http://www.chicagotribune.com/classified/realestate/realestate/chi-0509250464sep25,1,5185442.column?coll=chi-navrailbusiness-nav&ctrack=1&cset=true
Chicago Tribune. Published September 25, 2005
In the online betting world, gamblers can lay their
money down on everything from the fifth race at Belmont to the Little
League World Series.
Now they can bet on -- or against -- the housing market.
Pinnaclesports.com, a British odds-maker, has rolled out betting options for U.S. median housing prices.
Gamblers can roll the dice on whether third-quarter home prices in
Chicago or a handful of other metro areas will surpass or sink below
where the Web site's oddsmakers see them going. (The gambling site is
betting that the median home price in Chicago will hit $268,000 at the
end of September, up from $263,600 at the end of June, based on figures
from the National Association of Realtors.)
"With all the talk
there's been about home prices, it just seemed like a natural to offer
it," said Pinnaclesports UK CEO Simon Noble in a telephone interview.
"Early signs are that there appears to be an East-West divide. In
California, people believe that the house market is stagnating or even
falling. On the East Coast, they think it's going to continue to rise."
In the spirit of due diligence, I must point out that the Illinois
attorney general's office tells me that such wagering is not legal
here. And if you go looking for the site, you might not even find the
housing category in question -- the bookmaker tends to introduce and
then abruptly remove these novelty bets (it previously made book on
where gas prices would level off) with some unpredictability.
If you've concluded, as I have, that predicting the housing market is
next to impossible, there's this: The site also is taking bets on
whether it will snow in Milwaukee on Christmas Day.
The fat of the land
If you choose to live in a way-out suburban subdivision, are you more
likely to get fat? A number of planners, health officials and others
have complained in recent years that sprawl discourages walking and,
therefore, encourages obesity.
But two researchers from Oregon
State University looked at the relationship between sprawl and
neighborhood choice, based on residents' weight. They concluded there's
no real connection between living in the boonies and becoming
overweight. Rather, they determined that fit people choose to live in
neighborhoods that allow them to walk to work or to shop, and fat
people prefer places where they need a car.
In other words, for
people who are overweight and sedentary, walking may not be high on
their housing must-have list, so they don't gravitate toward areas
where it's a principal activity, the researchers said.
Press 1 for more options
In what might be the real estate equivalent of wearing a Mickey Mouse
watch, now you can have Donald Trump ring tones on your mobile phone.
Warner Music Group has signed a licensing agreement with Trump and has
secured agreements with Cingular Wireless, T-Mobil and Spring Nextel to
offer Trump accoutrements to their wireless phone customers.
For example, when you get a call, instead of hearing a ring, you could
hear the real estate mogul's voice announcing: "Why not answer your
phone, you could be missing out on some really big business."
Or, for those with a more sentimental bent: "What are you going to do, listen to me all day?"
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Hear Mary Umberger on WBBM Newsradio 780 at 6:21 p.m. and 10:22 p.m.
each Thursday and Friday and 7:20 a.m. each Saturday and Sunday.
mumberger@tribune.com
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