Twenty Third Floor
Technical Business Advantage

Lightstone have a trick up their sleeves. Their raison d’être is collecting, analysing, understanding and packaging data for themselves and others to use to understand past, current and future property valuations.

Their housing price index is more robust (and more independent) than those of the banks based off their own data and target markets. Rather than consider only the average price of houses sold in that particular month (which is a function of house price growth / decline but also how the type, condition, size and location of the houses sold that month differ from the prior month and year) they consider repeat sales where the same property has been bought and sold more than once.

This data is combined or “chain-linked” to provide a continuous measure of house price inflation over time.

House Price Inflation 2010 source: lightstone.co.za

The result of all of this data, best-in-class methodology and analysis? When Lightstone says “opportunities abound in local market” I actually listen. Since their business model is to sell information, I’m more likely to trust what they say.

From Stats SA

The headline inflation rate in July 2010 (i.e. the Consumer Price Index for all urban areas in July 2010 compared with that at July 2009) was 3,7%

The official inflation rate (i.e. the percentage change in the CPI for all urban areas in July 2010 compared with that in July 2009) was 3,7% at July 2010. This rate was 0,5 of a percentage point lower than the corresponding annual rate of 4,2% in June 2010 (i.e. the Consumer Price Index for all urban areas in June 2010 compared with that in June 2009).

From June 2010 to July 2010 the Consumer Price Index for all urban increased by 0,6%

CPI Headline July 2010 = 3,7%

So this is close to the bottom of our 3% to 6% inflation targeting range. Economic growth is struggling, unemployment is high, but we haven’t reduced interest rates? Something here is a little odd.

I’ll put another $100 in Kiva, to be “microlent” to businesses and people across the world, if the next monetary policy committee meeting doesn’t cut interest rates.

In researching my previous post on accurately measuring the risks associated with vehicle crimes based  on colour, I stumbled across another colour related risk measure.

Red cars, supposedly, attract more than their fair share of traffic fines.

Turns out this is incorrect.  Snopes.com has (as usual) an excellent article on red cars, including references to research showing red cars are not more likely to be fined than other vehicles. Unfortunately, the underlying research isn’t available online (as far as I could find).

Apparently, car thieves don’t want your pink car. It’s not because they don’t like the colour (although they probably don’t). It’s also not only that it’s too distinctive and will be easily spotted (see the discussion later about red cars).

It’s that nobody else wants it. The resale value is much lower than other vehicles, and the risks and costs of stealing it are no lower.

Unlike the conclusion around high risk vehicles in my post on hijacking, this actually means you should be safer in a pink car. Just not safer from ridicule.

Dutch professor, Ben Vollaard, studied theft rates for vehicles as part of his research area of the economics of crimes. The data covered 109 vehicles from 2004 to 2008. Not the largest sample size, but enough to start thinking. (more…)

They should charge more.  Hotels and B&Bs, your uncle’s Seapoint flat, airlines and taxis and the guys polishing shoes at the airport and garden services mowing lawns should all charge more during the world cup.

“But they’re profiteering” you cry!  Well, yes, in a word. But if the incredible expense of building stadia in the shape of donuts and white elephants is to be recouped, someone has to make some money out of the whole deal. (more…)

This post is a little different from usual.  It concerns VBA macros for MS Excel. Writing macros is quite easy, but writing efficient macros that run in an acceptable time requires a few tweaks.

Commonly known tweaks include turning off screen updating (see the code below for an example of how this works) and then updating the statusbar to show the user progress (also in the code below).

However, what often frustrates me is the inelegant ways in which a user can exit a macro which could take hours to run. I struggled a little to find the approach demonstrated below so I thought it might be useful for others. (more…)

photo credit: richardmasoner

It’s been widely reported that the Competition Commission has been proving an alledged bicycle cartel. Retailers alledgedly agreed to increase prices to improve margins. This is not a strongly competitive market, which makes it quite an attractive market and good margins and profits should be available.

photo credit: shareski

Vodacom  and Cell C have joined MTN in offering discounted calls in a pre-paid price war. The was the result expected from Virgin with their rather unsuccessful foray into our market, with promises of shaking up the industry and cutting prices. I don’t know how much credit they deserve, but this shows that strong competition is brewing in this market.

Cellphone penetration in South Africa is very high by any standard. Thus the market growth from here on out will be moderate. With increasing competition, decreasing margins, limited growth prospects, the significant barriers to entry don’t seem like enough to keep strong returns to this sector.

As an aside, Vodacom  reported increased spend per subscriber on their prepaid book, but more cautious spending on the postpaid or contract base. It will be interesting to see how this develops over time as our market characteristics change.

So, in spite of regular complaints from forum posters (not this website) that cellphone companies (along with banks and motor distributors) aren’t competitive, it seems there is at least some clear evidence of intense competition in the mobile telephone market.

Statistics are dually known as useful and misleading. Another relevant saying is that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

photo credit: star5112

CAR magazine used to have a short section covering the number of complaints received from readers separated according to car brand. The problem with that sort of analysis is that it ignores the relative number of cars from each brand on the road. The “exposure” of toyotas to problems is much higher than maseratis since there are rather more toyotas on our roads. If CAR magazine received an equal number of complaints from drivers of maseratis and toyotas, it would suggest anything but an equal likelihood of having problems from each of those brands. I obviously wasn’t sufficiently convincing when I offered to help them devise a less biased measurement criterion.

This is an example of a common problem with random events – it is important to consider what could have happened as well as what did happen when understanding the results.

In a related example, iAfrica has an interesting article on car hijackings in South Africa. They include a list of the top ten hikacked cars. The list is interesting, but difficult to interpret without knowing how many of each vehicle were hijacking AND how many were on the road, able to be hijacked. If the Maserati Gran Turismo were on the list, I would be wary of driving one! (more…)