Fit for God
Sales Reports Mixed at Start of US Holiday Shopping Season
Voice of America News November 27, 2005
Initial sales reports from U.S. retailers have been mixed at the beginning of the important Christmas holiday shopping season.
A national shopping research group, ShopperTrak RCT corp., reported Friday's total sales at $8 billion, down about .9 percent from last year. Sales had been projected to rise by about four percent.
Retailers rely on the first few days after the Thanksgiving holiday as a key time to boost overall sales for the year. They offer deep discounts and special deals to draw consumers shopping for presents for the annual gift-giving season.
Sales figures were not down for all U.S. retailers. Discount store chain Wal-Mart reported sales for the month of November were up 4.3 percent from last year.
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U.S. Housing Boom
VOA News July 21, 2005
The number of existing single-family homes sold in May jumped to a record-high level, up nearly 6% (5.7%) in a year's time. And, according to the National Association of Realtors, an industry trade group, the median price of a home jumped 15%, the strongest year-to-year price appreciation in 25 years. According to the National Association of Realtors, the median price nationwide of single-family home is now $206,000, but in some areas prices are much higher. For example, in California the median price is over $500,000.
So far, the Federal Reserve Board, whose decisions on monetary policy affect interest rates on everything from credit cards to car loans to home mortgages seems reluctant to deflate the housing bubble. But most economists believe that unlike the rapid decline in stock prices five years ago, the national housing market is likely to cool gradually from its red hot pace of the last several years, sparing the U.S. economy and American homeowners, any major economic shocks.
Homes the Size of Castles Muscle Into America's Neighborhoods
VOA News June 22, 2005
Owning one's own home is central to the "American dream." But the dream can be a nightmare for the new homeowners' neighbors.
You see, some people want every amenity in their new houses -- and can afford it: lots of bedrooms, a big sunroom or deck, a spacious lawn, maybe even a swimming pool. Throw in a library, huge walk-in closets, and a mega-kitchen fit for a king's chef, and the result is a home of gargantuan proportions. A "McMansion," as it's called. That's fine and dandy if you have a rolling country estate on which to erect this monster. But squeeze one onto a modest lot in an older community, and you've created, in the eyes of your neighbors, an eyesore pretentiously out of scale with its surroundings.
Citizens who are freaked by the super-sized houses going up on their street have 3 choices: Move. Get the city council to pass regulations to limit the size of new houses in your area. Or win the lottery and build your own McMansion!
American Women Flock to Home Improvement Stores for Do-It-Yourself Classes
VOA News March 16, 2005
Surveys indicate that growing numbers of American women no longer rely on a husband or a boyfriend or a professional fix-it man to take care of home repair and construction projects.
As a result, retailers are now targeting the female market by offering home improvement classes for women. The stores hope to make further increases in the $50 billion a year that women across America are now spending on hand tools, power tools and other equipment. At the nation's home repair stores, female customers have consistently outnumbered males in the last five years, according to studies by Home Depot and other retailers. The research reflects a broader social trend: more single women owning their own homes and doing their own repairs.
Home Depot spokeswoman Carol Luten says the number of women who've enrolled in her company's home repair classes has reached 250,000 nationwide in just two years enough perhaps, to call it the start of a women's home repair movement.
