Existing and new home sales are down across the country due to the mortgage/credit crises. So what is a home seller to do? Advertise of course! In the past few weeks, I have been receiving more and more postcards featuring condos or townhomes in the area. In fact, on Thursday alone, I got three such over-sized, glossy postcards addressed to "resident." This tells me that these advertisers (Ryan Homes was one of them) are pulling all the stops to be able to sell homes that were probably built or planned for before the real estate bubble blew. They are offering incentives and slashing prices while advertising heavily via direct mail and in the real estate section of the newspaper and even on television. The construction companies need to make up some if not all of their investment and know they need to sell those units, almost at all cost. Have you noticed an uptick in real estate advertising too?

On a completely unrelated note, a few weeks ago, Starbucks unveiled its new ("and improved") logo. It is brown instead of green and shows a more detailed mermaid than before. Apparently, some groups are offended by the more anatomically correct mermaid (of course). The question is: was it necessary to tinker with a perfectly good and highly recognizable logo? Fortunately, the chain has already built a huge customer base. However, we all know Starbucks by its green logo. Brown may not fly. I don't think the new logo will hurt their sales, but I don't think it will help either. You can read a story on this on MSNBC.com. Here's the link:<a class="aligncenter" title="Story on Starbucks' New Logo" href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24671066/" target="_blank"> http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24671066/</a>