The Economy
Tough times in Philly – Olympus 35 LC – Ilford Delta 3200
The other day I received a notice on the door of my apartment. It was an incentive to sign my lease early. It said that if I signed I could get a free carpet cleaning as well as a ceiling fan installed in any room that I wanted. Further, if I signed beyond the normal 6-month lease period, I would get a discount in my rent, $31/month discount for signing for 12 months, $51/month for signing for 15 months. Neither one of these savings are incentive enough for me to sign a longer lease, but I get the point.
In talking to the manager a few days later she said that they had to do this because other apartment communities are offering similar incentives AND, the big reason: Previously, they would decline about 10% of the applications that they received, due to bad credit. Now, with the flaky economy, people have gotten behind and let their credit go bad. They’ve started declining a full 2/3 of every application that they get! Therefore, it’s difficult to keep a high level of occupancy, so … incentives.
Housing markets are still really soft, too. One thing that worked to our advantage: We had an adjustable rate mortgage at 5 % that we got 5 years ago. Our adjustment periods starts this year and we were informed that our new rate for the next 12 months will be 3.5 %. It works for us, but it is a sign that things are not well. About a month ago, we bought Tony a car. The dealer made us an offer that was a bit below market value, especially for a car in such good shape. We bought it. When I asked the sales person why he sold it so low, he said that it is very hard to sell a car these days and he needs to sell to keep food on the table, thus a motivated seller and a buyer’s market.
Hopefully things are getting better! One interesting thing, like they say about weather: Bad weather makes great photographs. Certainly, bad times make, perhaps, memorable photographs.
Note: About the photo. I took this through the window of the train. The whole ride from Trenton, NJ to Philadelphia International Airport seemed depressing. The train goes through some very run down areas.
