SOLD OUT! Well... sort of. Not really. OK, none actually sold...

In a Bulletin article last April,
Buyers compete for Bend condos
Deadline for bids on Franklin Crossing condos today

We got the practically effusive predictions of never ending price appreciation for Bend in general, and downtown Bend condos in particular. Franklin Crossings condo units were embroiled in a bidding war:

Six of the seven drew offers at the asking price before the reservation period ended last Friday, Coldwell Banker Morris Real Estate broker Norma DuBois said. Five drew multiple bids, which prompted a follow-up bidding period. The competition may bump the prices up even further.

The reservation period was offered only to a "priority list" of potential clients who had expressed interest in the project, DuBois said.

The Franklin Crossing building, in particular, with its ground- and second-floor retail, third- and fourth-floor offices and upstairs condos "has a penthouse feel," DuBois said. "There is a real feeling of uniqueness to it."

Joe Bankofier, a partner in Franklin Crossing's development group, Keystone Partners LLC, said he didn't expect condominium sales to run as strong as they have in his building when he started planning the project three years ago. In fact, the ownership group raised the target prices on its condos around $200 a square foot since they started considering their pricing last year.

Then, from an August article: High-end retail eyes Franklin site - Restaurants, athletic club are among pending leases:

The eight condominiums sold from $481 per square foot to $636 per square foot, Oliver said.

So, we get the impression that Franklin Crossing practically had to fend off buyers with a stick, and resort to their "priority list" to keep the rabble at bay from sullying the waters with their almost sub-human bids. So these units are not just reported as "Sold", they are Sold Squared. There's virtually no chance in Hades mere humans will ever get their mits on a Franklin Crossing condo. OK, those units are SOLD, GONE, GOODBYE.

Fast forward to today:

Condo market key to penciling out projects
Developments line up, but sales strength a factor

In Franklin Crossing at the corner of Franklin and Bond — the downtown’s first new five-story mixed-use building — buyers lined up to snap up reservations on the buildings eight top-floor condominium units last spring, despite prices that ranged over $1 million, DuBois said.

But the market changed over the summer, and so did Franklin Crossing’s fate.

Reserved buyers melted away from five of the building’s eight units by the end of 2006, DuBois said, leaving only three sold so far. The remaining five units, priced between $450,000 and $1.1 million, account for about $3.25 million in inventory at current listing prices.

So Franklin Crossing units are available again, right? So the whole SOLD OUT thing was a load? Apparently so. And what's more, developers have pinned their hopes on the condo market to get downtown deals done:

All of the downtown projects include some mix of retail or office space on their lowest floors.

But, given the high prices for downtown land and the high price of construction, their economic viability may depend on a single factor — the health of the residential condominium market.

The reason: Selling parts of a building to condo dwellers is the only way, in most cases, to offset initial building costs to the point where ground-floor retail and midfloor office leases can generate a profitable income stream.

In other words, as Bend Realtor Norma DuBois puts it, “It’s the only way you can make it pencil.”

Seems downtown buildings don't make sense unless you can jam way overpriced condo units down the gullets of several buyers on Day 0. Day 0 is the day you're at the bank begging for money to start building, by the way.

This latest article goes on to detail the vomiting forth of a litany of condo projects all over Bend that promise to flood the market with hundreds of units. Then it details the terrible vagaries of the condo market, a beast much more volatile than single family home sales. And these projects are almost all mixed-use residential/commercial beasts that need the pre-selling of condos to even get out of the blocks. And... condo sales are dead.

But this entry isn't about that... it's about what "SOLD" and other representations from Realtors, and by extention, our local media really means. We were told last April, and on innumerable occasions since, that Franklin Crossing was SOLD OUT. That means to me, SOLD OUT, operative word being SOLD. We find out that more than half the buyers in Franklin Crossing have bailed out. They weren't SOLD, they were just PENDING. Or kind of PENDING. Maybe the buyers made verbal promises about going PENDING. MAYBE. SOMEDAY. If certain contingencies are met.

A promise to go pending someday, if certain contingencies are met, maybe.


Call me a pessimist who just doesn't get it, but THAT AIN'T SOLD.

Which brings me to THE REAL POINT: OUR LOCAL MEDIA HAS ZERO CREDIBILITY WHEN THEY REPORT CRAP LIKE THIS, AND THEY KNOW FULL WELL THEY ARE COMPLICIT WITH THE RE INDUSTRY IN LYING ABOUT THE MARKET WHEN THEY DO REPORTS LIKE THIS. FRANKLIN CROSSING WAS NEVER SOLD OUT. BUT THE BULLETIN REPORTED THEY WERE SOLD OUT LIKE THE TRAINED DOG THEY ARE. HEY BEND MEDIA, HERE'S AN IDEA: GROW AN EDITORIAL BACKBONE!