Top of the Tweets: Art, film, dancing and baseball
Jasper Johns' flag, which sold for $28.6 million.
By Camilla McLaughlinGarnering a lot of attention was a recent Christie’s auction that netted almost a quarter billion dollars in sales, $231.9 million. The centerpiece was a collection of contemporary works owned by the late author, Michael Crichton, who reportedly was a friend of Jasper Johns. Johns’ iconic American Flag sold for $28.6 million. Together the works of Johns and Mark Tansey brought in $93.3 million. http://bit.ly/c2KwQ3 Real estate experts see the response to the auction as an indication that the affluent are moving potions of their wealth into hard assets. Among the attendees were super agent Michael Ovitz and designer Marc Jacobs. Observers noted the most remarkable aspect of the event was the overwhelming interest from domestic buyers. Almost three-quarters of the buyers hailed from the U.S.
The Cannes Film Festival, where watching people seems to be as popular as the big screen kicked off last week. Tweets about the festival led me to recent Time Magazine list of the top 10 Cannes movies. Even if you’re not a movie buff, the list will make you want to see more winners of the Palme d’Or. Real estate aficionados will love a list I discovered through @coldwellbnkr — the top 10 real estate movies. http://bit.ly/c0oMso
Dancing in the shadows – The shadow inventory, homes in the foreclosure process or 90 days delinquent, is one of several wildcards that experts have cautioned about throughout the recovery. Another flood of foreclosed properties could slow or even potentially derail any recovery for housing. Barclays predicts the shadow inventory will peak in the summer of 2010, although most expect it to take nearly three years to clear troubled homes from the books. Also, a Tweet lead me to a recent CoreLogic report that shows the number of homes with negative equity is beginning to slowly decline.
On the Rise – The Twitterdom this week was awash with reports of year-over-year gains in sales including Florida, Phoenix, and Connecticut. Remodeling is also on the upswing, according to a Tweet from NAHB and on target to outpace new home construction. Also receiving a number of Tweets and reTweets was PMI’s most recent risk index, which finds the risk of continued price declines decreasing in all but a few of the 384 metros they track.
Logging on to happiness? A recent study from UK research firm BCS (http://www.bcs.org) suggests that, on average, people around the world think that information technology (i.e. Internet access) increases their sense of freedom by 15 percent and improves their overall well-being. http://bit.ly/avr5W6 Altogether, our life satisfaction increases by 10 percent when we have IT access, the study concludes.
Bring your baseball dreams to life. http://www.easterniowanewsnow.com/2010/05/13/field-of-dreams-for-sale — The Iowa property on which Universal Studios built a baseball field in four days for the movie Field of Dreams is for sale.
