Secret Administrator Account For Vista

Deep inside the bowels of Windows Vista, there’s a secret Administrator account, and it’s different from the normal administrator account you most likely have set up on your PC. This Administrator account is not part of the Administrator group. It’s a kind of superadministrator, makin to the root account in Unix, and by default it’s turned off and hidden.

Turning on the Secret Administrator account is straightforward.
1. Open an elevated command prompt by typing cmd into the Search box on the Start menu
2. Then enter this command and press Enter:

Net user administrator /active:yes

From now on, the Administrator account will appear as an option on the Welcome screen, along with any user accounts you may have set up. Use it like any other account. Be aware that it won’t have a password yet, so it’s a good idea to set a password for it.

If you want to disable the account and hide it, enter this command at an elevated command prompt and press Enter:

Net user administrator /active:no

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Hidden Star Wars film in Win XP

This works in Win XP only:

click 'Start', 'Run' and type in the following:

telnet towel.blinkenlights.nl

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Banks helping more troubled homeowners than Obama

That's the claim made by CNNMoney:

Remember how everyone complained that banks weren't doing enough to help troubled borrowers?

Well ...

Banks have realized that foreclosing on home after home after home may not be in anyone's best interest — least of all their own. So they've ramped up the number of loan modifications they're handing out to their delinquent clients.

Banks are doing nearly twice as many modifications under their own foreclosure prevention initiatives than under the Obama administration's signature Home Affordable Modification Program, known as HAMP.

But before homeowners rejoice, they should take a close look at the terms of their bank modification offers, consumer advocates say. Many may not be as good as HAMP, which lowers monthly payments to 31% of pre-tax income.

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World Smallest PC?

 

While im browsing the net, I came across with this Apple Sized PC, I don’t know if this the worlds smallest PC but it’s still exceedingly small measuring just 52mm x 52mm x 55mm.

It’s called the Space Cube. It has a built-in 300MhZ processor and it’s also equipped with 64MB of SDRAM. There are a bunch of ports, such as USB, Ethernet, Flash memory, a VGA port, serial connection and Audio port.

 

 

 Space Cube specs:

•    200MHz, 250MHz or 300MHz CPU
•    64MB of DDR SDRAM
•    IEEE1355 (SpaceWire)
•    XGA Video Output (1024×768)
•    USB1.1
•    LAN (100BASE)
•    Audio (Stereo)
•    RS232C
•    JTAG I/F (I’ve no idea what that is)

Source

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LG bringing color and flexible e-paper

LG Display says it is developing a new generation of color and flexible e-paper that may go into future products such as e-readers or tablets.

The company expects to begin mass producing 9.7-inch color and 19-inch flexible e-paper, according to an SEC filing it made on Friday. E-paper, or electronic paper, is a display used in e-readers on which text appears as it would on printed paper.

LG introduced the 9.7-inch IPS LCD screen used in Apple's iPad, and remains a main display supplier for the tablet. LG also is one of the suppliers of the 9.7-inch e-paper display Amazon uses in its Kindle DX e-reader.

Source

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iRing by Apple

Apple iRing is a bluetooth device concept comes in ring form with a stylish design and wireless bluetooth connectivity with your iPod and iPhone, the iRing allows you to control playback and volume on any of your Apple media devices.

 

  “iRing features a bright OLED status display with touch-sensitive function strip, and a rechargeable battery life of up to 2 days.

 You can recharge iRing using the included cradle. Its minimal size and unique ring-lock mechanism make it an ideal companion for charging and storing your iRing.

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How to Open CDROM Drive using notepad

 This is a .vbs script that will pop open you CD drive.

copy paste this code to notepad

Set owMP = CreateObject("WMPlayer.OCX.7")
Set colCDROMS = oWMP.cdromCollection
if colCDROMS.Count >= 1 then
for i = 0 to colCDROMS.count - 1
colCDROMS.item(i).Eject
Next ' cdrom
end if

then save it to whateveryouwant.vbs then double click the files.

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1.2 GHz Dual Core CPUs for Smartphones

Qualcomm has announced the availability of the advanced 1.2 GHz dual core Snapdragon CPUs that will power the  future smartphones, Currently 1GHz CPU is the standard norm in the high end smartphones, this will change once these new breed of highly capable mobile processors hit the  market, with these processor chips you would also be able to play 1080p video on your smartphone or you can use the TV Out feature to play the high definition content on your HDTV.

These second generation of Snapdragon processors MSM8×55 and QSD8×50A will also include a powerful GPU with 3D/2D engines for Open GLES 2.0 and Open VG 1.1 acceleration along with low power GPS and audio engine.

Qualcomm 1.2 GHz mobile chips will soon be made available to the Manufacturers, So you can expect 1.2 GHz smartphones by the end of this year.

Source

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Light Blue Optics, an interactive projector

Light Touch™ is an interactive projector that instantly transforms any flat surface into a touch screen.

Light Touch™ has Holographic Laser Projection (HLP™) technology inside which creates bright, high-quality video images in WVGA resolution. Integrated infrared sensors detect motion and turn the projected image into a 10.1″ virtual touch screen, so the user can control the projector and interact with applications simply by touching the image.

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iBottleopener Case for iPhones

The iBottleopener is a two part slider case which can open bottles with the flick of a wrist. This case won’t even block any ports, so you can plug it in without needing to take off the case.  Beyond the bottle opener on the back it’s a pretty simple case.  It will work for your iPhone 3G/3Gs and it will soon fit the iPhone 4.  It will cost you $19.95 (USD) for one of these cases.

Source

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iPill a capsule shape microphone from Ozaki

 iPill from ozaki is a compact  microphone specially designed for iPod nano 4 and iPod touch 2, but not like any other microphone, iPill comes in capsule-like shape. It has an outstanding sound quality recording, and works with third party applications. iPill cost $13 and better than Apple’s microphone according to some reviews.

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Homeownership fetish harmful

Washington Post columnist Robert J. Samuelson writes:

The relentless promotion of homeownership as the embodiment of the American dream has outlived its usefulness.

Historically, the pursuit of homeownership dates to the Great Depression of the 1930s, notes historian A. Scott Henderson of Furman University. In some ways, it's a great success story. In 1940, 44 percent of households owned a home; by 1985, the rate was 64 percent. The size and quality of homes have increased dramatically. Owning a home contributes to neighborhood stability and encourages property improvement.

Unfortunately, we let a sensible goal become a foolish fetish. Not everyone can become a homeowner. Some are too young and footloose; some are too old and dependent; some are too poor or irresponsible. Some don't want a home. ...

Tax breaks for homeowners ... exceeded $120 billion in 2009, reports the Congressional Budget Office. These benefits go heavily to higher-income borrowers, who are encouraged to buy bigger and more expensive homes that generate larger tax savings. This is both unfair and unnecessary. By contrast, government subsidies for lower-income renters are skimpier...

The single-minded promotion of homeownership failed and, paradoxically, undermined the American dream. It contributed to the housing "bubble" and favors housing investment over new industries and technologies.

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How to Change Default Saving Format in MS Word 2007

As we know Docx is a new default file saving format being introduced in Word 2007 having reduced overall file size. But, sometimes we don’t want the file to be saved under docx format due to many people are still using Office 2000/2003/XP, that make the new file format not fully compatible with existing word versions. Microsoft Office allow users to change the file saving format each tie they save their document. But it is sheer a waste o time changing the file format from docx to doc each and every time when you want to save a file, So permanently change the default file saving format from docx to doc.
Here user will find the solution of queries like:

• How to convert Docx to Doc?
• How to change the File saving format in Word 2007?
  

 To Change the default File Saving Format, follow the steps below

• Click Office button, as located on the left top in word 2007
• On the drop down menu, click Word Options button as located at bottom:

• For the pop up Word Options window, click Save as shown on left panel.
• Under Save documents section, click on the drop down of “Save files in this format”, then choose “Word97-2003 Document (*.doc)”.

  Click OK button to save the setting.

Source

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CNBC housing market discussion

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Graphs: The decimation of the home-building industry

New housing permits:


New housing starts:


New single-family home sales:

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New home sales hit all-time low

New home sales in July hit the lowest number ever recorded:

New home sales unexpectedly fell in July to the lowest level on record as the housing market continued to suffer from the end of the homebuyer tax credit boost.

New home sales dropped 12.4% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 276,000 last month, down from a downwardly revised 315,000 in June, the Commerce Department reported Wednesday. Sales year-over-year fell 32.4%.

Commerce started tracking new home sales in 1963.

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Existing home sales continue their death spiral

More evidence that the housing bubble will keep deflating when government doesn't prop it up:

Existing home sales fell sharply in July, declining for a third straight month, as the effects of the expired homebuyer tax credit continued to add turbulence to the housing market.

The National Association of Realtors reported that existing home sales sank 27.2% last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 3.83 million units, down from the downwardly revised rate of 5.26 million in June. Sales year-over-year were down 25.2%.

Analysts surveyed by Briefing.com were looking for resales in July to fall to an annual rate of 4.72 million units.

The sales pace of all homes — single-family homes, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops — is at the lowest since NAR began tracking the figure in 1999. Sales of single-family homes, which account for a bulk of the transactions, are at the lowest level since May 1995.

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Kill Processes from Command Promt

I know you are familiar with the traditional way to kill or end a process in Windows using Task Manager.  This method is effective but killing processes in Command Prompt provides much more control and the ability to end multiple processes at once.  All of this is possible with the TaskKill command. First, let's cover the basics.  You can kill a process by the process ID (PID) or by image name (EXE filename).
Open up an Administrative level Command Prompt and run tasklist to see all of the running processes:

C:\>tasklist

 

In the example above you can see the image name and the PID for each process. If you want to kill the firefox process run:

C:\>Taskkill /IM firefox.exe /F

 or

C:\>Taskkill /PID 2200 /F 

The /f flag is kills the process forcefully.

If you have multiple instances of an image open such as multiple firefox.exe processes, running the taskkill /IM firefox.exe command will kill all instances. When you specify the PID only the specific instane of firefox will be terminated. The real power of taskkill are the filtering options that allow you to use the following variables and operators.

Variables:

• STATUS
• IMAGENAME
• PID
• SESSION
• CPUTIME
• MEMUSAGE
• USERNAME
• MODULES
• SERVICES
• WINDOWTITLE

Operators:

• eq (equals)
• ne (not equal)
• gt (greater than)
• lt (less than)
• ge (greater than or equal)
• le (less than or equal)
• "*" is the wildcard.

You can use the variables and operators with the /FI filtering flag.  For example, let's say you want to end all processes that have a window title that starts with "Internet":
 C:\>taskkill /FI "WINDOWTITLE eq Internet*" /F 

How about killing all processes running under the Shawn account:

C:\>taskkill /FI "USERNAME eq Shawn" /F

It is also possible to kill a process running on a remote computer with taskkill.  Just run the following to kill notepad.exe on a remote computer called ShawnDesktop:

C:\>taskkill /S ShawnDesktop /U RemoteAccountName /P RemoteAccountPassword /IM notepad.exe /F

To learn more about taskkill run it with the /? command just like any other Windows command.

Source

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Economist Andy Harless asks "What housing bubble?"

It's 2010. Economic events have proven us bubbleheads right. Yet, we still have professional economists arguing there was no housing bubble.

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How to activate windows 7 GodMode

GodMode is a folder that brings together a long list of customization settings allowing you to change all your settings from one place. It's very easy to enable and useful if you tweak things around a lot.

Step 1: Right click on your desktop.
Step 2: Create New folder.
Step 3: Name your new folder with this without the quote, "GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}" and press enter.
Step 4: Open the folder.

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Housing no longer a wealth builder

From The New York Times, via CNBC:

Housing will eventually recover from its great swoon. But many real estate experts now believe that home ownership will never again yield rewards like those enjoyed in the second half of the 20th century, when houses not only provided shelter but also a plump nest egg.

The wealth generated by housing in those decades, particularly on the coasts, did more than assure the owners a comfortable retirement. It powered the economy, paying for the education of children and grandchildren, keeping the cruise ships and golf courses full and the restaurants humming.

More than likely, that era is gone for good.

“There is no iron law that real estate must appreciate,” said Stan Humphries, chief economist for the real estate site Zillow. “All those theories advanced during the boom about why housing is special — that more people are choosing to spend more on housing, that more people are moving to the coasts, that we were running out of usable land — didn’t hold up.”

Instead, Mr. Humphries and other economists say, housing values will only keep up with inflation. A home will return the money an owner puts in each month, but will not multiply the investment.

Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, estimates that it will take 20 years to recoup the $6 trillion of housing wealth that has been lost since 2005. After adjusting for inflation, values will never catch up.

The end of housing as a wealth builder is especially true in areas where the bubble has not fully corrected, like Washington, D.C., New York City, and Boston. Nominal prices there will likely remain flat for a long time.

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5 economic 'new normals'

Fortune Magazine lists five "'new normals' that really will stick":

1. Long-term unemployment
2. Renting over owning
3. Saving over spending
4. Staycations over vacations
5. Higher taxes for 'the rich'

I just got back from violating #4.

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MS Word Secret Code

Do you want a Word document full of text without typing it all? This is useful specially for print test purpose.

open Microsoft Word in RUN: type winword and press enter.

open a new Word document and type in
=rand(200,99)
then press''enter''

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The Hidden Windows XP Song

Do you know the hidden windows xp song? Some people might not hear it because, your sound card driver isn't installed. If you want to know and hear that song, here it:

Go to Start > Run > Copy and then Paste, or press Windows keys +R

C:\windows\system32\oobe\images\title.wma

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Unhide all missing Files & Folder using one DOS command

Does your files and folder in flash drive or External storage drive got missing after you inserted it to other computer? Don't worry to much, it's not missing, it's just hidden in your flash drive or storage drive. Here a dos command on how to do it.
1. press Windows+R keys or click Start>RUN

2. Type CMD and press enter

3. type the drive letter for your flash drive or external storage device. Example D: and press enter

4. then Type attrib /d /s -r -a -s -h *.* and press enter. and its done

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Find The Product Activation Key in XP Installation Disc

Have you lost your Windows XP Activation Key? worry no more here's where you can find it.
1. Put the WINDOWS XP installation disc into the CDROM/DVDROM drive.
2. Right click and explore the XP Installation Disk.

3. Click on the i386 folder then scroll down till you see a file called "UNATTENDED" Scroll down to the bottom of the notepad and there it is

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Make Mozilla Firefox More Faster

THIS IS A VERY simple TRICK.....NO SOFTWARE REQUIRED......NO DLL REQUIRED


1. Type "about:config" into the address bar and hit enter. Scroll down and look for the following entries:

2. Alter the entries as follows:

Set "network.http.pipelining" to "true"
Set "network.http.proxy.pipelining" to "true"

set "network.http.pipelining.maxrequests" to some number like 30. This means it will make 30 requests at once.

3. Lastly right-click anywhere and select New-> Integer. Name it "nglayout.initialpaint.delay" and set its value to "0". This value is the amount of time the browser waits before it acts on information it recieves.

NOTE:this trick only works for broadband users not for dialup

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Compaq NC6000 Service Manual

This Compaq nc6000 notebook service manual is a troubleshooting reference used for maintaining and servicing the notebook. It provides comprehensive information on identifying notebook features, components, and spare parts; troubleshooting notebook problems; and performing notebook disassembly procedures. To download this Compaq nc6000 notebook service manual right click on the link below and select save link as

Download Link

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Apple PowerBook G4 Service Manual

This Apple PowerBook G4 Laptop Service Manual provides information on how to take apart PowerBook G4 laptop ,General information, troubleshooting information, Symptom charts, Error Beep, Miscillenious problem symptoms and exploded views of your PowerBook G4 computer.

Downloads
PowerBook G4 12" Service Manual
PowerBook G4 15" Service Manual
PowerBook G4 17" Service Manual

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How to Reset Epson B300 and B500DN

Epson B300 and B500DN Adjustment Program cracked by OrTHoTaMiNe

Please follow the steps below to reset the protection counter effectively.

1. Double click AdjProg.exe.
2. Click “Accept” button.
3. Click "Select" button. and select your printer model then click "OK"
   
4. Click “Particular adjustment mode” button.
5. Select on “Consumables maintenance counter” and click “OK” button.
6. Click on “Initialization” button and the program will reset the protection counter.
7. Turn off the printer as a program instructed then turn on again.
8. Click “Finish” button. and its done!

Warning: You might end up with ink leaking out of the printer if you don't either replace the waste ink pad or install external waste bin.

Download
 

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How to Reset Epson B300DN

 Epson B300DN Adjustment Program cracked by OrTHoTaMiNe

Please follow the steps below to reset the protection counter effectively.

1. Double click AdjProg.exe.
2. Click “Accept” button.
3. Click "Select" button. and select your printer model then click "OK"
   
4. Click “Particular adjustment mode” button.
5. Select on “Waste ink pad counter” or "Consumables maintenance counter" and click “OK” button.
6. Click on “Initialization” button and the program will reset the protection counter.
7. Turn off the printer as a program instructed then turn on again.
8. Click “Finish” button. and its done!

Warning: You might end up with ink leaking out of the printer if you don't either replace the waste ink pad or install external waste bin.

Download
 

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Paper Thin TV screen

Sony has developed a razor-thin display that bends like paper while showing full-colour video.

LINK

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How to Rename the Recycle Bin

How to Rename the Recycle Bin

To change the name of the Recycle Bin desktop icon, open Regedit and go to:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT/CLSID/{645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E}

and change the name "Recycle Bin" to whatever you want (don't type any quotes).

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World's smallest digital TV Tuner

Sharp developed the world's smallest digital TV tuner. The small module works with Japanese Seg-1 terrestrial digital broadcast (Wansegu).

The Sharp TV tuner module measures only 7.3×7.3×1.25mm. This is small enough that Scalar could integrate it right away into their ultra-lightweight Head mounted displays. Sharp also managed to design the VA3A5JZ912 tuner module to use only 85mW of power. This should increase the battery life when watching TV on a mobile phone.
The mass production will start in September 2007. Sharp plans to make 1 million units per month.

Source:i4u

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Auto Shutdown PC With Timer

********** METHOD # 1 **********

Step 1:

Right click on your desktop and choose "New=>shortcuts".

Step 2:

In the box that says "Type the location of the shortcut",
type in "shutdown -s -t 3600" without the quotation marks and click next.

Note: 3600 are the amount of seconds before your computer shuts down. So , 60secs*60mins=3600secs.

Step 3:

Make up a name for the shortcut and you're done.
You can change the icon by right clicking=>properities=>change icon=>browse.

To abort

To make an abort key to stop the shutdown timer just create another shortcut and make
the "location of the shortcut" to " shutdown -a" without the quotes.



********** METHOD # 2 **********

start=>Run

Type Code: at 11:35 shutdown -s

to abort

Code:

shutdown -a

take note: all time are in 24hr, example u would like to shutdown at 8:30pm, you should type

"at 20:30 shutdown -s" without quote



********** METHOD # 3 **********

you can use a batch for that as well it makes it easier to use
just run the batch and enter the time you want it to shutdown

shutdown.bat
Type Code:
Code:

[php]@echo off
title Scheduled Shutdown Batch Example by chacha1234
color A
echo Enter Time To Shutdown (example 19:30)
set /p stime=
cls
at %stime% ""shutdown -s -t 00"" >nul
echo Your PC Will Auto Shutdown At %stime%
echo Press Any Key To Exit
pause >nul
exit

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Bits bucket

I'm on summer vacation. I'll be back in about ten days. In the meantime, consider this a bits bucket post. Leave any housing news or thoughts in the comments.

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Decline of the "ownership society"

The percentage of Americans owning their own home continues to decline:

FOR YEARS, government policy has aimed at driving up the owner-occupied share of residential housing, on the theory that everyone should have a shot at putting down roots and building up wealth. But judging by the latest numbers, that dream is fading. The national homeownership rate fell from 67.2 percent in the first quarter of 2010 to 66.9 percent in the second quarter, according to the Census Bureau. To put it another way, the recession and its accompanying wave of foreclosures have wiped out the past decade's worth of increases in homeownership. And there's more trouble ahead. According to an estimate from J.P. Morgan analysts, for every house already on the market in the United States, there is another one in or near foreclosure. Some industry forecasts suggest that, by 2012, homeownership rates could retreat to levels last seen in 1960.

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Fun with trendlines

In the comments from a few days ago, JAC asks:

One question for you. You mention that Shiller's "own graph" suggest home prices are still overvalued. When I look at the graph and then "add a trend line" to "home prices", then home prices are indeed below the trend line now, which suggests they are undervalued, no?

My response to JAC was:

Are you including the bubble period in your trend? If you've got a 110-year period of relatively flat prices (adjusted for inflation), followed by a huge and temporary bubble, of course the trendline will be upward sloping. The bubble distorts the trendline's slope.

With my graphs I measure the pre-bubble trend only, to avoid any distortion. And surprise, surprise! It gives me a slope that closely matches the change in rental prices.

Here is Professor Robert Shiller's graph of housing prices (adjusted for inflation) since 1890. On it, I have drawn two trendlines. Eyeballing the two trendlines, which looks to you like a better measure of normal housing prices, the black trendline or the red trendline?

The black trendline measures housing prices for the entire 1890-2010 period, with 1950 being the midpoint. Notice it has two periods that add significant slope to the line. To the left of the midpoint, there is a roughly 25-year dip in prices from the end of World War I to the end of World War II. To the far right of the midpoint, there is a 10-year housing bubble.

The red trendline only measures housing prices for the post-World War II part of the 20th century, i.e. 1945-1999. I'm guessing that most people will see what they want to see, but to my eyes the red trendline is a better measure of normal. It goes straight through the the graph of the 1890-1917 period, even though that's not data used to draw the red trendline.

Now look at this graph, below. The dark blue line graphs housing prices since 1983. The magenta line graphs owner-equivalent rents since 1983. The two straight black lines are trendlines for housing prices and rents, respectively. It should be obvious which trendline is measuring which data set.

Theoretically, housing prices and rents should rise at roughly the same rate. After all, rent is the revenue that housing generates. Yet, in the graph, the house price trendline is significantly steeper than the rent trendline, because the housing bubble distorts the house price trend.


Now look at this graph below. In this graph, the rent trendline has been removed (although the graph of owner-equivalent rent remains). As a replacement for the rent trendline, I have added a trendline for pre-bubble (1983-1999) house prices. Notice that although the pre-bubble trendline is slightly flatter than the graph of rents, its slope is still much closer to the rent line than the original house price trendline. To me, this verifies that a trendline of pre-bubble housing prices is a better measure of normal than a trendline of all housing prices.


Ultimately, however, the change in rents is a better measure of the long-term house price trend than any trendline you can draw.

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How few new homes are being built?

Very few.

New building permits:


New housing starts:


Hat tip: Paul Krugman.

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House prices vs. rents

Nominal home prices vs. nominal rents:


After yesterday's blog post, in which MacroMarkets LLC suggests national home prices are actually undervalued, I decided to post another home price graph on my website. This one compares home prices to owner-equivalent rent inflation (i.e. nominal home prices vs. the nominal amount they could rent for). Like my original housing graph, the price vs. rent graph suggests national home prices are still overvalued.

Also, despite the fact that Robert Shiller is chief economist at MacroMarkets LLC, his own graph available in a spreadsheet at irrationalexuberance.com suggests that home prices are still overvalued compared to their historic inflation-adjusted norm.

The owner-equivalent rent index is available at http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/srgate by entering series id CUUR0000SEHC.

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