Must submit offer with $10,000 earnest money deposit into escrow subject to inspection. There are no tours so, luckily, there are photos.

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

Here’s a photo submitted from my friend “Frank Synopsis”. Thanks for the pep talk, Frank!

We need an iPhone app that will also open the Supra keyboxes, so we’re not carrying around a bunch of different devices. I can’t believe that in 2010 we can’t get one device to listen to music, make phone calls, take pictures and open a $&#^!! keybox!

Model Remodel, a Seattle design/build firm, looks to be remodeling the old Skillet Restaurant space on 12th Ave.

I loved the old Model Remodel website, featuring the owner, fashion and glamour model Jason Legat. Referring to himself as “The Smile Builder” he had a double-duty site, offering himself for both modeling and RE-modeling. Remodeling, get it?

The years will take their toll and I guess Mr. Legat was tired of being just another pretty face, so he has a new website now, but we will always fondly remember the old Model Remodel.

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Velocity Dance Center has gotten one step closer to realizing their dream of a new long term home on Capitol Hill. One of the may non-profits being dislocated from the Oddfellows building- they have found a beautiful new home at 1621 12th Ave- the old Capitol Hill Arts Center space.

Seismic upgrades and a needed change of use by building landlord Elizabeth Linke took some time over the summer and early fall. In the last week, Velocity has gotten the go-ahead for the city to being their demolition and construction work.

With the first book, they pissed us off with the “How are real estate agents like the Ku Klux Klan”. But now it gets better with “Why pimps have a greater financial impact than real estate agents”.

“Just as you can sell your body with or without the aid of a pimp, you can sell your house with or without a Realtor,” they write. “While Realtors charge a much lower commission than the pimps — about 5 percent versus 25 percent — the Realtor’s cut is usually in the tens of thousands of dollars for a single sale.”

And more:

“A Realtor and a pimp perform the same primary service: marketing your product to potential customers,” Levitt and Dubner write. “As this study shows, the Internet is proving to be a pretty powerful substitute for the Realtor.”

Of course, the problem with Super Freakonomics is it prefers an interesting story to an accurate one.

It is in the authors economic self-interest to promote sensational and controversial stories, whether or not they are true. Like an intellectual Rush Limbaugh or one of the Fox News toadies, it’s interesting and sensational stories, not accurate ones, that pump up ratings and sell the books.

Making claims that will likely not stand up to serious scrutiny won’t matter after the personable authors sell thousands of books and make the talk-show circuit at $30 a ticket.

Why are residential real estate agents compared to pimps? Why not commercial real estate agents? Why not stockbrokers? Why not retail shopkeepers who act as middleman between wholesalers and the general public? Why are residential real estate agents, mostly women, targeted by these two authors? It’s interesting to note too, that in their new book they bend over backwards not to make any moral judgments about the prostitutes they write about, but wonder why more women don’t make the “career choice” to turn to prostitution. Who knows? Maybe that will be an easier choice for some women if Levitt and Dubner are successful in eliminating real estate sales as a career option.

There approach to their subject isn’t so much research than reducto ad absurdam; it takes the complexities of economics and reduces it down to a simplistic and meaningless vision. It takes the most obvious of targets, in this case residential real estate agents, and attempts to prove their uselessness. Because, after all, that’s how the authors make their points, by proving “conventional wisdom” is wrong, by finding something people believe in and playing the role of contrarian. With the down economy, Realtor bashing and whack-an-agent is popular now days and Realtors make a convenient punching bag.

The Shoddy Statistics of Super Freakonomics

Journalistic Malpractice From Leavitt and Dubner

Does “Superfreakonomics” Need A Do-Over?

Super Offend-O-Nomics

Superfreaky idea pits pimps vs. real estate agents
(Ex-pimp turned preacher gives his take on Freakonomics theory)

Oh! And then I remembered this:

Kendra Todd has left Florida and was moving to Seattle and joining Keller Williams.

Then yesterday I received this notice of a REO/Shortsale Panel talk featuring, who else but Kendra Todd:

I don’t know Kendra, but she sounds like a busy gal. Her website for Keller Williams, the Kendra Todd Group, is under construction, but her other personal websites are up and appear up to date. She doesn’t seem to have any active listings right now, but perhaps she’s just hanging her license at Keller Williams and not actively working there. I gave her a call and haven’t heard back yet, but wanted to get this posted in case anyone wanted to attend her panel discussion tomorrow.

She’s currently the host of “My House is Worth What?” on HGTV, a show that I was on a few years ago when I was asked to talk about an unusual in-city home built by artist James Nowak.

She has two other websites, KendraTodd.net and KendraTodd.com. The .com website lists dozens of personal appearances, so I doubt she really sells real estate herself. According to a Keller Williams press release, she joined the Keller Williams Realty Greater Seattle market center as the head of their Luxury Homes Division, so perhaps she just lends her name to the group.

Kendra, call us! Let us know what you’re up to in Seattle!

(Ok, Kendra called. She said she was living in Florida and is filming “My House Is Worth What?” on the West Coast and was tired of spending all of her time on an airplane. She didn’t want to live in California, so came to Seattle and fell in love with the place, so she moved her a few months ago.

In “Does your social class determine your online social network?”, author Breeanna Hare found that people in more affluent demographics are 25 percent more likely to be found friending on Facebook, while the less affluent are 37 percent more likely to connect on MySpace.

Even more affluent are users of Twitter and LinkedIn, as almost 38 percent of LinkedIn users earn more than $100,000 a year.

They also found a strong overlap between those who use Facebook and those who use LinkedIn.

But we already knew that, didn’t we?

Stats
Users with household income above $75,000
Facebook — 41.74 percent
MySpace — 32.38 percent
LinkedIn — 58.35 percent
Twitter — 43.34 percent

Users with household income under $50,000
Facebook — 28.42 percent
MySpace — 37.13 percent
LinkedIn — 17.34 percent
Twitter — 28.36 percent

Rumor has it that Playboy was quietly being shopped around for $300 million and Apollo Capital Partners who owns Realogy, Century 21, Coldwell Banker and Better Homes & Gardens, has been approached to purchase the floundering dirty magazine business.

Former CEO Christie Hefner would have received $1.7 million, on top of her $2-million severance payment, if the adult entertainment company had been acquired by another company before March 31, according to a company filing last week.

The battered company’s market capitalization is now around $100 million and nobody has been willing to pay the substantial premium that it would take to persuade Hef to sell.

Sources said the sellers are looking for far more than the company’s market capitalization because that would ensure Hef has enough on hand to maintain his lavish lifestyle.

The Playboy bunny ears are one of the most famous trademarks in the world, but the empire has fallen on hard times as the Internet and video-on-demand have eroded its core brand, the magazine.

Hefner, now 83 years old, said recently that one of his biggest regrets was taking Playboy public.

Other Playboy/Real Estate news:

Coldwell Banker Charitable Foundation holds fundraiser at the Playboy Corporate Headquarters in Chicago.

Hef’s new girlfriend, Crystal Harris (no relation!) is a real estate agent!

Birds-eye view of Playboy Mansion on Zillow.

Who Bought Hugh Hefner and Playboy Wife Kim’s House for $18 Million?

When staging a home for sale, no Playboy Bunnies!

It is the first time since 1980 that the commission has revised its guidelines on endorsements and testimonials, and the first time the rules have covered bloggers, but the commission stopped short of specifying how bloggers must disclose any conflicts of interest.

The FTC said its commissioners voted 4-0 to approve the final guidelines, which had been expected. Penalties include up to $11,000 in fines per violation.

I have often questioned some blogs shady practices of citation, quotes, reviews and fawning, and welcome this new rule, though I can’t figure out how it will be enforced.

Though not specified, I’m assuming there will be a dollar threshold, but perhaps not. Greg Swann has written about his displeasure with real estate bloggers accepting gifts and hasn’t hesitated to share his disapproval.

Though I don’t think it’s a huge problem in the real estate blogs, other game and tech blogs and so-called “Mommy Blogs” may have to change their tactics.