WashingtonPost real estate

It's rare I read the Washington Post, and say, "hey, those numbers are completely wrong." I did today, though. I was reading the Business section and saw an article by Elizabeth Razzi on "Teacher's Montgomery Trade-Off". It's trying to tackle an interesting social issue, whether teachers can afford to live in the community they teach in.
Our imaginary teachers make a joint income of $136,500. A member of the board of Greater Capital Area Realtors, Anita Centofanti, recomends a house for $530,000, with a 30k downpayment. This leaves them with a monthly housing payment of about $3,100, plus property taxes and insurance, probably putting them at $3,700.

I'm not sure about the after tax income on their salaries, but it looks like they're spending close to 50% of their after tax income on housing. Using the calculator at the Smart Money worksheet the max they could borrow at a 28% housing ratio is $404,000. The Post tends to run a variety of articles by Michelle Singletary on living within your means, so it's odd to see this sort of recommendation pop up

Two interesting thoughts from today:

The Shop.org blog has an article about the costs that search engine marketing firms charge. The comments on the original post on Search Engine Land are interesting, although no consensus has emerged.

There seem to be a few different stories on Stradavarius violins lately. There was the excellent piece in the Washington Post Magazine on what happens if you put a world class violinist in the Metro, playing for spare change. Portfolio magazine has an article about the new patrons of the arts who loan out their Stradavarius to young, talented musicians. I was curious how many are left, and found this article, that mentioned that there are about 650 remaining, while modern makers work to find the secrets to their unique sound.

If you submit an email via the form on your Congressman's page, does 35 days seem like an excessive amount of time to receive the equivalent of a form letter back via email?

Google Ad Words glitch

My latest post over at the http://blog.shop.org">Shop.org blog, on Google AdWords.

PEDVD

Planet Earth DVDs are available at PEDVD.com (PEDVD). If you've been enjoying the show, you should check out the site. This is an initial post, more to follow later.