Bend Bulletin has posted some more graphs: lagging indicators. We won't really know what's going on until summer, at best.

Still, the one graph that leaped out at me, is the one that everyone else is ignoring. I'll let the BendBubble2 blog and the New Bend Economy Bulletin Board talk about housing and real estate.
They've got that section pretty much cornered.

What really interested me is the number of new businesses created: 468 in 2006 alone. That is a crazy number, folks.

Look, I figure I need a minimum of 300 to 500 people who I would call 'regulars.' People who are faithful, and come in at least every few months or so, and a 100 to 200 people who come in on a weekly basis. And I have a very modest business.

Think about it. If at the peak of growth, we were getting 5000 people a year into Bend, that means a business opened for every 10 people or so. Even with crossover between businesses, that's a nutty number.

It confirms what I've always thought. During the time that the population was going up by a third to double, the businesses were going up by 10 times! Especially look at that graph from 2004 to 2006, and it looks like it more than doubled in 2 years.

Explains all these crazy businesses I've been moaning about. This is really going to hurt. The housing bubble probably created this surge, and it's popping is going to probably going to bring these businesses back down to earth.

This isn't good for business, folks. People are very sensitive to struggling businesses -- they tend to stay away in droves. If we start having vacancies downtown, it's going to drag the rest down with them. I can't see how all the equity disappearing isn't going to really impact on businesses that looked iffy at the best of times, mostly it appeared to me, vanity businesses, or businesses created because the owners couldn't find a local job commiserate with their skills and experience.

Has reinforced my impulse to start being a bit more conservative, despite my business having a very good year so far.

The only question I have: I didn't know you even had to file for a business in Deschutes county. What does it mean? How many business don't file? Am I completely off on this?

Later: Thinking about this further, the 'assumed business name' are listed by county, so that is probably what these are. Some would be home businesses, etc.

But it is still a crazy number of businesses.....