March 4th, 2010:
Pending Home Sales Down
Pending home sales are down and additional declines are expected from abnormal weather conditions, according to the National Association of REALTORS®.
The Pending Home Sales Index, a forward-looking indicator based on contracts signed in January, fell 7.6 percent to 90.4 from an upwardly revised 97.8 in December, but remains 12.3 percent higher than January 2009, when it was 80.5.
Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, said weather is likely to impact housing data. “January pending sales, though still higher than one year ago, remain much lower than expected given that a large number of potential buyers are eligible for the expanded home buyer tax credit. Moreover, the abnormally severe and prolonged winter weather, which affected large regions of the U.S., hampered shopping activity in February,” he said.
As such, abnormal swings are expected in housing data. “We will see weak near-term sales followed by a likely surge of existing-home sales in April, May, and June,” Yun said. “The real question is what happens in the second half of the year. If there is sufficient job creation, housing can become self-sustaining with stable to modestly rising home prices because inventory has been trending downward.”
Here’s a look at pending home sales numbers by region:
- Northeast: Pending home sales fell 8.7 percent to 71.3 in January, but are 20.5 percent higher than January 2009.
- Midwest: The index dropped 8.9 percent to 81.2 but is 11.8 percent above a year ago.
- South: Pending home sales slipped 2.1 percent to an index of 98.1, but the index is 18.0 percent higher than January 2009.
- West: The index dropped 13.2 percent to 102.9 but is 1.4 percent above a year ago.
— NAR
Home Prices May Be Flat for Years
Bucknell Manor
Housing prices are unlikely to fall much farther, but they aren’t going to rise either — at least for several years — predict analysts for Barclays Capital in its Residential Credit Strategy report.
Barclays blames government programs that have slowed foreclosures. “The overhang of distressed inventory is a huge negative technical. It suggests that any price rise will probably be met by increased distressed sales,” the report says.
The report also concludes that home prices are cheaper than rents and incomes suggest they should be, “but not extremely so.”
Source: Property Wire (03/03/2010)
Greek Revival
typical Greek Revival home
This style is predominantly found in the Midwest, South, New England, and Midatlantic regions, though you may spot subtypes in parts of California. Its popularity in the 1800s stemmed from archeological findings of the time, indicating that the Grecians had spawned Roman culture. American architects also favored the style for political reasons: the War of 1812 cast England in an unfavorable light; and public sentiment favored the Greeks in their war for independence in the 1820s.
Identify the style by its entry, full-height, or full-building width porches, entryway columns sized in scale to the porch type, and a front door surrounded by narrow rectangular windows. Roofs are generally gabled or hipped. Roof cornices sport a wide trim. The front-gable found in one subtype became a common feature in Midwestern and Northeastern residential architecture well into the 20th century.
illustration of a Greek Revival
The Lyceum
The townhouse variation is made up of narrow, urban homes that don’t always feature porches. Look for townhouses in Boston, Galveston, Texas., Mobile, Ala., New York, Philadelphia, Richmond, Va., and Savannah, Ga.
Comma Odds & Ends: Should I Place Commas between Adjectives?
Should Commas Go between Adjectives?
I could have my own fleet of yachts if I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard this question (well, maybe not yachts—but definitely a few bass boats).
The answer: it depends! (Don’t you just love hearing that?)
What, though, does this decision depend on? Here is a rule of thumb for commas and adjectives:
Comma-between-Adjectives Rule of Thumb: If two adjectives precede the noun they modify, place commas between them if you would place the word “and” there. If “and” would not work there, since the adjectives seem inseparable, do not place a comma.¹
Confusing? An example will serve best:
The painful, frigid winter air bit into Bob’s bones.
Notice that there is a comma between “painful” and “frigid,” but not between “frigid” and “winter.” Why?
Remember the rule of thumb: if “and” can replace the comma, then the comma is correct. Let’s apply the rule to the sentence above:
The painful and frigid winter air bit into Bob’s bones. (correct)
That works, doesn’t it? Now, just to be sure, let’s try adding “and” where we did not use a comma, to see if it checks out:
The painful and frigid and winter air bit into Bob’s bones. (incorrect)
It does not work even if we omit the adjective, “painful”:
The frigid and winter air bit into Bob’s bones.
Ugh. That didn’t work. We’d best leave that second comma out.
Even though I have shared a working rule of thumb for commas separating adjectives, my inquisitive (and demanding) readers may still want an explanation of why commas sometimes fall between adjectives, and why in other cases they do not. The answer is simple, but I think many teachers do not explain it well, since they too often use English grammar jargon in their explanations. Such so-called explanations only serve to accomplish the one thing that explanations should not do—fail to explain.
With that in mind, here is a working explanation for inquisitive minds. Let’s return to our example sentence:
The painful, frigid winter air bit into Bob’s bones.
Now, think about the adjectives, “painful” and “frigid.” They each apply separately to the noun. I could remove one of these adjectives, and the sentence would still make sense:
The painful winter air bit into Bob’s bones. (“frigid” omitted)
The frigid winter air bit into Bob’s bones. (“painful” omitted)
Those still make perfect sense; however, if I remove the adjective “winter,” the sentence would not make nearly as much sense:
The painful, frigid air bit into Bob’s bones. (“winter” omitted)
So, the notion of “winter” is an integral part of the noun, “air.” Sure, the adjectives, “painful” and “frigid” allow the reader to reason that the air must be winter air, but I prefer the sentence that makes this explicit.
How then is “winter” different from “painful” and “frigid” in the sentence above? Remember that “winter” is inseparable from the noun “air,” such that it actually becomes part of the noun. (In some cases, such adjectives become one with their nouns completely, as seen in the nouns, “bighead” and “freeway.”)
Because “winter” becomes part of a larger noun, the noun, in a sense, is made up of both an adjective (winter) and a noun (air). In other words, we are not talking about a thing known as “air.” We are talking about a thing called “winter air.” And that noun, “winter air,” is modified by two separate adjectives: “painful” and “frigid.” We can see it better if we restructure the sentence this way:
The winter air that bit into Bob’s bones was both painful and frigid.
Notice, in both versions of the sentence, that the adjectives “painful” and “frigid” modify, not merely the word “air,” but the adjective-noun combination, “winter air.” If we were to place a comma between “winter” and “air,” the adjective “winter” would be grouped with the adjectives that define it, and not with the noun.
Here is a third example. Think about the difference between those adjectives that are divided by commas and the one that is not:
Josie lives in a stylish, spacious loft apartment.
Think about it with the sentence reorganized:
Josie lives in a loft apartment that is stylish and spacious. (correct)
But not:
Josie lives in an apartment that is stylish, spacious, and loft. (incorrect)
The following diagram shows how these adjectives function in the two sentences above. Notice how the comma placement changes the function of the third adjective:
See how that works? In the top diagram, the adjectives, “stylish” and “spacious” modify “loft apartment.” In the bottom diagram, the adjectives (and so-called adjectives), “stylish,” “spacious,” and “loft” modify “apartment.” Of course, “loft” is not an adjective, at least in the sense that it appears in that second diagram. That’s why it should not be treated like the other two adjectives. It functions as part of the noun, and by virtue of belonging to the noun, it receives the description of the other two adjectives.
Here is one more example:
Jack chewed on some numbing, refreshing ice cubes.
This sentence says:
The ice cubes were numbing and refreshing.
It does not say:
The cubes were numbing, refreshing, and ice.
Also, if “ice” should be one of the comma-separated adjectives, we can remove it and the sentence will still make sense. Let’s try it:
Jack chewed on some numbing, refreshing cubes.
Or, if we remove all three comma-separated adjectives, we are left with:
Jack chewed on some cubes.
Personally, I enjoy chewing on ice cubes, but not on cubes in general. Rubik’s Cubes are fun to solve (or to try to solve), but I prefer not to chew on them. (Many dogs, though, would passionately disagree with me on this matter.) So, unless we want our readers to think Jack is a canine (or that he is incredibly eccentric), we should specify that these things he is chewing on are not merely “cubes,” but that they are “ice cubes.” In this sentence, the idea of a cube should not be separated from the adjective, “ice.” By placing a comma between “ice” and the other two adjectives, the writer would effectively group “ice” with that series of comma-combined adjectives, and not with the noun, “cube.” That would be a bad move, unless the writer was discussing a dog chewing on cubes that are defined by the adjective, “ice.”
(Maybe that could become a new slang word: “Yeah, I’m tellin’ ya: these cubes are ice, bro. You gotta try some if you wanna be ice.”)
To recap, here are our rules for commas and adjectives:
1. If the word “and” can go between two adjectives without disrupting the meaning of a sentence, you can place a comma there.
2. If the adjective is an integral part of the noun, and if removing it would cause the noun not to make sense alone, then you should not separate it from another adjective with a comma. It should be considered part of the noun, which means that the adjective—along with the noun—is modified by the other adjectives.
3. If the adjective describes the noun, but is not integral to the noun’s meaning, you should separate that adjective from the other non-integral adjectives with a comma.
Coming up: Stylistic Commas
Before concluding this series on commas, there is one more comma point that I should address. We often hear about commas as things that are purely right or wrong, correct or incorrect. While there are plenty of cases in which commas are a matter of right and wrong, there are just as many cases where commas are a matter of choice. We might call such commas “stylistic commas.”
I will address these points in the upcoming article, “Stylistic Commas: To Comma or Not to Comma?” Stay tuned.
Notes:
¹To give credit, this rule of thumb is not original to me. I took it from C. Edward Good—one of the best teachers of grammar and just about anything related to language. Specifically, this rule is taken from Good’s book, A Grammar Book for You and I (Oops, Me!): All the Grammar You Need to Succeed in Life.
Here is a link to Amazon’s listing of Good’s book. Check it out:
Christopher Altman, a community-college composition specialist, is passionate about bringing the art of effective wri
ting to average, everyday Americans. He has published work in the field of medieval literature, and has authored a book on advertising language entitled, Telling the Truth to Deceive: How Advertisers Manipulate the English Language. Mr. Altman is an assistant professor of English at Onondaga Community College in Syracuse, New York.
