“Radio Stations, with their strong local consumer base, have a great opportunity with online classifieds, by working with Oodle and offering free online classified listings to their users Magic have a tremendous opportunity to grab a significant share of this fast developing market.”

claims Duncan Dunlop, General Manager Oodle UK. although he did not elaborate on how exactly Magic would make money from the deal. Oodle plans to share display and PPC revenues generated from the classifieds with Magic.

“Classifieds market is worth over 3bn in UK and is the fastest growing segment on line so if they can secure even a small market share, revenues will look after themselves,”

according to Duncan

“We have found that our listeners are avid classifieds users, we’re excited about letting our 2m weekly listeners have the chance to post their listings for free, as well provide them with access to the largest number of classifieds listings in London.”

said James Walden, Business Development Director at Magic Radio.

This is the second major media partnership Oodle has scored in recent months. Earlier this year, they announced a partnership with Sun.co.uk, the online home of the UK’s biggest tabloid and a top 50 website according to Alexa rankings

“House prices recorded another strong year in 2007, underpinned by significant economic momentum, ongoing housing shortages and strong buy-to-let demand. We forecast house price growth of 5-8% in December last year, and with two months left to go it looks like the middle to upper end of this range will be achieved. That being said, momentum is now fading, and a number of factors suggest that house price inflation will drop from its current rate of 9.7% to 0% by this time next year. The main reasons for this more subdued outlook lie on the demand side of the market, where a slowing economy, tighter credit conditions, stretched affordability for first-time buyers and lower house price expectations appear likely to reduce the level of activity. The supply-side of the market will still be characterised by widespread housing shortages, in spite of government targets to increase house building. These shortages will provide some offsetting support to prices amid the weaker demand environment, particularly in the south of the UK.

Fionnuala Earley, Nationwide’s chief economist

“There is a probability of a continuing decline for a period of years, bringing prices in many cities down in the 10s of percent, the bottom is hard to predict. I do not see it imminent and it could be five or 10 years too.”

Shiller gained prominence with the bestseller Irrational Exuberance, which warned that stock valuations were too high just before the dotcom bubble burst in 2000. He also raised red flags during the real estate boom, which he said showed signs of infection by “investor psychology.”
“We have seen housing bubbles many times in history, but they have been much more local than this one,” he said during the interview.

Shiller forecasts that the areas likely to be hardest hit by plummeting home values are those that saw the most precipitous ascents during the boom and those at the center of the subprime mortgage meltdown, with California and Florida well up on the list. The S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices have seen eight consecutive months of negative annual returns for existing single-family homes through August. “Based on the futures market for the S&P Case-Shiller Composite Index, we are looking at home prices down another 5% in 2008,” Shiller said.
[Judith Levy]