Well hold on to your nuts (if you're holding a bag of mixed nuts), because The Bulletin put out a piece: Moving statistics point to growth - Central Oregon continues to be hot spot for Californians, which states some items that are quite incredible... for The Bulletin. Here are some excerpts:
Local agents say that, among the 200 shipments that left Central Oregon last year, there also were a significant number of people who departed within a year or so of moving here, as wage levels locally push many to pursue higher-paying jobs in bigger cities.
"We've seen a lot of California-to-Bend-to-Arizona movements," said Harold Perry, owner of City Moving & Storage Co. Inc., the local Atlas agent. "That's pretty typical. Some people come here with illusions of grandeur, and they find they can't make as much money here as they can in bigger markets."
KCW's Rodby, who lived in San Francisco before moving to Eagle Crest four years ago, said the rising housing prices in Central Oregon may push more people away from the local market.
"My brother told me that people who move here don't move away," he added. "But it has actually been quite busy (during summer 2006) with people moving away."
"We really see (a cooling real estate market) as a blessing..."
What? Cooling RE market is a BLESSING? People come here and can't make as much money as they can in the city, AND LEAVE? People are leaving Bend for Arizona? People come here with Illusions of Grandeur that are not fulfilled? WHAT!
My Lord, what's next? No 600 days of sunshine a year? No 30% increases in housing every year? We don't need 17 Crate and Barrels? No 10 billion to 1 inbound vs outbound moves? I mean, next we're going to start hearing we're just ordinary people living in an... Oh God, it's too awful to think... Ordinary Place?
A RARE kudos to the Bulletin for putting out a piece that actually includes some of the unseemly statistical underbelly of good old Bend. We've got warts! All is NOT swimmin' pools and movie stars. They do have the obligatory Puppy Dogs and Kittens Everybody Happy title, but they actually have the kahunas to PRINT that Bend is not the end-all be-all to every human throughout the Universe.This and the Bend Bubble blog predecessor, and it's many commenters have of course put forth these ideas ad nauseum. Everyone who actually has a brain that had survived a brush with critical analysis knows full well the effects of ever-rising RE could actually be NEGATIVE. People will leave. Inflation IS NOT GOOD. A "cooling" (ie falling) RE market WILL HAVE POSITIVE EFFECTS. If you have an IQ over 75, you know this already.
I'm just shocked when our media outlets actually respect Bendites intelligence enough to print it. Good job Bulletin. Now... KEEP IT UP.
13 comments:
I don't know if it has EVER made print that:
1) People are coming here, and NOT MAKING IT.
2) High RE prices are having a negative effect
3) Falling RE could be GOOD
It isn't stated explicitly, but the low Wage/Price ratio is having a negative effect on this place. People cannot make it in a place that pays $N/year and homes cost $10XN. Families are making $58K and our average house costs almost $600K. This is just a financially untenable equation.
I think Bulletin reporters have heard this before, but I am just stunned that they are printing something that basically states that surviving in Bend is extremely difficult financially BECAUSE of high RE prices. And people are leaving BECAUSE OF IT. THAT has remained an Unspoken Taboo. Previously, those leaving Bend were just sort of leaving, and it was left to your imagination that they were edge-case freaks... cuz it was well-known that Bend is, was, and will always be, PARADISE.
I'm not sure if I've ever seen a Bend media piece basically stating High RE could actually be the root cause for people AVOIDING Bend. We've seen pieces about edge-case trailer-trash blown out to Burns to make way for 20 house/ac developments in demolished trailer parks... but never a piece where CA-types are actually coming here, AND NOT MAKING IT, AND THEN LEAVING.
I mean, HOLY CRAP. The RE marketing machine that has been jamming homes down CA throats lo these many years, may in some part be... RESPONSIBLE? I just found it incredible that the Bulletin came very, very, very close to biting the hand that feeds it. It's the closest I've ever seen to a Bend media outlet turning on the vast Bend RE machine.
Imagine that the rule of supply and demand working. Just another real-estate cycle. Prices will be set by the market. Are you suggesting price controls on real-estate?
Are you suggesting price controls on real-estate?
Huh? I'm not sure how you came to this conclusion.
But (just to answer this anyway) I'd far rather live in a World of free-market pricing subject to booms and busts, than price controls on Anything.
This piece is about the Shock and Awe of actually receiving frank, truthful, and moderately negative news about the effects of the Cent OR RE boom from a media outlet that has long been the beneficiary of RE largess. We have received nothing but All Is Well with respect to RE prices and the effect those rising prices are having on every Cent OR soul, in part or whole because of the overwhelming bias Bend media has as a result of RE ad dollars. I'm just stunned that they actually printed something (I have no doubt reporters have heard this type of bad news before... they just never print it) about the negative effects of high RE with respect to wages in Cent OR. AND that there may well be positive effects from a "cooling" RE market. THAT has NEVER made print/air in Central Oregon media history... I know it was a moving guy saying it, but The Bulletin actually printed it, and that's the sort of thing that would be edited right out in The Good Old Days.
Paul-doh said: "our average house costs almost $600K"
Where'd you get that number? Or is it just hyperbole to bolster your comment? A $58k annual income could qualify for a $300k purchase price which is not far off the median home price for the area.
"our average house costs almost $600K"
http://davidfoster.biz/Market/index.html
According to David the average home on a lot is $509,782, and the avg home on acreage is $1,034,943. Can't find precise overall avg's, but I think $600K is darn close. I could have sworn I saw it was $592K or so... can't find that though. Something near $600K seems reasonable though, given Davids avg's.
Or is it just hyperbole to bolster your comment?
Here's a thought: BLOW IT OUT YOUR ASS.
I'm tired of imebecilic true-believers who seem to think they are entitled to exhaustive proof of every little fact. You are entitled to nothing. Next time you see something you think is false: PROVE IT.
Otherwise, go away. Go back to CA. No one wants you here. You're what has turned Bend from a crystal clear river, into a putrid river of stink. Californians coming to Bend is like polluting a river, one stinking drum of toxic waste at a time: At first it can absorb such filth, but pretty soon it overflows with stench and death. You came here to escape "Rude CA jackasses", but guess what, YOU ARE ONE. And you brought all your asshole friends, and now this place is damn near unliveable.
Get the hell out of here. You CA scumbags are the worst human beings on Earth, it's no wonder you're abandoning what is a geographic paradise. You drive each other and any normal human who comes within 500 miles of you insane. You're rude, self-centered, oblivious, and you are probably the only thing that keeps the tide of illegals at the Mexican border as low as it is... otherwise it'd be a flood. But Mexicans, like all Earths inhabitants, CAN'T STAND CALIFORNIANS. Why? Mexicans are normal. They're not jackals or cannibals. You're leaving CA to get away from each other because you're the most disgusting, vile subhuman pieces of crap ever puked out onto this planet.
Go to hell you MORON.
"According to David the average home on a lot is $509,782, and the avg home on acreage is $1,034,943. Can't find precise overall avg's, but I think $600K is darn close. I could have sworn I saw it was $592K or so... can't find that though. Something near $600K seems reasonable though, given Davids avg's."
Wrong! That's not reasonable because nobody is paying list price, as the actual sale prices show.
http://www.centraloregonrealtor.com/stats.pdf
The average sale price for Bend residential real estate is $406,122 and the median is $351,978. Half the buyers pay more than the median and half pay less.
Go to hell you MORON.
Nice! Can you tell us what you really think? Duncan has a more PC version on his awesome blog:
I'm sure they think it was the outdoors and the mountains and all that brought them, but increased population can't help but impact on that environment even worse.
Had a fellow in the store yesterday, who had just moved to Bend from Malibu. He was marveling about how polite and friendly everyone was around here. I mentioned that it was changing, that people didn't always respond to greeting the way they used to, but he insisted that we had a very long way to go before we got as bad as Malibu. I mentioned that I didn't much like some of the attitudes of the new folk, or how the gated communities were meant to keep the riff-raff out. And I mentioned how I didn't like all the traffic tail-gaters.
He completely misunderstood my point, and said, yeah, it was the riff-raff that was tailgating and that eventually they'd be forced to move away.
I said, that I noticed an awful lot of the tailgaters were driving big SUV's. And that I prefered the riff-raff to some of the rich.
Moving on...
The average sale price for Bend residential real estate is $406,122 and the median is $351,978.
I'm not talking about medians. And you're ignoring the acreage sales completely, which had an average sale price of $741,839 in 2006. So $600K IS reasonable.
Half the buyers pay more than the median and half pay less.
Thank you for the definition of "median". I was so desperately lost until you clarified that. I'll write that on my hand.
Wrong! That's not reasonable because nobody is paying list price, as the actual sale prices show.
Go take a valium. There seems to be a small & insignificant contingent that seems to want to try to discredit ALL statistics here & elsewhere by finding the smallest discrepancy when I & others make off-the-cuff estimates. So, instead of home prices being 10X the average family wage, they are 9.5X. Or 9.0X. Are you suggesting that 9.0X wages for a home is so far away from 10X that we should declare All Is Well?
I don't. From Wikipedia & usgovinfo.about.com:
The U.S. national average purchase price for a single-family home reached $264,540 in October 2004, according to figures released by the Federal Housing Finance Board.
the mean household income in the United States according to the US Census Bureau 2004 Economic Survey was $60,528
I know, I know. Since I couldn't find exactly matching dates, the entire thing is WRONG. Yeah... like I said "VALIUM". For people actually interested in reality:
The ratio of home price means to family wage means in the US is approximately 4.4X. And that's at the end of 2004, and mid-2005 was when the National market topped, and this ratio may have gotten to 4.5-4.8X, but almost certainly stayed well under 5X.
As I said, I could not find an overall average for Deschutes County, but let's say it's $500K, and family income means are $60K. That's 8.3X, or somewhere close to 1.8X the US average. That means to live in Deschutes County, you have to spend 80% MORE of your income on your home. To revert to the US average, we'd have to fall 47% or so, for a mean of $273K. And these figures are ballpark, but probably damn close.
I guess I'm sort of tired of people who are essentially saying that if we're 75% overvalued as opposed to 80% or more, THERE'S NO PROBLEM. Is that seriously your stance?
I'll admit, I ballpark figures sometimes, and the results may be off occasionally, and I'll recant if some of these Anonymous commenters will actually put up CORRECT figures, and then try to justify some sort of stance on under-valuation. My bet: They won't. Why? 75% overvaluation, or even 60% or 50% is hard to prove as NORMAL, SUSTAINABLE and UNDERVALUED.
Face it deniers... it's a BUBBLE. It's not my agenda for there to be a bubble, or any other idiotic conspiracy theories. Neither I nor other bloggers caused it. Your claims of complete bubble deniability based on estimates or small mathematical mistakes on very thin margins ARE NOT counter indications. It's a bubble, and it's going to crash. Just face it.
You're free to state otherwise, but only the extremely weak-minded are buying the "small mistakes equals COMPLETE DENIABILITY" crap.
And I'll just state that anything North of 20% higher than US price-to-wage ratios is not really sustainable (IMO) in Bend, and that equates to an APPROXIMATE average of $315K for residential AND acreage. We're way higher than that. The only way it is sustainable is if Bend has its industrial core wiped out, we become a great big Pronghorn-Crosswater littered with retirees, golf courses, trinket shops & art galleries. If that's your vision of a Better Bend, then I guess that's your opinion. I DON'T think that's better.
Real Estate isn't rising anymore. It hasn't been rising for a good six months in Bend. I think that is why the old bubble blog is discontinued. You are just repeating the same stuff here, the same issues that have already been raised ad nauseum. It's redundant.
Wow, I just read the latest lets-blame-California for all our problems post. Frankly the post is ridiculous and reminds me of the attitude of a racist -one who is convince if only "fill-in-the-blank" didn't exist all my problems would go away.
HEY THERE BENDOS, CAL-THRASHER HERE. I JUST WANTED TO LET YOU KNOW THAT I AM MOVING TO YOUR "TOWN"... IF YOU CAN EVEN CALL IT THAT. I JUST SOLD MY DOUBLE-WIDE DOWN HERE NEXT
TO THE LOS ANGELES FREEWAY FOR A COOL MILLION. PRETTY SWEET, I'D SAY. THEN I BOUGHT MYSELF TWO NEW VEHICLES FOR CRUISING BEND. A H2, CHERRY RED, CA LICENSE "RIFF-RAFF"
AND A NISSAN ARMADA, CA LICENSE "BENDOVER". I NOTICED ONE THING THOUGH, YOU PEOPLE DRIVE TOO DAMN SLOW!!!!!!! SO I USUALLY EASE UP BEHIND YOU REAL CLOSE TO LET YOU KNOW YOU
SHOULD INCREASE YOUR SPEED. THIS IS COMMON IN LOS ANGELES, WHERE MANY PEOPLE COMBINE THIS WITH A LITTLE PISTOL WAVING. I HEAR THE .357 DOES NOT GO DOWN WELL HERE SO I LEFT
THAT AT HOME THOUGH. I HAVE TO SAY THE ATTITUDE OF SOME OF YOU BENDOS REALLY PISSES ME OFF -NO OFFENSE INTENDED, I DO HAVE SOME NICE FOLKS FROM YOUR "TOWN" WHO CUT MY YARD.
DUE TO THAT FACT, I BOUGHT MY SELF A PLACE HERE IN BROKEN TOP, WHERE THEY KEEP MOST OF THE "UNDESIRABLES" OUT OF THE WAY OF CIVILIZED FOLKS. LET ME TELL YOU, I COULDN'T BELIEVE
HOW CHEAP THIS IS. I MEAN, I STILL HAVE A COUPLE 100K IN THE BANK FOR DOING ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!!! JESUS THIS IS A GREAT COUNTRY. GOD BLESS. LIFE IS PRETTY GOOD I GUESS. I
LAUGHED THE FIRST TIME THE REALTOR TOLD ME THE PRICE OF SOME RINKY-DINKY 2500 SQUARE FOOT SHACK. DAMN, I SAID "IF THERE GIVING THEM AWAY, I MIGHT AS WELL MAKE IT 5000 SQUARE
FEET". HAHA, ANYWAY, I JUST WANTED TO LET YOU ALL KNOW "I AM THE REAL THING". YOUR TOWN IS PRETTY OK, BUT YOU FOLKS NEED TO SHAPE UP. I HAVE A LOT OF PATIENCE, BUT EVEN MINE
IS GROWING THIN. THAT OLD MILL SHOPPING DISTRICT IS A PRETTY GOOD START. I'D LIKE TO SEE SOME OF WHAT I SEE THERE SPRING UP AROUND DOWNTOWN. BUT MOST OF ALL, I'D LIKE TO SEE
A BIT MORE RESPECT FOR FOLKS LIKE ME WHO HAVE WORKED THEIR ASSES OF TO LIVE THE GOOD LIKE, MOST OF YOU BENDOS MEAN WELL BUT I'M SICK OF SOME OF THE WHINING HERE ON THESE BOARDS.
I NEED SOME HELP AROUND MY YARD IF YOU NEED WORK JUST COME TALK TO ME. SIGNING OFF FOR NOW. OVER AND OUT. CAL-THRASHER.
>>>>>>Real Estate isn't rising anymore. It hasn't been rising for a good six months in Bend. I think that is why the old bubble blog is discontinued.
That's a big reason. It got boring. When I started the blog in fall 2005, people were still snapping up property as fast as they could. A year later, sales were down 60%. There was no way the boom could continue with a dropoff like that. I personally think very few sales have been closing over the last 6 months at greater-than-2005 prices. Why don't the stats show this? Beats me - it's not like the stats are audited independently, though.
Most everyone knows now that it's not smart to bank on home price appreciation in Bend for a while. The only people left who are saying that 2007 will be a great year are a few Realtors and developers, and they're just saying it, not necessarily believing it.
Just drifted by on the weird wide web and I liked the post. Interesting that real estate sparks the same discussions everywhere.
The Economist once made the statement that there was never a wave of immigration to anywhere from anywhere where that wave didn't think the door should have been slammed shut immediately after they arrived.
I say this as a man who lit out for suburban country living in a town ringed with mountains and trees and no more acreage to sell, who's watching the rising 17-storey towers downtown with concern and getting downright pissed at the new "conference centre".
But hey, if I thought this was a great place to live why wouldn't everybody else?
Post a Comment