Tuesday, January 5, 2010

"Today Show" FAIL!

City officials were very excited today when NBC's "Today Show" mentioned Kingston in a segment. The background said "Top 10 cities for bargain homes."

Here's the part where Kingston is mentioned.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy



Immediately, you might ask simple questions, like:

* What part of Kingston has houses like that?
* Where is it?
* How is a whole city ranking based on a single house price?
* And what's the price?

The segment ends with, "And you can get more information on our web site at todayshow.com." And that's what I did, to find out that you can't get more information at todayshow.com.

So after a couple of minutes using The Googles, I found that the house in question is not in Kingston — Alderman Tom Hoffay's admirable cheerleading efforts notwithstanding — but in Lake Katrine. And it's more than $200,000, which is not a bargain, at least for this humble correspondent.

What I didn't find, however, was the criteria this list was based on.

So, sorry Tom. No story.

...
Here's the house in Kingston on the "Today Show":



And here's the same house — in the town of Ulster — on the Realtor's Web Site.


And, NO. Kingston and the town of Ulster are not the same, just like my beloved Prince Street (BANG! BANG!) is not the same as Sawkill Road and Kingston Mayor James Sottile is not the same as town of Ulster Supervisor James Quigley.

BANG!

UPDATE: Alderman Hoffay replies:

"ah...picky, picky, picky......the greater Kingston metropolitan area....

"...the bottom line here is that the Kingston housing market got a plug on the today show!"




UPDATE 2: Barbara Corcoran, Inc. (?) responds to my question about the criteria:

To find the bargains, we looked for low prices and big value We also looked for signs of recovery in the market, with home prices increases over the last three quarters or more. Other factors were job growth, low unemployment, and lots of young people moving in, all adding up to a vibrant, attractive place to live at bargain prices. Hope this answers your question!