Friday, December 16, 2011

A washboard road.

You want to see what bumping along the bottom looks like? Check out the graph in the business page of the Bulletin today. "Bend Home Prices At 6-Year Low."

/\ /\ /\ /\ /\ /\ /\ /\ /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

When the bust commenced I'd say to people who came in the store planning to buy a house -- "Wait 2 years." I started saying this in about 2007. I think I could probably say the same thing today -- at the very least, there isn't much jeopardy of the housing prices shooting up.

I regret that Bend Economy Board no longer posts their very handy "price changes" graph. It used to be 99% down arrows a couple of years ago, and if I was on the haunt (boo!) for a house, I would want to know about that.

I suspect it would be a whole lot worse if all the underwater and held back houses suddenly appeared on the market. It appears to me that they are trying hard to hold the line at about where it's at, thus the picture of a bumpy road.

2 comments:

Carl said...

Our realtor told us things were still headed down, so selling last summer was the thing to do because waiting would only accentuate any loss. As it was, we sold for more than we paid in 2004,sold in 1-day of listing, and sold for our asking price.

Glad we listened to him. Boise is a better buying market now too.

Carl said...

Yup, it ain't really shit, It's getting better. See COBA's tak eon the RE mkt in Bend, "Leaders with the Central Oregon Builders Association are seeing some encouraging signs in our local economy. COBA spokesman Tim Knopp says a recent report that shows a dramatic drop in the Bend median home price mostly points to fewer high end homes being sold. He adds that local home builders are looking at a more optimistic picture going forward: KBND: “How are you feeling in general about the industry??” COBA spokesman Tim Knopp: “Things are definitely improving. If you look at the year over year number of building permits, they are continuing to increase, and they have been over the past three years. It’s just at a lower level and so what we see a positive trend of foreclosures being bought up and absorbed back into the system and that's going to pave the way for more new product to come onto the market." In an average year, COBA sees about 1000 permits in Bend, and that's been running at around 350 to 400 recently. At the bottom of the market, Knopp says they had only 150 new building permits. In other local home builder news; Dan Pahlisch of Pahlisch Homes was just named the President of COBA for 2012."

Do you really need more houses in Bend?