Monday, August 6, 2007

I forgot the biggest silver lining of all. But there is a dark cloud inside that silver lining. (Do I over analyze or what?)

Ignorance and apathy on the part of the house buyer.

I can't tell how many conversations I've had since the first of the year with potential home buyers. They are people who are thinking about moving here, are planning to move here, have just moved here, have been here for awhile and are thinking and planning about buying.

When I ask them if they knew that housing prices were starting to drop, they always act surprised. When I go to the Bend Economy Bulletin Board and show them the daily price changes, their eyes go wide.

This is one of the biggest financial decisions they'll ever make, and they apparently pay no attention to the news, nor have they done any research beyond talking to real estate agents!

By definition, they are the people who have managed to escape from California, or wherever, with equity capital.

The dark cloud is: the housing sales drop shows, I think, that when it comes time for the buyers to get serious, they do indeed catch on. They are either changing their mind, or holding back and waiting.

But based on my conversations in the store, there are still plenty of potential buyers either already in town, or coming to town. Some of them are going to buy eventually, so we may indeed see a 'soft' landing.

So our only hope is that we have a lot of buyers lined up who just don't know any better.....

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Tonight monday is the continuation of the 5pm county talk on UGB, you had better be there, and HBM had better be there.
It's at the County Building,
HBM writes non-sense about measure 49 wrt to 37, the 49 is sponsored by 'friends of oregon' a coalition of newyork bankers.
JD Gray and SCANLON ( BROOKS ) got sb100 passed, they created the law that made UGB, tomorrow they're trying to get richer.

HBM has a little piece in this weeks SORE that says NOTHING the fact what 49 does is it says that folks can 'transfer' there pre-1972 to other people, what 37 did was say if you owned before 1972 ( scanlon, brooks, gray ), then you can now build in 2007 and get rich, but guess what they can't sub-divide, so they need a new law called 49,

What 49 will do is 'fix' 37 so that the good old boys can transfer the large logging holding to developers, end of story, why didn't HBM say this?

Because he is on the payroll of the good old boys.

Anonymous said...

Aug. 6: Hearing on Bend Urban Growth Boundary

Aug 6, 2007 11:41 AM

The City of Bend Planning Commission and the Deschutes County Planning Commission will continue their joint public hearing held on July 26 on the proposed Urban Reserve designation and Urban Growth Boundary (UGB) expansion on Monday, August 6.

The hearing will take place at 5:30 P.M. at the Deschutes County Services Center in the Barnes and Sawyer meeting rooms, located at 1300 NW Wall Street. Priority will be given to those who signed up to speak at the July 26th hearing, but did not have the opportunity to testify. The public is encouraged to attend and provide their input.

Little Things said...

Duncan, I'm one of the buyers who knows better but is buying anyway. We understand the market we're buying into, and I've been religiously reading everything I can about Bend for the past year, including the Bubblers' blogs. We're walking in, eyes wide open, and are looking forward to being a part of your community.

It IS scary, and it is a risk. We think it's worth it and can't wait to be there.

Duncan McGeary said...

I was thinking of people like you, actually. People who want to live here, and who are going to negotiate themselves into a satisfactory situation for themselves.

Anonymous said...

I was thinking of people like you, actually. People who want to live here, and who are going to negotiate themselves into a satisfactory situation for themselves.
*
Sure some say we're all doom and gloom, but fact is we're already year one into the bubble collapse.
While over 50% of all homes are NOT selling, +40% are selling, there are plenty of people in Bend that bought there house for less than $100k, and would be happy to get $200k while they still can.
What you don't want to do is buy a $500k siberian mansion right now, .e.g. anything built in the last five years is going to go down 50%, but anything out 10-20 years, probably got bought at a fair price, and thus can be sold for a fair price.
Yes, there are tons of bargains out there, but there are also tons of people trying to get out what they paid, e.g. if they bought in the last five years. You can get -40% off 2005 highs right now if you shop around, and write lots of lowball offers and do your homework, e.g. know up front using DIAL, ... if the seller actually owns the house.

Little Things said...

Well, I guess we should have bought an older home, and that was originally our intention, but there were three "must haves" on our list (and a lot of wants):

1) A kitchen that opens to the family room
2) More than one living area (i.e. a living room and a family room or bonus room)
2) A yard that is big enough to play in

I found lots of houses with one of the three, a few with two of the three, and one or two with three of the three. In the end, I liked the livability of the house we bid on most.

Another big factor was the neighborhood - I must have hopped out of the car thirty times to stop folks who live in the neighborhoods we were considering - the fact that the three people I met in the neighborhood where we bought all seemed to know everyone else on the street was huge for me. We're not folks who lock ourselves in our houses, and a real neighborhood is important to us.

(a big "don't want" for us was an unfinished development -- the neighborhood HAD to be complete for us to even consider it)

I do appreciate all of the warnings, and am glad that we're buying now instead of at the top of the bubble. We feel like we got a good deal, and hope to stay in Bend forever!

Anonymous said...

1) A kitchen that opens to the family room
2) More than one living area (i.e. a living room and a family room or bonus room)
3) A yard that is big enough to play
*
Sounds like an old home to me,
Again as long as the house was built before 2000 generally they're well built and you can get a good deal, as homes were going for $150k, and while some might ask $450k, many will take $250k.
Even contractors in Bend have a saying, "Never buy a house built over 2002", this is because after that everything was slapped together.