It's a bit of a whipsaw to go from reading these blogs and comments -- where it is an accepted fact that there has been a housing bubble, and pretty much a consensus that the bubble has begun to burst, and where the only real point of contention is the extent to which the market will fall -- to my store, where I get almost the opposite feedback.

Had yet another real estate guy yesterday, this one from the Bay Area of Cal., who works in a title company.

"There is no bubble. Bend is going to keep growing. As long as the baby boomers need to retire......" the usual line.

So I kept throwing out negative bits of information, each of which he more or less agreed with, but didn't shake his conviction that things are going great, with maybe a bit of correction. Then, out of the blue, he tells me that his company has laid off 20% of its workers. 20%.

"What would you call a burst bubble?" I finally ask.

As usual, it comes down to 'definition of terms'.

I find myself reacting to the hyperbole of the bubble bloggers by being the devil's advocate. But when I run into the the bubble deniers in my store, I become the devil's advocate from the opposite direction. Maybe I just like to dispute.

As I said in a reaction to a comment on my blog yesterday: Just for laughs, I say there is a 10 to 15% chance of a complete meltdown in the housing market. That's pretty high for a doom and gloom scenario. I wouldn't get in my car if someone told me I had a 10% chance of crashing.

I'll fix the possibility that the market will continue merrily along at the same 10 or 15%. Sure it defies common sense, but there are many things in this world, especially when it comes to people, that defy common sense. (At least my common sense._) That isn't a big enough chance for me to sell everything I got, buy a bigger house, and hope to leverage myself out of debt.

But much more likely, there is a 70 to 80% chance of something in the not so clear cut in-between grey area. It will be muddy and obscure while its going on. In hindsight it will become perfectly clear.

What I'd like to have happen is that the folk who set my rents at the stores are in line with the reality of the economic situation, not the over-inflated expectations. If Franklin Crossing, with it's 3.00 a ft rents, turns out to be an overreach, then that would be just what is needed to reinsert some reality.

On the other hand, I am a beneficiary of growth, both in my business and my home ownership. You can't really expect to me to cheer a collapse.