charge battery)


- Spotify subscription for relatives in ages between 14-30

- a Good book.

- Clothing  (Belt, scarf, bag included) Ask in store for help!

- Champagne ...why not?

                                             
- Sport event tickets

- Gift card (clothing, spa, travel, hair cut, restaurant etc)

- Winter running accessories

- Jewelry (for that special one) and why not a fancy jewelry box :)









- Weekend getaway or a holiday!

- Donate to charity (Buy a goat for someone in Africa)

- Magazine subscription for grandma! Gift card can often be bought online and printed!


- A good pyjamas! From Hello Kitty or Spider man for the little ones to a nice luxuary pyjamas for    mum!

- Perfume. My base perfume since 10 years back is "Romance"
by Ralph Lauren. And I have had 100s of women asking me what perfume I wear....The kind of perfume that smells better and better the longer it stays on :)

- Still nothing? .....Headphones are supposed to be the gift of the year......I´ll update if I think of something!

Friday 21 December 2012

Hattrick!

Day didn´t quite turn out as expected but I managed to get to the hairdresser!

3 homes sold today! :) ...Assuming that this next signing will go smoothly.


Today´s schedule

Start the day by working from home...

Then lunch with bank people

Swing by the office if possible

3.30 p.m. - My lovely hair dresser managed to squeeze me in! Yay!

5.30 p.m. - Christmas shopping

6.30 p.m. - Contract signing

...Try to get home before 10.00 p.m.

Thursday 20 December 2012

Jingle Bells

Monday is Christmas Eve and I have only bought 2 gifts so far, but I am not panicking. Never quite got why people panic over Christmas, or any other holiday for that matter. It´s no holiday if you stress over it!

I must admit I will not overdo it with presents this year. Haven´t got any Christmas spirit what so ever. Don´t think any of us have. It seems all of us are planning on one good winter escape...or at least to escape. One better make the best of the market slow down! Moneypenny already left, packed up her car and is now on her way to Germany.

Anyways, for my mother I have bought a book I know she will like. The title is "a 100 important Swedes"...I think...the girl in the shop wrapped it for me.

And for my little sister I´ve gotten a good docking station for her Iphone.

Dad gets sport event tickets and "baby" brother hmm not sure yet. Probably a gift card.

As always the Swedish Trade Federation and the Swedish Institute of Retail (HUI) predict another sales record for this year....I´m not convinced. But surely, having already started the January sales will have effect, so who knows....

The Global Property Guide

I have found that many articles regarding the Swedish real estate market refer to data from a site called Global property guide. Better check it out...

Wednesday 19 December 2012

Did you know that...

In-door smoke from cooking is one of many problems for the poor in Africa.

The death toll from indoor air pollution related respiratory infections is approximately 1.8 million a year (world wide). The World Health Organization estimates that indoor air pollution in a smokey hut exceeds by a factor of 60 the European Union´s standard maximum for outdoor air pollution. 

I sure didn´t know that!

.....I´ve been reading "The White man´s burden" by W. Easterly 

Friday 14 December 2012

Friday night - at the hotel

Moneypenny is off out while I stay put in my room...tired, worn-out and frozen. Not leaving my bed! Plenty of reading to do though...And they wonder why I always need a king size although on my own


Monday 10 December 2012

Gothenburg tomorrow

I and Moneypenny are off to Gothenburg tomorrow. Leave already at 6 a.m.. Hate waking up early when it is dark and cold outside, but what can you do?

Good night and sweet dreams!

/Miss Econ

My problem lies in reconciling my gross habits with my net income. -- Errol Flynn

Saturday 8 December 2012

Blog sale - a trend here to stay!


The past 3 years we have seen a boom in so called blog sales, and it seems they are here to stay. The Swedish word for blog sale is bloppis. Bloppis is the combination of the word blog and loppis (meaning flea market). You could therefore say that a blog sale is a kind of yard sale on the internet. The interesting feature about blog sales in Sweden is that a lot of famous people host blog sales to sell their personal items such as clothes on their blogs, by using either a fixed price or using auction sites such as E-bay trying to make most of it. Famous people have always donated clothes for charitable purposes, but now it seems they are cashing in on it themselves. What has brought on this trend I wonder. Is the increased competition and economic environment making it hard for celebrities to afford the life style of the rich and famous?



Friday 7 December 2012

Julbord

Today it was my turn for "Julbords-duty" i.e. my turn to represent the agency at a so called Julbord (Christmas buffet / smorgardsbord). I try to avoid these gatherings as much as I possibly can, but since they are a good way of networking at least one of us should attend. And today it was my turn, and it wasn´t that bad! I didn´t care much for the food, but at my table I had the Chamber of Commerce which was just perfect! Made some good acquaintances  that may become useful!

Thursday 6 December 2012

Took the night off and went to see the hockey game!

Happened to notice that there was an extra puck in the net of the visiting team`s gate:




...The puck stayed put for the rest of the 3d period without causing any confusion. Neither did it serve any good, hence our team won, 3-0! Yay! Now I am off to bed, good night!

Snow Economics


December snow chaos gives Sweden a last push to increase GDP for 2012.

Despite imposing negative effects on production in general, it doesn´t automatically mean negative effects on the Swedish economy. Airports and train stations among others need to increase labor in order to deal with the huge amount of stranded travelers. The postal services which have difficulties delivering mail due to snow and delays in shipping have announced they will need more labor. Health /emergency services must increase the number of staff on duty due to increased driving time for ambulances, and not to mention the increased number of bone fractures from falling accidents.

While some sectors are affected negatively other businesses and retailers find the snow to be profitable. Bus/coach and taxi companies, hotels, coffee shops, and restaurants among others, located in chaos areas benefit and so do their employees in form of possibility of more working hours. And for the snow removal sector this means serious business.

The negative aspects of this weather are of course the bottle-necks, lost production, utility losses and worst of all, lives lost. In the long run there are most likely no gains at all from the increased expenditure. The bill will of course be picked up by the tax-payers, and I would not be surprised if many municipalities will have already blown their snow removal budgets by the time this is over. And it´s only December...

Baan Ki Moon recently said we must get used to extreme weather events, hence extreme is "the new normal", which brings me to Planalytics! A company providing the actionable information companies need to understand an optimize the impact of weather on their business. An interesting idea for business I think!
To visit their webbsite click on their logo


Wednesday 5 December 2012

No flights, no trains and snow in my shoe....


Snow chaos and increased unemployment. That kind of says everything about today.
One could wish the unemployed´d give us a hand clearing the streets from snow....


Tuesday 4 December 2012

Regarding winter exercising

For those with sensitive lungs investing in this Airtrim mask might be a good idea! 
A christmas gift pehaps? Hahaha....


What impact does the internet have on the economic crisis?

Does anyone know a good article on the effect internet impose on the development of economic instability / crisis, within countries and globally?

Monday 3 December 2012

I Crave the Seinfeld Show


2 years ago Seinfeld was running on every channel, now it´s not to be found anywhere. Come on!
I want to see Seinfeld every night at 11 p.m..

Winter running - don´t let the snow stop you!

In my opinion winter is the best season for running! As long as it is dry and not snowing at the time I get out I love it. The combination of the cool air, the dark and that there is almost no people out gives me an adrenalin kick which make me perform better. Watching my step carefully makes it a challenge and makes me forget how exhausting it is!

Running in cold temperatures has not been found dangerous for healthy people, as long as you dress correctly. On the contrary there are some advantages as it has been found that you burn up to 12% more calories and 32% more fat exercising in cold temperatures due to the extra effort needed to keep warm. I myself have never felt any signs of even catching a cold, although I have a personal limit of not running when the temperature falls below -10 degrees Celsius. My record though is in -13 degrees Celsius.

This winter I am thinking of investing in a couple of Ice bug trainers!
Shoes made for winter running!




Sunday 2 December 2012

Preparing for an interesting meeting tomorrow!

Tomorrow morning we have a meeting regarding a new development complex! Really looking forward to it. This is our third meeting and time to get down to business. Selling a complex of apartments in a housing cooperative isn´t very profitable but it creates a chain effect where many of the buyers have houses they need to sell! Still, the price needs to be right for us to put in the effort. Will be interesting to see what they are offering...

Saturday 1 December 2012

December is here and real estate gets sleepy!

Yesterday the temperature fell and today the first snow came, even if little. Perfect timing I´d say, on the first day of December.

For our real estate agency December means business slows down and we can enjoy the holidays!
It normally stays calm until mid January more or less.....After mid January we market plenty of properties due to the increased number of separations and divorces which are directly correlated to the holidays, and statistically significant. Kidding,....I have no idea if it is statistically significant, nor if it is true... someone should find out!

To summarize these past 4 months have been busy. I will most definately say that we are on our way to have a bubble in our, kind of isolated, middle size town. Demand and thereby prices on one- or two-dwelling houses in the upper level of the price range here have subsided I´d say, whereby demand and prices on one- or two-dwelling houses in the middle and specially lower price range have increased substantially. This is not an unexpected outcome since prices on condominiums are rushing and reaching price levels of these lower to middle price range houses, and in effekt making a purchase of such a house seem cheap.

What is worrying is that it has become harder to sell newly constructed houses while, at the same time, bidding-wars drive the finale price of used houses in need of renovations i.e. houses built in the 60s-70s to levels almost equal to that of a newly built house in the same neighborhood. Do people know what they are buying? Are they under estimating the cost for renovating i.e. the total price of their house?

When it comes to apartments in a housing cooperative I´m sure most buyers don´t know what they buy. They have difficulties understanding the influence the financial state of the cooperative has on the value of the apartment and the annual fee connected to the appartment. Past 10 years prices of Swedish apartments in housing cooperatives have risen over 150%. This has been explained mainly by the economic performance, low interest rate and most importantly excess demand due to the housing shortage.  I would also like to add changed preferences. More people prefer apartments to houses even when they have children.

Still, the past 3 months the average price of a Swedish appartment in a housing cooperative has increased by 7 % according to statistics! In our isolated town the double, although prices were already high in relation to similar areas. And I can´t see any reasonable justification for this sudden price increase in 3 months. The economic environment is worse, unemployment is increasing and is expected to continue doing so next year, wages have not gone up, if anything the contrary and we are the same amount of inhabitants....and on top of it all the interest rate is low and can on long term more or less only go up, Swedes do not amortize mortgages, do not have a savings buffer....Am I missing something here or am I right if I say I smell a housing bubble?





To the office in pyjamas...

Like most Saturdays I woke up early, had a cup of coffee and swung by the office. Love being at the office in pyjamas beautiful Saturday mornings! It´s so nice and calm.

Sorted things that needed to be done, then off home by foot! It is such a lovely day. Cold and dry with the occasional snow flake falling from a blue sky!

Now I´m enjoying my breakfast. Later I´ll go for a run and then the weekend will be dedicated to reading. Perhaps I´ll go see the hockey game tonight....but for the rest: NO PLANS!