Auction

THE TROUBLED real- estate market has taken its toll on the city's noble experiment in public-private housing that made neighbors of rich and poor in East Falls.

Eleven townhouses at Hilltop at Falls Ridge, privately built luxury units adjacent to a subsidized development built by the Philadelphia Housing Authority, are being auctioned next month.

Units that ranged in price from the mid $300,000s to the low $700,000s will be auctioned for minimum bids of $125,000 to $250,000, respectively.

This has not been a trend in Dallas so far. There are market values for housing, and the values have been dropping, but not as much as very niche markets that were way over-priced to begin with.

If you're one of the lucky ones that continues to do well economically in a declining environment, prices on high margin items (high priced homes and cars, etc.) will be coming down. This won't affect items in the purchasing range of the middle-class so much, as prices are rather flat... with the exception of oil/gas of course.

By the way.. my referencing real-estate issues with Porsche 911's is an inside joke. I was looking at some old posts from back in 2006 and I've been doing it since then.. and I still don't have my car.. damnit.

Last week I was on the freeway, and out of the blue a dark gray 911 turbo cab darted right in front of me. They really are quite astonishing cars. I like the coupe, as in the picture, quite a lot, but the guy driving this particular car had the top down in a picture perfect spring day and that must really be something.

And then I sort of chuckled when realizing this 20 something gene-pool lottery winner was driving a car worth more than most people's houses. It does make a statement. I'm not sure exactly what it is, but it's definitely a statement.

Most people mispronounce the name Porsche and it makes me crazy. It's not a one syllable word..