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Luxury house prices
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Trophy homes are losing their luster
The prices of luxury houses have started to drop in many parts of the country, says a survey by the Wall Street Journal. Prices of houses with more than 4,000 square feet have declined in almost half of the 50 major counties included in the survey.
| County | Median price for first 6 months of 2003 | % change from first 6 months of 2002 |
| Arapahoe, CO | $830,000 | -35.9% |
| San Mateo, CA | 2,100,000 | -18.7 |
| Washoe, NE | 719,500 | -17.8 |
| Duval, FL | 582,500 | -12.4 |
| Marin, CA | 2,050,000 | -8.9 |
| Franklin, OH | $637,500 | +29.8% |
| Fairfax, VA | 1,015,000 | +26.2 |
| Snohomish, WA | 625,000 | +18.0 |
| Miami-Dade, FL | 792,500 | +17.4 |
| Pierce, WA | 440,750 | +15.5 |
Source: The Wall Street Journal and Fidelity National Information Solutions.
Devices can shrink blind spots
Rear-mounted video cameras are better protection against accidentally backing over a child than sensors, says Consumer Reports. But the cameras, which let drivers see much of the blind area behind their vehicles, are expensive ($400 to $900) and need to be installed professionally. Sensors, which detect objects behind a vehicle and alert the driver by beeping or lighting a display panel, run between $130 and $500. But they cannot reliably detect a small moving object, such as a young child.
If you drive an SUV, minivan, or wagon with a vertical (rather than slanted) rear window, you might get just as much help from a $20 plastic wide-angle lens that sticks to the rear window, such as the Rear View Safety Lens sold by Elite Enterprises (www.rearlens.com or call 800-354-2548).
Yvonne Wollenberg. Online UPDATES.
Medical Economics
Nov. 7, 2003;80.