Michael Pascoe writes:

A Sydney Century 21 real estate agent has broken one of the golden rules of his
profession: never admit there’s anything wrong with the market as it’s always a
good time to buy. In The Oz, agent Richard Movsessian says: “The number of people coming through has halved.
There’s absolutely nothing happening out there.” The Oz claims Melbourne sales
volumes dropped by 25% over the two weekends since the latest interest
rate rise and Sydney has plunged by a third. It’s either a big story the rest of the
press has missed, or there’s a bit of smoothing and seasonal adjustment
required with those numbers.

Talking of real estate types, Wizard
salesman Mark Bouris is getting lots
of coverage today (eg. Smage, ABC) for the old news that Wizard’s owner, GE Money, will be applying for a
banking licence. Somehow the fact that’s he’s said that as part of tonight’s
Australian Story show has made it news again. Plenty of folks will be interested to see
if tonight’s show will be one of Australian Story‘s soft-focus efforts, or
whether it explores some of Bouris’s contacts with colourful Sydney identities.

And it’s nice to see someone cracking down
on Dell for misleading advertising.
Unfortunately it’s not for the computer company’s habit of running a headline
price that’s $99 below the real price and it’s not happening here either –
there is a certain incongruence that Dell is being sued for false advertising
in China. As the BBC reports, it’s all about supplying the computers with the wrong chip inside – the T2300E
instead of the T2300. Maybe no-one here would know.