Latest News and Articles
Call Centers Come Home
In an effort to cut costs, companies have been outsourcing their call center functions for the past decade to low-wage workers in India, the Philippines and other far-flung countries. But that trend is changing as call centers are coming homeand into the homes of free-agent workers in the United States. Early adopters of the trend, which is sometimes referred to as homeshoring, include JetBlue Airways, Alpine Access, PHH Arval and LiveOpscompanies that since about 1999 have rejected traditional employer squeamishness about managing a telecommuting workforce and have made at-home agents their central staffing model. Now other employers are following suit, and the trend toward using at-home workers is taking flight. (See A Trend on the Rise.)
Some of the benefits that companies derive from tapping this workforce include reduced costs, increased staffing flexibility and an expanded pool of job applicants.
Housing Prices Expected to Fall
It may not be the news homeowners, contractors and real estate agents want to hear, but economists continue to predict further declines in home prices will prevail throughout 2007.In November, Washington County reported the first decline in average home prices in Northwest Arkansas after 11 months of price increases despite oversupply and sagging sales."The market must continue to work through the oversupply that has been building for the past two years. We simply can't absorb all the product available and soon to come through the pipeline overnight," said Kathy Deck, director for the Center for Business and Economic Development at the University of Arkansas.The inventory surplus reported in the last Skyline Report rose by 22 percent from the year before to almost 3,000 homes completed and unoccupied.Deck predicts the oversupply will put additional downward pressure on prices with single digit declines lasting through 2007 and into 2008.Moody's Economy.com, a private research firm, projected that the median home sales price will drop this year by 3.6 percent -- the first decline for an entire year in U.S.
Slush life
CONSIDER THE FICTION writer. She pours months into a story collection or novel, working on it in solitude with no pay or promises in place, hiring baby sitters while home, skipping dinner parties. But after a lot of toil she's pretty sure she's the Great American Talent. She and her agent send it off to a publisher. Then, much later, comes the note of rejection, so brief and impersonal it has the stench of a template in Microsoft Word.
But the lone thwarted writer now has an alternative, albeit a virtual one. A new online project called The Frontlist (thefrontlist.com) aims to create a new kind of writers' community (to alleviate the solitude) and a better pipeline to publishers (to improve the odds of success).
Of course, writers' workshops, which offer an opportunity for feedback and a community of like-minded souls, have been around for decades.
New Hosted Technology Let’s Outrigger’s Denver Contact Center ...
I am proud to say that this chaotic scene was NOT repeated at the Outrigger Contact Center in Denver. The center's performance was excellent, and the operation did not miss a beat. The reason for this is that about a year and a half ago we decided to implement new technology that has made it possible for many of our employees to work from the comfort and safety of their homes. This new technology is a hosted contact solution by Echopass. Every customer interaction, voice, fax, email, Internet chat, is directed to the Echopass datacenter located in Salt Lake City, Utah. Echopass than electronically delivers each customer interaction to the proper Outrigger agent via a skill based routing protocol using the Voice over the Internet Protocol, VOIP.
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NEWS SECTIONS
CARLSBAD Anne M. Price, 80, of W. Orchard Lane, passed away Jan. 4, 2007 at her son's home. Cremation has taken place. There will be no visitation. A memorial service are scheduled for 10 a.m. Tuesday, at Denton-Wood Funeral Home Chapel with Chaplain Elena Yoder officiating. Denton-Wood Funeral Home is in charge of the arrangements. Anne M. Price was born March 14, 1926 to Henry and Molly Wise in Artesia. She worked as a dispatcher for the Carlsbad Police Department several years and then went to work as a dispatcher for the Eddy County Sheriff's Department. Anne became the first female deputy of the Eddy County Sheriff's Department and retired as a purchasing agent from Eddy County Administration after many years of service. She was preceded in death by her parents, sons: Scott Price and Steve Price and two sisters: Jean Taylor and Frankie Branch.
Low-maintenance D'Andrea home
Upgrades fill this open, airy and low-maintenance home in the master-planned D'Andrea golf community in Sparks.
Set on a larger-than-average lot in a cul-de-sac, the home has a great room, an upgraded kitchen, three bedrooms and two-and-half baths spread over two levels and 1,368 square feet. It also has a finished two-car garage.
"This is an absolutely gorgeous, turn-key home," said listing agent Lori Welsh of Dickson Realty.
The price: $299,000, or about $219 per square foot.
The front door opens to an entry area on the edge of the great room. Upgraded carpet and pad, an entertainment niche and large sunny windows are just a few of the amenities here.
A breakfast bar defines the work area of the kitchen, which has tile counters, whitewashed maple cabinets and maple flooring.
Upgrades in Double Diamond home
Upgrades, improvements and care have gone into this single-level Bright Home in the Silver Spur subdivision of Double Diamond.
Built in 1998, the current owners have upgraded the flooring, added ceiling fans and custom paint, added central air conditioning, a central vacuum and a stamped concrete patio.
"The work is all done. This is a terrific home," said listing agent Bob Peroddy of Century 21 Goldcrest Properties.
The three-bedroom, two-bath home sits on a .13-acre level lot with a Xeriscaped back yard.
The price: $339,000, or about $249 per square foot.
The front door of this stucco-and-tile home opens to the living room, which has a vaulted ceiling and recently installed wood-laminate floors. The wood laminate extends into the adjoining family room, which also has a fireplace, an entertainment niche and a new lighted ceiling fan.
Satterberg Estates buildout begins
Construction is underway on what many local real estate agents and developers think may be the last custom home subdivision in Kingsburg for quite some time. Following a year and a half of delays, the first home at Satterberg Estates has been framed.Located between Klepper and Stroud just east of 18th Ave., Satterberg Estates is home to 52 lots ranging in size from 10,000 to 15,000 square feet. Prices for the lots begin in the mid $200,000 range, and homes must be a minimum of 2,000 square feet.The City of Kingsburg allows only a certain number of new homes to be built every year, and Satterberg Estates is currently the only custom home development in the works. The other developments that have been approved by the city will consist of tract homes and multi-family units.
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READY, UNWILLING AND ABLE
Eric Ford, 45, is a real estate agent's dream. He's got money socked away for a down payment, he has a good job in biotechnology and he's already qualified for a mortgage. For years, he was also working to turn all that into his first home. Conservative by nature, and somewhat traumatized by the overbidding, multiple offers and iffy mortgages of the past few years, and confident that home prices will continue to drop, Ford has decided to wait.
"I kept reading about the market not necessarily being a bubble but that the housing market was seeing the biggest run-up in the past several years," he said. "I don't like to buy at the high point. I'm not a big jump-on-the-bandwagon guy. I knew what was going on, that people were getting out of the stock market and getting into real estate, that the interest rates were low and that tax consequences had changed.
