Monday, October 8, 2007

BEND WILL BE BANKRUPT IN 3 YEARS

Sometimes I sit around on a Saturday afternoon getting mildly hammered, and think, "Holy Crap, I got nothing to post tomorrow!". Then I start cycling through the comments left in the previous week, and realize that there's a ton to talk about. So much so, that I can't really narrow it down to one thing, and this is one of those times.

First, we knew the financial shit hit the fan regarding Columbia Air's bankruptcy a few weeks back. I wrote how Columbia was basically a Ponzi scheme doomed to implode, and that if there was a perfect reflection & predictor of Bends future, it was Columbia Air. BendBilboBust wrote:

Cessna say's that 'IF' they become the lowest prevailing bidder, and their low-bid is accepted, over the other higher bids, then they'll keep the staff in Bend.

OK, let me let you in on a little secret. The chances of Textron actually keeping Columbia in Bend FOR REAL, is 0%, with a standard error of +/-5%.

OK, if you are trying scoop up assets at rock-bottom prices, and you are dealing with dumbshit, old boy networking, non-due-diligence butt bangers, like Bend City Council (which is who these statements are aimed at), you start making Totally Unfounded Promises about saving little baby deer, puppies, kitties from ferocious dragons, Snow White kissing a frog that turns into a Prince, keeping Columbia in Bend, and other fairy tales, because you know you are dealing with morons... Morons who actually paid 1,000% markup for odometer-rolled back pieces of shit, and called it a bus system.

Morons who, as Pamela Hulse Andrews stated it with respect to the Juniper Utility Company debacle, "cost the city thousands of dollars in legal fees". Ummm, yes. That is what she said. "Thousands of dollars in legal fees". And she's right. We did pay "thousands" in legal fees. We also paid "hundreds" in legal fees... 140,000 "hundreds". Call me crazy, but given the fact that the city paid MILLIONS in legal fees, AND MILLIONS in interest expenses, would have led to poor, stupid Paul-doh to put it this way: "MILLIONS in legal fees."

And Pamela: On the front page, lower left, under "Departments": it's Business & Industry, not Businss & Industry.


Anyway, back to Textron & Columbia. Textron is making a smart move in dealing with hill billy dumbshits who can barely wipe their ass without a consultant. Note this snippet from todays piece, "Despite growth, some are worried about challenges for manufacturing":

Columbia is one of the area’s top employers, with roughly 400 workers, and last month announced it was planning to sell to Wichita, Kan.-based Cessna Aircraft Co., the world’s largest maker of general aviation airplanes. Columbia also announced it was filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

The announcement worries regional leaders, who fear a larger company could move Columbia out of Central Oregon. Cessna must win a bankruptcy auction to buy Columbia against other bidders, but has said it would keep the company in Bend.

Man, they are playing "regional leaders" like a fiddle. Now listen up Bend City Council dumbshits: Columbia Air will NEVER stay in Bend long-term. There is NO WAY. Textron is doing what any savvy bidder would do: prey on the weaknesses of dumbass locals to try to extract an extra margin a preferential treatment (ie MONEY) from local, regional, state, and/or federal government. It WILL NOT WORK on the state or federal level. Why? These are actually marginally qualified bureaucrats who are quite used to flim flam artists, and Big Government has instituted onerous paperwork requirements that only allow the highest level bullshit artists, like Blackwater, Halliburton, and the like, to actually Get Money.

Textron will not go to that much trouble. Columbia is chickenfeed to them, and not worth the bother. What IS worth the bother is leading local hillbilly dumbasses by the nose into providing spiff after spiff (ie tax breaks, free land, muni-issues) in making Columbia a No Money Down And No Money Ever Deal.

My God, we are going to be led by the nose into providing ridiculous breaks for this company so they can scoop up Columbia For Free... and they will MOVE COLUMBIA TO KANSAS IN LESS THAN A YEAR ANYWAY!

The Old BAIT & SWITCH. The LAVA COURT MOMBO. The Taxpayer Two Step. Bend taxpayers will get HUMPED UNMERCIFUL, and Columbia will leave NO MATTER WHAT WE DO TO KEEP IT. Give Textron $20,000,000 in 0% financing? They leave in 1 year. $10,000,000? 6 months. Tax breaks, free land? 1 month. They don't care about these things. Chickenfeed. Can't be carted up & hauled to Wichita.

There is a hint of just what happens when you run a nice fancy Ponzi scheme like Columbia: Textron has offered $14MM + assumption of $7MM liabilities. The liabilities were almost certainly hand-picked as the most easily disposable from a legal standpoint. Columbia's liabilities stood at $60,000,000 at BK-time.

For every millions bucks Columbia was loaned, they managed to turn it into $230K, or about a -77% return. I've already predicted that as goes Columbia, so goes Bend, and that would mean the ultimate losses of a $1MM McChicken Shack bought at Dead Top in 2006, could ultimately bring $230K. That's a little brutal for Paul-doh's girly constitution, I think we'll only get clocked for -50% top-to-bottom, but -77% from an economic standpoint may be possible: extend a 50% whack out 12-15 years, and you probably looking at a near 80% loss in purchasing power by owning a home in Bend.

And it will be due in part to people like Pamela Hulse Andrews. This pathological lunatic actually believes that by making patently false statements about the heinous fiduciary violations of our city officials, that somehow people can be endlessly duped into buying The Bend Dream. What's stupid is she's been right so far. People do not seem to care that editorial standards in this town revolve around One Thing: Selling Real Estate. Lying to sell Real Estate comes to Andrews like breathing. It's the most natural thing in the World. Classic Ponzi Scheme thinking.

But Ponzi Schemes ALWAYS BUST. Always. It's a simple mathematical proposition. The suckers are ultimately squeezed for every dime, and the House Of Cards implodes. Almost everywhere in this country participated in the Worldwide Real Estate Bubble, but in Bend we fanned the flames like there was no tomorrow. THAT'S ALL THIS PLACE KNOWS HOW TO DO. Man, and we did it to good effect. We got Real Damn Good at it. Fact is, it's our SOLE CORE COMPETENCE. We MARKETED OUR WAY INTO IT, now that it's busting, WE'LL MARKET OUR WAY OUT. Think about it: When the Juniper Ridge backlash became too much to bear, what did Bend City Council want to do? Yes, hire a PR firm.

House on fire? Hire PR firm.

Need groceries? Hire PR firm

I'm an idiot? Hire a PR firm.

Economy going to shit? Hire a PR firm.

Hell, it's not just our core competence, it's our ONLY COMPETENCE. And PR is just about CHANGING PUBLIC PERCEPTIONS. This is also known as LYING, BULL SHITTING, and SPANKING UNCLE DUMBSHIT. Hulse Andrews is The Epitome of this. She owns a little piece of shit rag, and has NO COMPUNCTION about LYING, STRAIGHT UP, to sell real estate.

Hulse Andrews, KTVZ, The Bulletin, Bend City Council: All know absolutely NOTHING except GRIFTING. This is a town of fucking Ponzi grifters, NOTHING MORE. What kind of returns can you expect from a GRIFTER? Well, my own guess is it ranges between -75% and -100%. The Columbia Air Ponzi grifters had not honed their craft very well, and actually left something on the table.

But have no illusions: The Bend Ponzi Grift will end, and when it does we'll be looking at Population Exodus, Economic Implosion, and parts of this place looking like a Ghost Town.

The Duncan Tiff:

Well, Duncan wrote a piece, "You Can't Outsmart A Bubble", which included:

"realize its a bubble and has not reason. Don't try to outsmart it."

I responded with the idea that bubbles DO seem to have some sort of "internal logic" that makes sense to those who are participating. It HAS to. Even if the logic is, "This thing has gone UP 30% a year for 3 years, and committing lots of money will maximize your return because there seems to be No Reason To Believe The Returns Will Slow Down."

OK, this is an argument of OPINION and hence cannot be "Won". You can argue with someone that buying a Bubble Good is a Bad Idea, but you'll have a hell of a time winning if they are already convinced or committed. I know: I had friends buying stocks in 1999, the business of which they had not a single iota of information, but they did have Hot Tips, Rumor, Inside Info From Their Broker, and other priceless tidbits. My attempts to talk about "FACTS" received the Obligatory Eye Roll of someone caught up in Bubble-mania. Comparing buying stocks with buying a car, or hamburger, or something else in which one attempts to maximize the utility of each marginal dollar was met with scoffs of "Irrelevant".

I think Duncan & I fully agree on this thing: It does not make sense to US. But it DOES make sense to THEM. And it will have some sort of predictable characteristics, as all bubble do. From a comment I left on Duncans blog:

Maybe it's just semantics, but you seem to be saying that the "unpredictability" of a bubble makes it impossible to predict, but I think these "unpredictable" characteristics are very predictable... I KNOW it will draw in neophytes, I KNOW it will be cocktail party talk, I KNOW morons will make $ in the runup which draws in more neophytes, I KNOW it will go up farther than I ever thought possible, I KNOW I will not make a cent & stay out, and I KNOW it will end and end badly, far worse than I ever thought.

It IS irrational, it does NOT make sense to me (like any Ponzi scheme), but I think I can outsmart it. If by outsmart, you mean wait for it to implode, as it ALWAYS will. I think Duncan & I were having a little semantical Tempest In A Teapot discussion, in which we both really agree fundamentally, but due to some quirk of existence, we came at our agreement from opposite poles. Like James Gleick saw order in "Chaos": Duncan sees the Chaos, I am seeing the Order, and we are both right.

As I noted earlier, there is a piece in todays Bulletin, "Despite growth, some are worried about challenges for manufacturing". This piece is in essence about The Dreaded Scourge Of Inflation Killing Everything In Sight, something I wrote about ad nauseum, probably to much confusion and guffaws. After all, homes prices going through the roof is a Universal Good, No Lose Proposition, right? See, I OWN A HOME, and hence I am richer... EVERYONE WINS!

Uhhh, no. Well, you DO win for a little bit. Until the economy can adjust to the fact that prices for EVERYTHING have exploded higher. Now if you're in the retraction mode, and are trying to shrink your business, then you really don't care. But if you're expanding because... I don't know... you have a Ponzi Scheme to support, then the demand for the dwindling resources pushes prices to a point where a very slim sliver of SIC code industries can survive; overpriced sushi, time-shares, and the like. Per the Bulletin:

In Bend, a limited supply of industrial land has pushed prices to some of the highest in the state, prompting some manufacturers to shuffle around the High Desert to find more affordable regions to grow. Additionally, Bend’s cost of living strains the work force, pushing many employyees (sic) to commute from cheaper cities and making labor costs rise for the employer.

"Shuffle around"? Yeah, eye-rolling Kool-Aid words for LEAVING BEND. They're not SHUFFLING AROUND... THEY ARE LEAVING BEND. It's this little edge-case bullshit that drives me nuts. "Shuffle around"... like it's fuckin' musical chairs, and that companies are just wandering around without a care in the World, and they might end up in Bend as much as anywhere else when the Music Stops. And the Bullshit never ends:

The key to absorbing any job losses in a changing economy, officials say, is attracting a larger diversity of industries — and pointing out that Central Oregon remains cheaper to manufacture in than other Northwest regions.

Another Kool-Aid Vendor Favorite: Mixing fact, with some sort of Logical Nightmare. YES, diversity is a key to mitigating the loss of some number of jobs. Of course, this town has been managed for the precise OPPOSITE of diversity. Overpriced sushi and time-shares, are 2 of approximately 4 SIC codes that Bend can support. "Illegal street corner vendor", and "Ponzi Scheme Grifter" are the other 2.

Kit plane maker is NOT one of them. Check this HILARIOUS quote by Joseph Bartels, owner of Lancair:

“I’m worried that one day somebody is going to end up offering me so much money (to relocate the company) that I would be an absolute fool not to take it,” Bartels said last week, acknowledging that a town in Colorado is courting his company. “I love Oregon, but am discouraged that no economic-retention organization has been sufficient enough to … keep organizations like Lancair here.”

He's "WORRIED" about being offered a BOATLOAD of money, to relocate out of Bend. If you can say one thing about Bend's Ponzi Scheme Grifters, it's Them Mother Fuckers Learn Fast! Bartels saw Textron pulling the Bait & Switch Butt Banger Special Grift with Columbia, and IMMEDIATELY hopped on board. It involves a GRIFTER, a pack of DUMBSHITS (Bend City Council), and a worthless old NAG (Columbia Air, Lancair, or whatever the hell the grifter owns). The grift is as follows: Grifter approaches Dumbshits, tells them he'll pack up his worthless old nag and leave, said nag having liberal amounts of lipstick and a tutu for hornying up the hillbillies, if the Dumbshits do not give him The Cash. And like a 14 year old boy paying to be alone with a sheep, the money flows like water. THE GRIFTERS ARE TURNING ON EACH OTHER, cuz there ain't no more NEW MEAT. Here's Roger Lee's (EDCO Chief Grifter) attempt to grift the State of Oregon:

Roger Lee, executive director of Economic Development for Central Oregon, admits other areas of the country have more attractive incentives for certain industries than Central Oregon. For example, parts of the Midwest offer breaks on property taxes and other cash incentives for businesses in the aerospace industry, he said. Oregon’s incentives are primarily geared toward attracting tech companies, Lee said, and any change to that must come at the state level.

"State level"? Translation: "Bend has expended every nickel grifting (PR MARKETING) Cali-spankers and we are essentially broke. If the grift is going to continue, we'll need state money." And the flawed logic rolls on:

Bend’s industrial land may be pricey, he said, but the region still is more affordable than larger metropolitan areas, notably California. For example, the region’s employment costs, workers’ compensation rates, and sales and property taxes are lower than some neighboring states.

OK, dumbshits, here's where Paul-doh teaches you EVERYTHING YOU'LL EVER KNOW ABOUT ECONOMICS (safe to say, cuz Bend Officials know NOTHING): California has JOBS. When you're a fuckin' grifter, this is like talking about alien life on another planet, it doesn't compute. California is not primarily a Grifting-based Ponzi Scheme Economy like Bend. California has INCOME SUPPORTED PRICES. We have HOT AIR, PR-GRIFTING SUPPORTED PRICES. That's the difference.

This piece is essentially chronicling what happens when a scam unwinds. When the fungible goo of The Grift is gone, just like a ghost town, everyone leaves. What did we do with the MASSIVE money flows from Bubble-times? We doubled down on red, AGAIN. We have done EVERTHING IMAGINABLE to make Bend as UNATTRACTIVE as possible to Business, and by extension Good Paying Jobs. NO ONE will relocate to Bend. Everyone here is leaving. THAT'S what this piece is about.

Grifters need a MARK. Without a Mark, the grifter is DEAD. The inbound Mark is no longer succumbing to our PR bullshit, so we are starting to feed on each other: Lancair is pulling The Short Con on The Mark (Bend City Councilors) because they are proving to be The Biggest Idiots for 1,000 square miles. And man, are they some Obligingly Stupid Marks. They seem to actually WANT TO GET CONNED. Lava Court ring a bell? Linda Johnson actually CHEERED The Pigeon Drop Con put over on the city! These people are actually grifters who are using other peoples money (taxpayers) to enrich their fellow CON MAN!

Well shit, this post didn't end up like I planned! Thought it'd be a hodge-podge of stuff, but I guess when Paul-doh's panties get in a bunch over the heinous mismanagement of this place... well, The Rant takes over. Just realize folks, that this place is still PACKED with grifters pulling The Long Con on us: Mercato, The Plaza, untold subdivided 5ac plots going for MILLIONS, land-giveaways, tax subsidies... these are ALL people trying to pull The Big Score, and the victims are US. Lowlife Bend taxpaying schlubs who will have to foot ALL THESE BILLS. And like day follows night, there is ONE and only ONE OUTCOME:

BEND WILL BE BANKRUPT IN 3 YEARS

Addendum:

Oy, I NEVER add on to the "Original" post, but cannot resist: There's a piece in yesterdays Bulletin, "
ADA compliance: Cost is in the details -- Bend, behind on the work, says there are few contractors bidding for the high-priced precision changes the government is requiring".

What's great about this piece, besides the endless rationzalizing about Why We Are Overcharged For Every Single Construction Project (ummm... incompetence, graft, etc), is the actual extent to which taxpayers are RIPPED OFF in dollars & cents:

The cost issue does not appear to be letting up, as work to improve bus stops is now averaging about $20,000 per stop. Officials earlier this summer said they expected to be able to fix many bus stops for about $1,500 each.

McNichols Products, a national company with offices in Portland, sells complete 40-foot-long slotted drain kits for about $1,500.

Wilson’s bid — which includes labor costs — charged $8,525 for the job.

Similarly, Traffic Safety Supply Co. in Portland sells 2-by-5-foot bumpy yellow mats, known as detectable warning mats, for $175 each. The amount needed for the parking spaces would have cost about $1,050.

The line for that item on Wilson Curb’s bid — which also included labor — was $5,040.

The invoice charges a total of $300 for material and labor to install four concrete wheel stops, two for each space. Central Oregon Redi-Mix sells the stops for $25 apiece.

So rough estimates put Bend City Council WASTE near 85-90%. What does DESIGNER and Bend City Councilor Peter Gramlich think we should do?

Another source of added costs is the outside consultants the city uses for much of the ADA-related design work.

“Us constantly outsourcing design to consultants is the epitome of inefficiency on this,” Councilor Peter Gramlich, who is a home designer, said Wednesday.

Gramlich and other councilors urged city staff to start doing more design work themselves, even if it means creating new positions.

It never ends. When you are pulling The Long Con, you got to take every opportunity to suckerfish whatever shark it is you're attached to. Gramlich literally can't help himself from touting the "Push it on city staff... who will ultimately have to outsource it to ME as a consultant" macro-scam. Don't think so?

If you do not know who the Mark is, YOU ARE THE FUCKIN' MARK!

267 comments:

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Anonymous said...

A good military maxim is to know your enemy and know yourself. In todays Bend market you must also know where we are.

Bend is NOT Aspen, Bend is NOT special, but Bend unlike a lot of other towns during the great DUBYA easy-money gold-rush saw it coming. Boss Hogg Hollern and Randy Sebastian and a whole lots of other developers took over Bend City Council pre 2002 with their own crony's. Every developer on the west coast was told "Bend Oregon", they all came to build, they all knew that the easy-money was coming, and they would be their with their 'salted gold deposits'.

The suckers came and bought, and bought 2,3, and even 4 homes on speculation. Then by 2007 spring the easy-money was over, now its late fall of 2007 and the bleeding is killing everyone.

Below is a RE-CAP of how the easy money was nationally designed, played out, implemented, and the end goal. Today we're in dire need of a draft. Soon you'll have a choice either join the service, or join a working prison making implements of war. We're now in a perpetual war economy, and if you got your selves in debt then your children are going to off to war, and soon.

**

1. Housing markets increase, slowly at first. Faster in the “Hot Markets” { nuttin hotter than Bend & CALIF }

2. First-time homebuyers get scared, want in, and need low payments. Homeowners want to enjoy newfound equity (upgrade older homes), especially in “Hot Markets” { dubya has just created two generations of renters that will never crawl out of debt, new peonage system created }

3. Lenders oblige by aggressively marketing Interest-Only loans (mostly ARMS) and HELs, and relaxing requirements to obtain such loans. About 50 - 70% of all new loans in “Hot Markets” are IO/ARMS { Until subprime collapse in fall 2006, this got to 90% } In Feb 07, the sub-prime door was shut-closed, and the jumbo door.

4. Potential for huge gains using IO loans attracts new (but naïve) real estate investors (as well as seasoned investors) who use equity in primary home to finance investment propert(ies). This all combines to fuel an unprecedented demand for housing.

5. Interest rates rise, imperceptibly at first, to fight inflation levels, partly caused by rising housing prices.

6. As Interest-Only periods start to end, payments rise as much as 70% (based on only a 2% rise in interest rates) because (1) catch-up principal payments (2) shorter amortization period (20-25 years for remaining loan) and (2) rising interest rates. If rates are still low enough, some borrowers will refinance into another IO loan to avoid the large payments, postponing the inevitable for 5 to 10 years.

7. IO loan borrowers tap out remaining resources (Stock market/banks) to make payments. Stock Markets drop as money flows out to meet the higher payments.

8. Unsophisticated investors are hit with 2 or more rising mortgage payments at the same time, leading to foreclosure/bankruptcy because (1) a double/triple, etc, effect with no increase in income and (2) inexperience in timing market changes and setting sales price, leading them to ride the market down. { This is where we are today, the common man getting hit the hardest. }

9. Sophisticated investors unload property, priced for quick sale. Lenders unload foreclosed properties as quickly as possible to limit their losses. { This what the baby-jeezus may have meant when he told dubya that we're in a grace period. Spring 2007 Bend }

10. Property values start to plummet as properties flood the market. { Summer 2007 Bend }

11. Most IO borrowers cannot refinance, especially if steps 6-10 happen simultaneously because (1) new fixed rates will be higher than ARMs and (2) outstanding loans will exceed property values. { under new bankruptcy laws, folks that lose their homes on this cycle will be renters for the remainder of thier lives, and their children also, look at the great dubya RE scam of 2002-2006 as a retirement plan for conservative Bend developers }

12. Steps 6-10 will repeat over and over, causing ever increasing declines in both the stock and real-estate markets, as (1) houses get harder to unload due to market supply, (2) lenders with a significant IO position go under, (3) money is pulled out of the stock market to mitigate the huge losses and payoff IO loans, and (4) Fannie/Freddie losses are reflected in the market. { During the depression this phase was called 'real estate paralysis' }

13. Record foreclosures/bankruptcies will follow as property values plummet, particularly in the previously “hottest markets” where most of the IO loans originated. { Bend was dependent on California sales, which were ALL IO, and ALL incoming californians to Bend were ALL IO, thus the Bend-CALIF symbiotic-parasites will prove to one of the greatest financial failures in America } In Bend the foreclosures will not be purged until 2011, when the 5/1 Arms from 2006 are finally shut-down, and liquidated.

14. Given the new bankruptcy laws that work more like “reorganizations” than a “fresh start,” thousands will carry this debt and bad credit ratings for decades. Some will never recover. Many, many will never be able to afford a home again with a government bailout. Today, more than ever before, there is no “walking away” from a mortgage. - New State laws on Bankruptcy, and Debtors Prisons, mean that common people will live their lives as slaves in State Run industrial military prisons producing the goods of war.

Duncan McGeary said...

Too bad you couldn't find anything to write about.....

I'm beginning to believe that the retail, commercial and industrial aspects of Bend are as much a bubble as the housing.

If so, the industrial land leasing prices are greed and speculation, just as the high rent rates downtown and -- I've come to find out -- everywhere else in Bend, including run down stretches of 3rd Street. Rents are crazy, housing prices are crazy, and industrial land rates are crazy, and I do believe they are all going to implode.

SO the city and county officials should DO NOTHING! Sit back and let it all be. Really, that's the best thing they could do.

Because I think trailer parks will go back to being trailer parks, and industrial land will appear like magic, and the landlords won't be in much of a hurry to evict tenants. And there will be plenty of housing husks for low income.

Problem solved.

Anonymous said...

Bend’s cost of living strains the work force, pushing many employees (sic) to commute from cheaper cities and making labor costs rise for the employer.

*

Ok, our old bend is returning, years ago, folks worked two service jobs in Bend, and slept in a trailer in LA-Pines.

Today folks work 1 or 2 Walmart/Costco jobs in Bend, and and sleep in a crap-shack in Redmond.

There is NO news here, except that today job growth seems to be better in Redmond, which means that fairly soon the working-poor will be working in Redmond, and sleeping in Redmond.

Just one problem, and I hear this frequently from 'barney' at the silver moon. "There is NO fucking BUS for the poor between Redmond and Bend".

Anonymous said...

I'm beginning to believe that the retail, commercial and industrial aspects of Bend are as much a bubble as the housing.

*

Bend was hot POST-2002, by 2004 the REITS were dumping money into commercial and industrial. By 2006 the condo money quit flowing into Bend.

Walmart-Reit has bought much of downtown, paid top dollar prices, just passed it on to tenants. Bend was supposed to be a bargain, its was supposed to be the next Aspen, if crap-shacks were supposed to go to a Million, then downtown old building were going to $100M.

Bend is now a ghost town in action. The REIT's can pass the loss to customers for absence of rent, and they can hold the price paid as the value of the fund forever on the books. In time however, quarterly that is folks will want out of their BEND REITS, because they know that last guy holding this shitty paper is fucked.

REITS can afford to have building's sit empty, the investors are typically high earners, e.g. docs, lawyers, dentists, who need write-off's. Bend housing is largely un-occupied second homes bought on speculation, sitting empty waiting to become million dollar property's.

With so much vacant property, prices will plummet, this is a fact. The rents will plummet, and the sales price will plummet.

Just as quick as Bend became a favorite of National REIT's it will become a pariah.

Duncan within a year, you'll be able to name your price any where in downtown Bend, as a survived businessman they would love to have you as a tenant. That said, once the prices get down, and you can secure your own property for less than the cost of current rent you should really buy on this cycle, as certainly in 12+ years it will trend once again, as by that time the Willamette valley will be un-livable.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Too bad you couldn't find anything to write about.....

I know. I'm down to my last 5,000 pages of content!

Rents are crazy, housing prices are crazy, and industrial land rates are crazy, and I do believe they are all going to implode.

Bend Econo-Rocket wrote in last weeks comments about the INANE logic (well, lack thereof) of a KTVZ piece about how the onslaught of supply of building which Uncle Flipper canot liquidate, has led to them pulling them off the market and renting them, and that this FLOOD OF RENTALS has TIGHTENED UP THE RENTAL MARKET.

yes.

Lax demand, and a flood of supply has made the residential rental market TIGHT AS A DRUM!

Anonymous said...

Lax demand, and a flood of supply has made the residential rental market TIGHT AS A DRUM!

*

This all goes back to why its SO important to have paid less than $100k for a home in Bend.

Forever here you could only get $500/mo for an apartment, and $750/mo for a house.

Largely because of income,

Newbies come to Bend, and BUY RE, and think of their flippers are RE investment, they're told by the RE investment crowd to just rent.

They assume that they can rent for the cost of MTG, so they were told, but just try to do that and watch your property sit.

It takes a while for a new home to be destroyed by a renter, wait 1-2 years, and there will be a ton of mcMansions for sale for nothing, that have been destroyed by cockroach renters, and these homes will not even be able to be remodeled or salvaged with their particle board floors, and dry-wall faux exteriors.

tim said...

Things I noticed this week...

1. There are very many commercial spaces for lease. Very, very many.

2. A lot of residential For Sale signs have dropped, many replaced with For Rent signs.

Commercial leasers can't "give up" for the winter. But it looks as though a lot of home sellers are now giving up on 2007.

Anonymous said...

People do not seem to care that editorial standards in this town revolve around One Thing: Selling Real Estate. Lying to sell Real Estate comes to Andrews like breathing.
*
That's because virtually all the newbies ( <10 yrs ), that bought RE here did so to make money, not to live here long term. Basically the current wave started in 1998, and peaked 2006, now there is a state of denial.
That said, MOST noveau rich that I know sitting in $2M homes, are ALL for any PR&Marketing that can save Bend, its exactly like DUBYA's war, if we leave we lose, but if we keep up the stiff upper lip, and keep trying, then we might have a 1% chance of pulling out or winning, but if we quit, its a 100% chance of losing.

I suspect duncan would call this standard group bubble insanity, a SMART businessman always cuts his losses. Virtually every newbie in Bend needs the party to continue in order to get out above water.

Those that bought 10+ years ago don't care, where are we going to go? We didn't move here to get rich? We didn't move here as an investment. Virtually everyone that I know that made millions from pre dot-com IPO's was told by their CFA to buy RE, and they bought RE.

Trouble is in a RE depression, the biggest stuff hit is the BIG stuff, because its expensive to maintain, and as you can see with JUMBO there are little to no buyers above $420K because you cannot get money.

My opinion is that 90% of Bend is all for the BULL&SORE pep talk and PR, hell lets spend the entire city budget on PR, because might help me get mine back, ....

A town of parasites, all worried about their's, and don't give a fuck about anything else.

For the next two years I expect to see more silent pain, but the most important thing is when ALL the financing gets closed down, and it will because nobody is going to want to put good money into Bend.

Anonymous said...

The biggest liars in Bend are the SORE, and the BULL.

M49 allows pre 1972 development rights to be sold to foriegners. Something that M37 didn't allow.

M37 said if you owned the land pre 1972, then you can develop. M49 says that you can transfer those right to someone other than the owner. What the people who wrote M37 failed to realize is the average person doesn't have enough money to build a mega-development.

Thus M49 will make ALL pre-1972 land saleable to REITS, and thus MAKE ALL the big boys like JD-Gray, and boss hogg hollern, even richer.

Lastly, the biggest lie going around today is that M49 is opposed by the rich, the fact is JD-GRAY, MIKE-HOLLERN, and PHIL-KNIGHT are the money behind M49, logging, and slave-labor tenny shops. The largest land-holders in Oregon are the paymasters of M49.

Duncan McGeary said...

Timothy said,

"There are very many commercial spaces for lease. Very, very many."

The problem for me is that isn't the perception yet. Especially downtown. And unfortunately, the perception of the lease-rate-setter is what counts.

I have a matrix I've come up with.

1. High reality, low perception.
This is the best time to get involved, because no one knows its happening yet.

2. High reality, high perception. Still a good time to be involved, but start looking to get out.

3. Low reality, high perception.
The absolute worst time to be involved. A double negative whammy. In this case, landlord has perception of high results, and you are actually suffering low results.

4. Low reality, low perception. AT least you're both in the real world. Good time to start, if you think number one is coming around.

I'm very afraid of being in the third stage when it comes time to renew my lease. So if things are going to go to hell, it's better for me that perception be changed sooner rather than later. If we can stay in number two, that's o.k. too. Number one isn't going to roll around again soon, if it ever did. Number four is probably the best I can hope for.

tim said...

>>The problem for me is that isn't the perception yet. Especially downtown. And unfortunately, the perception of the lease-rate-setter is what counts.

I agree regarding downtown. It's still seen as "hot." I've been looking around the periphery. Go out from downtown in any direction along a street zoned commercial, and you'll see a ton. Along Reed Market Rd is a good example.

Maybe we just can't support a dozen more lighting stores, furniture stores, etc.

Besides retail, there seems to be a large supply of office space as well.

Anonymous said...

As a commercial property owner
in town I kept my leases low. I
knew my locations were good but
my buildings are "Old Bend"
3rd street stuff. The businesses
are established at these locations.
I figured that when all imploded
there would be other commercial
building owners courting my
rentors. So Duncan will be in
the driver's seat , anyone that
is a longterm local owner of commercial property has seen the
magnitude of the overbuilding &
is worried too. Or maybe I just
play fair cause I did run a
successful business in town for
over 20 years & its always been
hard for most cause the pie kept
getting cut over and over when another Cali came up & tried to
employ himself after realizing he
couldn't find a job that paid what
he used to make as a Cali executive. This Columbia deal is
not so different from many years ago when Hydraulic Crane closed
basically overnight & it was the
2nd largest employer in Bend, or
pretty close at that time. People
were leaving then & moving to
Alaska for construction & oil work.
Things are going to be ugly here
again for a long long time.

Duncan McGeary said...

Oh, I'm sure there are individual landlords who get it, or who will get it.

But unless I want to move, the only landlord who matters is mine.

There is going to be a logjam on rents, because most landlords set rents based on comparables -- so it will take a majority of landlords to not only get it, but act on it, and a then a record of that.

That is going to take a long time.

My landlord lives out of town, I believe. Who knows what he's hearing? He uses a professional leasing service who in the past has gone the going rate, minus a bit for my longevity.

So it's going to take either a very severe crash, or a long slow one, or an enlightened landlord.

Because up to now, in downtown Bend, they can rent my area of town. Rent to viable businesses?

They probably just can't know that.

Anonymous said...

Things are going to be ugly here
again for a long long time.

*

Yes, the good days are returning. Ahh.

Isn't interesting that all us landlords, its the same thing we care about the common man, we care about wages, jobs, we care about the rent being cheap, and NOT over 4X of the renters income ( commercial or residential ), you have to have a nice place, at a low price to keep the tenant.

Today all of downtown, and all of new stuff, Old Mill, is owned by out of town REITS, charging the maximum amount they don't care if the unit is empty five years, because the 'investor' needs a loss and/or write-off. The REIT's have bought much of Bend and jacked up the rent to pay their HUGE purchase price.


Remember almost all REIT money is grandma retirement money, and now its October and by law quarterly notices go out about losses. The CDO's and CMO's, and MTG bonds in general will now get hammered with redemption. Commercial CDO's were the last bastion of security, and now they'll get hammered like condo's, just too much.

It will be ugly in the sense of 1983+ recession, but that's the kind of bitch-slap this city needs to bring in a fresh breed of politicians to start caring about the citizenry and the nature, and less about Brooks and Sebastian, and Breeze and Dubois.

I agree duncan is sitting pretty, I never see a businessman who has survived more than five years when I'm looking for a tenant, and that's one my criteria. Folks that don't have 5+ years under their belt aren't likely to survive. Just a simple fact of life.

Business is only about survival, so often people talk about 'success', ... and other such intangibles, but if you can run your own business and survive 5+ years, then you can probably survive forever, and that is beating 95% of the other guys.

Anonymous said...

I agree regarding downtown. It's still seen as "hot.

*

Of course downtown, will always been hot, and so will inner Bend.

It's 100's of MTG,RE,TITLE places in the Old Mill that will be empty, and all the excessive big-box building's that were thrown up overnight to be 'flexible'.

Downtown has traffic, much of the next stuff is like NWXC a grave-yard most of the time, no foot traffic, no car traffic.

I think I97 will be what it always has been, and the Division Island might see some popularity with mexican restaurants and such, it seems on the westside that the best places to eat are now on Newport & Galveston, and NOT downtown. Little houses converted to restaurants like Victoria Cafe are doing killer biz, without the downtown-tax paid to a REIT.

Downtown will always be HOT, I think in the historic sense, but if they continue to tear the old stuff down like next to deschutes or bend-brewing, and leave a lot, and destroy old historic buildings, if ALL downtown bend starts looking like Franklin-Crossings, then downtown will be dead.

Right now downtown is only 2 by 3 blocks and next to Drake Park, how could that NOT be HOT. It's always been HOT, its always been where people walk around, I preferred it in the day when there were hardware shops and more bars, ... Today its all condo resort sales, and froo-froo designer shit, and hair salons, ... and expensive places to eat ONCE. Note, that even for the kids there is really no place to hang? Perhaps K-C's or Domino, but years ago there were lots of places for kids, now its really geriatric, and that is ALWAYS the kiss of death, because even old rich golf farts like to watch pretty young girls.

Downtown will always be HOT, like the lights at xmas, but if they continue to do what has been happening the last few years, they can and will kill downtown. Only time will tell if they mandate a historic, for instance HOW IN THE HELL did Franklin Crossings get approved?? What a fucking eyesore, just imagine ten of those buildings!

Anonymous said...

Lastly, the biggest lie going around today is that M49 is opposed by the rich, the fact is JD-GRAY, MIKE-HOLLERN, and PHIL-KNIGHT are the money behind M49, logging, and slave-labor tenny shops. The largest land-holders in Oregon are the paymasters of M49.

*


The richest men in Oregon, ...

hollern - brooks

jd gray - sun river, omark,

knight - nike, se-asian sweatshops, lots of pr/marketing in usa

All are major pre-1972 land-owners who would love to transfer development right to third party's so that billionaires can become trillionaires.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

An awesome article about the crumbling Phoenix housing market:

‘Nobody expected this to continue’ — it didn’t
Phoenix suburb shows what can happen when gambling on housing boom


QUEEN CREEK, Ariz. - Out on Phoenix’s suburban fringes, where cement mixers are fast colonizing hay and cotton fields, the day is winding to a close. The home hour has arrived.

But sundown gives away a troubling secret: Behind dark windows and unanswered doors, it’s clear nobody is coming home.

The ranch home on Via del Palo where the newspaper in the driveway has been sitting unclaimed since April. The house at the corner of 223rd Court with faded fliers stuck in the door.

They’re empty, left behind by a rising tide of foreclosures.

This neighborhood has a still-unfolding story to tell. It’s not always a comfortable one to hear.

Not long ago, builders were raising home prices here thousands of dollars week after week. Families camped out for lotteries to win the right to buy. Buyers gambled with loans whose risks were obscured by euphoria.

This is the tale of how America’s real estate boom came to a seemingly ordinary subdivision called the Villages at Queen Creek, where the whipsaw of easy credit has led to some extraordinary times. They were the best of times, for a while. The empty homes, though, raise serious doubts about what comes next.

As the nation confronts skyrocketing foreclosures, what is happening here and in scores of similar neighborhoods is worth considering.

Because while the pressures at work in Queen Creek were extreme, the choices people made — and the consequences — are not so different from those faced by thousands of other homeowners and their neighbors.

“Honestly,” says Joy Kessler, standing on the doorstep of the house she and her husband are surrendering to foreclosure, “if you were in this situation, what would you do?”

Optimistic outlook — at first
In 2004, Dave Gustafson and his family headed to Arizona to visit relatives. The buzz of construction convinced them to have a look around.

Back in California, they had less than 1,100 square feet. But salesmen here offered 2½ times the space for half the price.

The place they liked the best was the Villages, a warren of streets cradling a golf course, quickly filling with sand-colored, stucco homes.

“The sales person was saying that they (homes) were going up $1,000 a week,” Dave Gustafson recalls. “So ... we signed right away.”

Builders made it easy. A downpayment of $2,000 to $5,000 was all it took. Buyers could borrow at low teaser rates, requiring payments of nothing more than interest.

As promised, prices were going up faster than the houses themselves.

By the time the family’s new home was completed, the $179,000 base price had climbed to $220,000.

The Gustafsons opted for Corian counters, a pool and whirlpool, adding more than $50,000 to their loan. Payments were fixed for only two years, but they didn’t worry. With prices rising, they’d refinance. In five or six years, the Gustafsons figured, they’d sell for $500,000.

They were hardly the only ones feeling optimistic.

Kris Rowberry, ecstatic when the value of his home in nearby Gilbert took off, bought a second one in the Villages as an investment.

“I was thinking, man, if I could have 10 properties, I could just kind of retire ... and kick back and live off the income,” he says.

But the speculative mind-set confounded retiree David Pickering, who’d never even heard of interest-only loans. The Pickerings were simply buying a place to live.

Around them, though, such notions began to look very old-fashioned.

Home seen as investment
The American Dream is overdue for revision.

“There’s been a huge shift in the way people view their houses,” says John Karevoll of DataQuick Information Systems. “Your house now can basically be used as an ATM.”

A generation ago, families celebrated getting a mortgage and again when they retired the loan. A home meant security. Financial commitment promoted pride and neighborhood roots.

But Americans have become much more mobile, and looser lending has made it easier to buy a home and borrow against its value.

Now a home is not just a place to live. It is an investment — a way to make money and finance a lifestyle, says Robert Manning, an expert in consumer credit at the Rochester Institute of Technology.

The lending industry encouraged that transformation, promoting not just subprime loans but mortgages requiring little or no documentation of income, no money down, and interest-only payments.

When easy borrowing combined with a run-up in prices, speculators joined the fray.

But rising interest rates and falling home prices put particular pressure on people who live in the homes they own.

When people who bought almost entirely with borrowed money see appreciated worth disappear, there’s little incentive to hold on. Few players, though, seemed to appreciate the chance they might get caught.

“Lenders never said no,” says Jay Butler, director of realty studies at Arizona State University. “Nobody expected this to continue, but they hoped it would just long enough to get out of it — and they were caught up in the whirlpool.”

Roaring real estate market
By late 2004, the Phoenix real estate market was roaring.

The euphoria reached Queen Creek, though the freeway hadn’t arrived yet. “Drive until you qualify,” agents told buyers.

Buyers lined up to make a downpayment in the new subdivisions. Rowberry joined 200 people one Saturday morning for a chance at 15 lots.

Meanwhile, California and Nevada investors came to greater Phoenix looking for the next great deal.

“I’m just one guy and it wasn’t unusual to get three (calls) a day” from speculators, says John Wake, a real estate agent. “A lot of them weren’t sophisticated. They’d never invested before.”

The Villages, already half completed, looked too good to pass up. One Southern California investor, Alan Jullien, bought three homes.

The market spike turned the Gustafsons’ $235,000 home into one worth $380,000.

Across the Valley, homeowners watching values shoot up, borrowed against those gains.

“Everyone was doing the same thing — taking out lines of credit, milking it for all it’s worth,” says Matthew Berends of Surprise, another Phoenix suburb where prices soared. His home is in foreclosure. “In one year for a house to go up $80,000, it’s like too easy.”

But some relatively modest purchases would prove to be risky gambles.

Greg Giniel and his wife moved into a home on East Sanoque Drive bought by a friend, with Giniel as a silent partner. What Giniel hadn’t counted on was that the friend had bought three other homes with adjustable rate loans that were bound to rise.

One street over, the Kesslers paid $279,000 for a house in the fall of 2005.

With $25,000 down and an interest-only loan, it seemed wiser than their old rental.

There was a problem, though, obvious only in hindsight. A market that had skyrocketed was about to plunge.

Falling into foreclosure
It takes time for a homeowner to get into trouble, but sometimes not that long.

Last year, the Gustafsons fell behind on their mortgage. In August, their lender started foreclosure.

Problems began to snowball. High gas prices prompted people to rethink living on the outskirts. Investors rushed to sell.
In 2005 — a record-best year for Phoenix real estate — just five homes in the ZIP code containing the Villages were lost to foreclosure, according to Information Market, a Phoenix research firm.

So far this year, 75 homes have been claimed by lenders. It could be just the beginning.

In the Villages, many homes where foreclosure is pending are already empty, a sign owners have given up.

The problems aren’t always obvious. The golf course remains carefully watered, playgrounds neatly swept. Many streets, particularly in areas built before prices spiked, are filled with families who grill burgers in their backyards and take evening strolls.

But on other streets, homes without curtains in the windows, with dirt and cobwebs collecting in doorways, are eerie.

Even when the market was good, some Villagers were troubled by investor-owned homes, empty or filled with renters. Then moving vans began pulling up to some homes at odd hours. Auction notices were posted on front doors.

In May, the house to the left of the Pickerings’ went to foreclosure. The one on the right followed. It made David Pickering uneasy.

“The weeds in the back are getting so tall now that they are growing over the separating wall into my yard,” he e-mailed, alerting the homeowners association. “Something must be done about this.”

On Via del Rancho, Christelle Palmire saw the home next door abandoned to foreclosure.

This Halloween, Palmire plans to take her son trick-or-treating in a friend’s subdivision where she knows doors will be answered.

“You drive around this subdivision and there are ’For Sale’ signs everywhere,” she says.

Researchers say foreclosures chip away at neighbors’ property values. Here they compound a larger problem.

Builders continue adding homes at reduced prices. Investors are trying to sell. Lenders are seeking buyers for foreclosures. Homeowners whose financial troubles might be solved by selling can’t compete.

In many ways, the Villages is lucky because much was built before the market soared, says Amanda Shaw, president of Associated Asset Management, which administers it and 300 other Arizona subdivisions.

But it can be difficult to know when homeowners are in trouble.

“There are people who think they don’t have an alternative ... other than to turn the lights off at 1 in the morning, hop in the U-Haul and just leave,” Shaw says.


Greg Giniel sits out in front of his home, which is in foreclosure. Giniel says he will try to buy back his home in the Villages of Queen Creek, Ariz., at the foreclosure auction in November.


Leaving home
It’s worth less than it used to be, but it’s home, Dave and Maryann Gustafson decided.

In May, their lender agreed, temporarily trimming the $1,000 a month increase in their payment to $400. It should keep the Gustafsons in their home.

Greg Giniel is not so sure. His home is scheduled for auction in November.

“I’ve got to figure out how to buy my own home back,” Giniel says. “If God doesn’t pull me out of this one, I don’t know where else I’m going to go.”

Things looked just as uncertain to Joy and Paul Kessler, until they did the math.

They could fight for their house. But why? It’s worth at least $40,000 less than they paid.

“It’s sad to say but honestly, we don’t feel like there’s anything worth saving in this house,” Joy says.

So the couple decided to let the place go. Everyone said it was the right thing to do.

Still, it doesn’t sit right with her husband. When times were good they made a commitment, Paul tells Joy. Somehow, it doesn’t feel right to walk away.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Tell me that ain't EERIE! Man, that story describes this Entire Area, and the Bubble Spec Flipper mentality describes EVERYONE whose moved here in the past 3-4 years.

Imagine that story of that flipper bait subdiv applied to ALL of Central Oregon. This place will be The Foreclosure Center of the Universe before it's over.

That's a great article.

tim said...

Sisters and La Pine are the leading edge. Sales there look to have just about stopped.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Sisters and La Pine are the leading edge. Sales there look to have just about stopped.

I'm tellin' ya... Sisters will crash harder & farther than any town has EVER crashed. What's funny is they KNOW they're in Deep Shit. Articles about a "Sustainable Economy" are in almost every Nugget issue. They know full well they'll self-destruct w/o a "Real Economy"... too little, too late, methinks.

The Sisters economy is literally 150% real estate: the extra 50% is borrowed...

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

GAT DAMN!

Timmy has just pointed out what I should have seen earlier: Months of Inventory in The Land of Jumbos (acreage properties) has exploded higher in Sept. From the gobend.com site:

Bend: 285 for sale / 11 sales = 25.9 months

It gets MUCH worse from there:

Redmond: 157 props/ 1 sale = 13.1 YEARS
Sisters: 72/2 = 3 YEARS, 2 months
La Pine: 190/4 = 4 YEARS
Madras: 50/2 = 25 months
Prineville: 169/1 = 14 YEARS, 1 MONTH

Yeah. 14 YEARS of Prineville Inventory bodes EXTREMELY WELL for IronHorse. By comparison, Yarrow will practically FLY OFF THE SHELVES given Madras's vigorous 2 HOME SALES PER MONTH. Those 900 Yarrow sugar shacks should almost certainly be sold before my kids start taking Social Security...

Duncan McGeary said...

Drove around today. For Sale signs everywhere.

Of course, there were For Sale signs everywhere a couple of years ago.

Then it was a sign of a boom.

Now its a sign of a bust.

Just a little switch in psychology like that, and it will get much, much worse....

Anonymous said...

An off-duty deputy sheriff has shot and killed six people in a small logging town in the United States.

*

Give a cop a gun, and shit happens, Bend just fucking wait, 120mph and not losing your job is nothing in this town. The cops here are HO's and know it, and they have no respect for the system, because they know their purpose is to protect condo sales, and tourists, and nothing else.

Bend cops don't respect the city, its people, or the system. Bend is fucked, and Bend created a system based on deceit and lies.

Anonymous said...

They know full well they'll self-destruct w/o a "Real Economy"... too little, too late, methinks.

*

Naw, if you keep the traffic through sisters slow all year round, and have all the grannys out selling lattes and cotton-candy, then the city will do just fine.

Anonymous said...

Sisters and La Pine are the leading edge.

*

Just a few months ago LA-Pines was the place of affordable house, and the prices were going up.

Doesn't fair well when the peach of Central Oregon tanks, and they don't even have a tourist base to fall back on.

Anonymous said...

The place they liked the best was the Villages, a warren of streets cradling a golf course, quickly filling with sand-colored, stucco homes.

*

A fucking golf course, hear that Bend Oregon, another town with a fucking Golf Course.

Bend has 24 resort golf courses in the area, boy if I could be near a fucking Golf Course I would pay any price, hell I would do a lap dance for boss hogg hollern.

Anonymous said...

uh ... forgive me if I've missed something, but did any of you me-too Tools notice that the economy around here grew 33 percent in five years?

All smoke and mirrors? All housing "grifters?" All Boss Hogg smoke and mirrors?

Pretty goddam good smoke and mirrors, if ya asked me.

At one point, you all (Paul D'oh and his multiple anonymous personalities) managed to be right about a coming bubble burst. But now it just looks like a collection of rants, predicting ever deeper gloom -- based on what? So was this all just a bear accident?

As in a stopped clock is right twice a day?

Gettin' a little tired of the Doom and Gloom All the Time Routine, guys. Yeah, the housing cycle is in the shitter, but show me the data on the rest of the economy.

I don't feel the breath of death yet.

Kinda not by a long shot.

Anonymous said...


http://bend.craigslist.org/rfs/442600685.html

The one above is classic from craigs, will take any fucking price.

Outer mongolia on the fucking eastside, east of East27th yet,we're talking fucking badlands,

The best part is a dogs ass in the picture, note only the fucking ass.

IHTBYB posted shit earlier from phoenix, but NOTE anything east of fucking 27th in Bend is fucking suburbian phoenix, and south Arizona is 'tucscon' aka the badlands.

The guy is leaving in a month whether he sells or not, ...

Timmy here is your dream home.

Anonymous said...

Tools notice that the economy around here grew 33 percent in five years?

***

Yep, my pet parrot timmy reminds me of this every day "Bend up 30%/yr yoy forever, its not a statistic, its a fact.

The above reminds of todays BULL Bend economy from 2002->2005 was up +30% year, hell we can all retire.

Do you all realize that from 1983 to today that Bend is the BEST performing market in the country!!! Hell this is better than the Fidelity Fund Magellan ..


( Note past performance is NO fucking guarantee of future )

Anonymous said...

Pretty goddam good smoke and mirrors, if ya asked me.

*

Yeh, hell boss hogg hollern has made us all rich. We can all quit, cunts talk about jobs in Bend, but who needs a fucking job?

Hell on paper I'm a fucking RE tycoon.

Now if I could just find that cali with cash to BUY my fucking jumbo flipper.


The future of bend looks glorious, we're all fucking millionaires, who gives a fuck if our houses are liquid. We can just take out HELOC's forever, the 30%/yr return is ours, it will never stop, its our fucking destiny, we all live in $500k homes, and 30% is $150k/yr, I know its not a lot, but we can all learn to live on it.

Why work? Come to Bend where everyone is a fucking real estate tycoon. Where everyone is financially secure, where jobs, and work is something for fuck-heads that don't "get it".

tim said...

>>but did any of you me-too Tools notice that the economy around here grew 33 percent in five years?

So the economy grew 33% in five years. And you can probably look up how much wages grew. And how much rents grew.

Of course, none of those numbers are near the five year gain in house prices, so I'm assuming you agree that we're headed for a hell of a fall.

Anonymous said...

Tell me that ain't EERIE! Man, that story describes this Entire Area, and the Bubble Spec Flipper mentality describes EVERYONE whose moved here in the past 3-4 years.

*

The difference between a phoenix berg and Bend is that in Phoenix there were fucking jobs. Lots of fucking jobs, its a big city, on a fucking FWY, and close to Mexico, and direct rail to Guyamas, one of the busiest mexican ports.

Now our bend is not a fucking working-mans playground, its a completely different story.

Suckers from cali bought second homes here, with the idea that they would sell the cali home, and pay off the bend home, and retire rich with the balance @ 10%/yr forever. Such was the fucking myth.

At least like the phoenix article says those that bought early are sitting fine, but in Bend, EVERYONE is fucked because there are no jobs, and the calis, are going to quit paying payments on the second home in Bend when its clear it worth less than they owe.

In summary the phoenix story is nuttin, compared to what is going to transpire in Central Oregon.

Boss Hogg Hollern has fucked himself BIG-TIME, he's going to be the poster boy of stupidity, pronghorn, yarrow, brasada, will connote Hoover-Ville.

Anonymous said...

But I'm now convinced in the pit of my stomach that it's going to get really scary. - duncan

*

We talk a lot of shit, and I worry most about the crime and suffering. People will pull together, and it will NOT be any worse than the past. Especially with the mobility now. Once the shit hits the fans, and I do expect it soon. I have long predicted that by xmas of this year the BULL itself would start laying off, because advertising will plummet.

We have ALL been through this before, and as I have always said it was the best of times. Remember we can all go back to fishing, and huntin chip-munks, and doing the simple shit in life.

I worry about crime. If people stick together and watch each others back things will be fine. Its the high rollers that will get the worst, the city will continue to screw itself, but we don't control them.

All we can do is prepare ourselves, and be ready for reality. I know in my neighborhood, most are old-timers,we all watch each others house, ... I worry more about downtown, and how the unemployed cockroaches will effect the beautiful, I think that's why in previous months the city-council tried to ban pan-handling in Bend city limits, they see it coming, and they don't want the unemployed to be visible.

Duncan McGeary said...

Not By a Long Shot.

I hope you're right. I really do.

Anonymous said...

I was never fully convinced we were going to have a meltdown in Central Oregon.

*

Even -75% is NOT a meltdown, its a healthy correction. Even if homes fall back to $120k at the 1998 basis, things will be fine.
It's only those that bought in the past ten years that thought they were getting a 'steal' that are going to get hosed, and like you said this is more an act of quiet desperation.

The real problem is that city-hall is made RE sales in #1 24/7/365 mission, and its going to take a long time to purge city hall, and get back folks who know how to run a government.

Look at the most recent 450 who signed the Juniper Ridge letter, nine prior mayors told the incumbents they were on the wrong path, overnight we're going to go back to being 'mayberry' after five years of being 'rodeo drive', and hopefully all the calis will leave once they realize that Bend is Mayberry.

I already see in my hood prices that were high in 2006 of $495k, can now be had for $250k, and I can see $120k coming, but again, most in MY HOOD paid $15k in the 70's, nobody is going to move, nobody played the game,

The real interesting issue is OUR city is dependent upon BIG tax base, and they have ALL these new buildings and debt, and the WHOLE model was based on 30%/yr growth forever to pay for everything, thus watching city-hall adjust to reality and purging the con-artists is going to be painful, but once they realize the money really is GONE, they too will exit by a UHAUL at 1AM.

In summary a meltdown, would be if the median bend home fell to $15k, could happen, has happened in Detroit, but all along I have predicted that our support is 4X, which is going to be at least +120K.

For those with nothing down, and those beautiful condo ho's that RUN and OWN this city,yes its a complete catastrophe, there are going to be crocodile tears running through the streets.

Duncan McGeary said...

Actually, my definition of a meltdown would be 35% down. (which would be 40% in real terms if it happens next year.) The 'wealth effect' devastation to the local economy could really snowball.

People sitting on their wallets.

Thats what worries me, as a retailer.

And, people actually leaving town.

Doom and gloom. But that's the way I really see it.

I hope it doesn't happen, because no one comes out ahead. The shedenfruede (sic) of it all just wouldn't be worth it.

Anonymous said...

Actually, my definition of a meltdown would be 35% down. (which would be 40% in real terms if it happens next year.) The 'wealth effect' devastation to the local economy could really snowball.

*

I guess we all have to wait for the BULL to tell us its down -35%, in my humble opinion, we were down 35% back in 2007 February compared to the 2006 high.

What will it take for folks to look at what the ASK once was, and what things are selling for today??

NAR will always play with the medians.

All reported statistics are generally 3 month old information cherry picked, like the jobs data that just came out.

I know where your coming from the BUBBLE is perception, and right now folks don't feel that they're poor, they actually think their flipper bait is worth more than they paid.

In the summer the national psych was still the same 80% believed there house was worth what they paid, and 50% believed more.

Once 90% of the folks in Bend KNOW that they're down 25% and its NOT coming back, I guess that in your mind would be the straw that breaks the camels back.


In my mind as an investor, I saw people selling in February 2007, for -50% of the bubble high, so for me, we passed -35% a long time ago.

We talk a lot about old-timers, what difference does it make, if you paid $15k in the 1970's. It's only the people who bought in the last 5-10 years that will lose money, most are still in denial.

It's not like the BULL is going to come out with a headline that says "You just lost 1/2 your net worth", they're going to keep doing what they did today, report news from two to five years ago, keep talking about yesterdays home-run. Feel good, go out and shop, sell advertising.

*

There really was no wealth effect, to me there was a BIG party from 2002->2005 on HELOC money, and now that the party is over. Nows its time to pay the bill. If +50% of these folks are you customers, then I would worry, my gut feeling is equity parasites are a minor part of your business. I think its Merenda, and the DEEP that will hurt, and high-end jewelry, salons, ...

I have never understood non-essential purchase like comic-books, but you say its anti-recession, and I'm sure it is, even in the depression folks needed cheap entertainment.

Anonymous said...

My God, we are going to be led by the nose into providing ridiculous breaks for this company so they can scoop up Columbia For Free... and they will MOVE COLUMBIA TO KANSAS IN LESS THAN A YEAR ANYWAY

*

Bend is rich, this is a city of wealthy people, we're going to PAY Ray Kuratek $2.5Million dollars to retire and go away. Why should we give Columbia $30-60 MILLION to pass on to their suitor as a wedding gift?? If it means jobs for Bend?? This is strange as it sounds, Oregon has been giving company's Millions of dollars of tax breaks for years.

Remember Bend is "Rodeo Drive", we are Aspen, we're not May-berry, anything is possible in Bend, Oregon. Bend is populated with wealthy con-artists from all over the world, certainly if we put all our brains together we can figure out how to pass the bill to Redmond? or even LA-Pines, but keep the jobs in Bend at any cost.

Anonymous said...

"Of course, none of those numbers are near the five year gain in house prices, so I'm assuming you agree that we're headed for a hell of a fall."

I certainly hope, and believe, that we are headed for enough of a fall to bring the price of housing back in line with what people who are here, or are moving here, are able/willing to afford.

I am suggesting, however, that the overall economic pie here is not fixed.

It seems to me that most of the Tools who comment on this site (which seem to be Paul Doh!, his multiple anonymous personalities and some cutesy goof named Timmy) are utterly convinced that the local economy is static, at best, and probably catastrophically contracting, simply because home prices are justifiably -- and in a good way for the economy -- in the shitter.

A classic mistake in perception, in my view.

If economies were static, then my investment in the S&P 500 fund from 1980, when the national economy was about to go into a toilet swoosh that could twirl an asteroid-sized turd down the shitter, with housing prices to follow, wouldn't have grown at the 11.5% pace it has actually grown at since then.

In 1980, GM, Ford, US Steel, GE -- all the standbys -- were tanking, with no hope of recovery.

There was no Microsoft, Apple, Cisco, etc. McDonalds and Yum Brands (just to name a couple of prosaic producers) had no access to China. Or Russia. Where they are both making a killing today.

In a fixed world, we were FUCKED.

In the expanding world that actually resulted, though, people like me, who invested and were too lazy to panic and move their money, profited immensely.

This is all analogy, of course, but you get my drift. (if ya want to)

Take a broader view. This is one of the fastest growing local economies in the country because of where it is, and because there is more entrepreneurial talent here, obviously, than has met your radar screens.

You are right to suspect that we could fuck it up with screwups in ugb expansion, juniper ridge, etc.

But your utter conviction that We Must Fail ... seems a little emotional and weird.

Again -- where's your data to buttress the Inevitable Failure Scenario? And sliding housing prices ain't it .. like the articles in the Bull have pointed out over the past couple of months, a slide in housing prices is probably good for the local economy's sustainability, long term

So WTF is the problem?

Bend Economy Man said...

This is one of the fastest growing local economies in the country because of where it is, and because there is more entrepreneurial talent here, obviously, than has met your radar screens.

Correction: "was" one of the fastest growing. By 2007 we've dropped off the list. But point taken anyway.

OK, well, I'm not sure that "where Bend is" is enough. It is great here. I don't think it's got quite, I don't know, "universal appeal." I mean, take the weather: it did snow last week. And, in my experience, it will snow in every month between now and April, inclusive. You can bet on it. And there have been plenty of years when there's been freezing temperatures and snow in September and May too.

September-October-November-December-January-February-March-April-May. I mean, that's 9 months in which snow is not unusual, 7 months in which snow happens pretty much every year.

I'm in my 30s now. While I did grow up here and I like to ski, camp, fish, hike, snowshoe and ride my bike, I'm not one of those "Intermountain West studs". I haven't windsurfed for about 10 years, and I don't rock-climb or do any other sports where your physique and expertise stand between you and injury. I play golf probably 5 times a year. Sometimes I play tennis with my wife. I'm an average thirty-something married white guy.

And while I love Bend, sure, the weather gets me down some years. Some years I can afford to go to Palm Springs or Hawaii when spring is too slow to arrive here. That's good climate therapy.

There are lots of nice places, especially on the West Coast. Bend's one of them, but I have to say I always find it a bit puzzling when people go on about Bend's great weather.

And about how entrepreneurial people are here, I think that's great. There's one guy here who started Ruff Wear, a company that makes outdoorwear for dogs, which seems to be pretty creative and successful.

But are people MORE entrepreneurial than other places? Bendites are probably more entrepreneurial than people in Sweet Home or Roseburg, that's true. Probably quite a bit less entrepreneurial than people in Silicon Valley or Lake Oswego or Bainbridge Island.

I will grant you one thing: a lot of people who move to Bend want to change it. They're entrepreneurial in that way. They see Bend as kind of a blank slate or virgin soil of a type - for ideas, businesses, sports, whatever. In their minds they're doing good (or at least very little harm). Eventually they find themselves affected by a later arrival with the same attitude.

Anonymous said...

But are people MORE entrepreneurial than other places?

*

Jeezus fucking christ, 'entrepreneurialism' is the great-white fucking hope.

I'm a fucking entrepreneur,, and I know all the bullshit having been here forever.

There are tons of 'entrepreneurs' that moved here especially in the 80's and they ALL left, look at our success storys APT ( now microsemi ) they're sweath-shops. You cannot COMPETE in Bend, we have killed this dead-horse in the past. Not much needs to be said, it doesn't matter how good your heart is if you cannot compete.

Every time politicians of Oregon say "entrepreneur" hold on to your wallet, because somebody is going to get an incentive. Can't any fucking entrepreneur make a go a business without tax exemption?? I know, I know, everyone does it. Oregon has dumped millions and millions into Beaverton/Hillsboro and they have SQUAT, IT USED to be called Silicon-Forest.

You HAVE to have a good college, and a never ending supply of grad-students who will work their ass off for cheap, this is the secret of high-tech biz, and we don't have it in Oregon, and never had. NO Oregon institution, other than Reed is worth a shit, and its an undergraduate school.

In summary if you hear the BULL talk high-tech, or 'entrepreneur' know that some bitch is begging for a tax-exemption. Which in effect means that their OPERATION is NOT profitable, which means they're going to go out business, which means that handing them money is a BAD fucking investment.

Bend is FULL of amenity parasites, realtors and hucksters. All the fellow entrepreneurs that I know in Bend came here to retire, we don't want to work our ass off here, done that been there, don't need anymore money. Why is that ALL YOU CUNTS want to turn this place into San-Jose so fucking BAD?? Why not just move to San-Jose today??

Signed, a fucking entrepreneur that has started successful high-tech companys.

Anonymous said...

But your utter conviction that We Must Fail ... seems a little emotional and weird.

*

There is NO problem, unless you think that -75% RE contraction is a problem, its a good thing in my mind, and in about twenty years it 'might' comeback to 2002 highs.

Then there are people like duncan who feel that even a -35% will KILL business, I don't think so, I don't think it will be any worse than prior recessions.

Folks are going to leave, +50% of the population that arrived in the last ten years is RE related. We have twenty year inventory of RE crap, and NO jobs.

If you own a bar and sell cheap beer, you'll be fine.

Failure is subjective, only two years ago EVERYONE in Bend was going to become a millionaire, now you 'think' that we're all saying that everyone is going to the poorhouse

There has to be at least 25% of Bend, that paid $15k for their home over 30 years ago, and didn't play the recent game, and except for crime, will see no effect from the impending recession.

End of world? Hell No. Will Bend go bankrupt?? Hell Yes, the city of bend has been imitating the DUBYA government and rubber stamping everything, all based on growth. The USA can print money, Bend cannot print money, and imploding RE means less tax-payer funds, and a tight economy means no play money. Running Bend isn't going to be fun anymore.


End of the World? End of Bend? Hell NO, no worse than our early 1980 recession, prices will stabilize at 4X in the longer term. Almost all the newbies that came in the last ten years will lose ALL their equity, if they have any. They'll quietly leave and go live with their parents.

Regarding the great-boom since the 1980's I suspect this is largely RAYGUN taxa-nomics, and the piper will be paid, for twenty-five years the federal government has ignored infrastructure, the party is over, and now we'll have to pay. Prices will go down, and then there will be a no buying opportunity on the next cycle. Trough will probably occur 2009, but it will take 10-20 years, e.g. a whole new generation with amnesia to open up the easy money.

Will times be tough for Duncan? I don't know, but I wouldn't want to be selling discretionary product in any economy.

Times will be tough for any merchant that sells non-essential product. The prior ten years were a good cycle, smart folk should have saved their money to get through the bad times, the cycle of Oregon is long.

We had a recession 1983-1986, and for twenty years it went nothing but UP, everyone came to Oregon assuming that growth was a right of life. Now for the next 5-10 its going to be down, down, down, end of world?? Hell no, not if you look at the big picture. Cali seems to be on 3-6 year cycles, but Oregon seems to be on twenty year cycles, and when Oregon goes down, it takes years to recover.

I'm looking forward to hardware stores in Downtown Bend again, and more dive bars with music, the best of times like the early 1980's. Kids will hang out once again at bohemian coffee shops with music downtown, full of old couches. Bend will become real again, all the fucking golfers, and their SUV's will get REPO'd.

End of the world ?? HELL NO, best of times on the horizon.

Anonymous said...

So WTF is the problem?

*

There is NO problem, we debate the ramifications of the bubble.

You have a 'problem', you are a alive, you have NO problem's, then you are dead - ancient greek wisdom

The government of bend has done some stupid shit, and the developers have swooned to Oregon from all over the country to participate in the RUN-UP, and why NOT the city spent a ton of money on placement editorials ( as opposed to image ads ), everybody believed Bend would become the next Aspen, so they came and invested

The joke is on the newbies, bend is going to be the next Flint, Michigan. This is a good thing, the Mayberry life is the good life, if you want San-Jose/Aspen, then move there, ahhhh you can't afford it. ... Your fucked.

The interesting thing is the city of Bend Sold, Marketed, and PR'd Bend. The entire BULL was orchestrated by tax-payer dollars, and the city is still blowing through dollars on PR, rather than infrastructure. The solution to all 'problems' in Bend government is growth.

The economy is going to into a recession, they'll not be coming, we're going to start a war in Iran, and oil will go to $120/barrel, which means $6/gallon. Just like EU $2-3/liter.

Problem? No problem, lots of people in Bend have a bike, and during the snow season can ski or snow-shoe. Simple life has always been the best life. No problems in Bend. Well a few problems, because we are alive.

Anonymous said...

are people MORE entrepreneurial than other places? Bendites are probably more entrepreneurial than people in Sweet Home or Roseburg,

**

This is the wrong question. The question is "Are there more parasites in Bend", are there more get rich quick wannabe two-bit grifting parasitic hustlers?

Is our city-hall 100% composed of lapdogs?? Is our cop-shop infested with neo-nazi blond hair cali racists??

Is the number of RE related people in this town 75% or +50%, or is it higher?

When the city of Bend gets out of the RE biz, when in the fuck will it do with itself??

How soon before Brogman runs Les Schwab in the ground, and they declare bankruptcy?? Generally when a company is begging for hand-outs, and saying shit about other places competing for their jobs its not a good sign. These folks should be thinking about tires, and no making their commute shorter.

There's a ton of questions that need answers, and debate.

Anonymous said...

When the city of Bend gets out of the RE biz, when in the fuck will it do with itself??

*

Today and the past 5+ years the self-serving city hall of bend has made selling RE to suckers its MAIN MISSION 24/7/365.

Once the bastards and bitches are recalled, what will be the mission of the next government? What in the fuck will they do with themselves? What will they SELL, and to whom will they hustle the product towards?

Oregon is largely about construction, in PDX, its Bechtel, Halliburton, ... BIG construction jobs endless infrastructure, light-rail, .... this is where ALL the campaign contributions come from, and this is the focus of PDX.

But in Bend, the money comes from RE, but that's not surprising given that +75% of the parasitic-electorate feeds at the RE trough.

What in the fuck will bend electables, and electorate do with themselves during the next five years of contraction??

What will be the next holy-grail? I kind of hear the BULL saying 'high-tech', but we all know that shit has all been sent to India,China, ... I honestly see a 20% annual reduction in population for the next fives years. RE is dead, and there is NOTHING to do here, except live.

Anonymous said...

There are lots of nice places, especially on the West Coast. Bend's one of them, but I have to say I always find it a bit puzzling when people go on about Bend's great weather.
+++++++++++

No one seems to answer ONE...simple queston if you want to live in a resort town on the West Coast, where do you go??? If you want to be near a ski resort on the west coast where do you go? Have ya lived there?

The weather in Bend is better. So are the jobs and price of homes.

tim said...

>>Times will be tough for any merchant that sells non-essential product.

I could be wrong, but I think it's the other way. If you want to sell essentials, you'd better be Wal-Mart, Target, or Costco, or you're going to be creamed as people who used to spend freely start paying attention to prices.

Comic books cranked right on through in the crummy economies. We might see kids move from videogames to comics.

>>No one seems to answer ONE...simple queston if you want to live in a resort town on the West Coast, where do you go?

It's the wrong question. How about: "Will people want to move to a resort town (with its high gas and food prices) in a recession?"

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

if you want to live in a resort town on the West Coast, where do you go?

Yeah, and this question was asked & answered just a week ago.

And also, I fully agree Bend has many merits... but so do about 5,000 other places. And saying Bend "ranks high" with respect to jobs & home prices simply means hat you have disqualified 4,997 of these places, and are comparing Bend to The Highest Priced places in the US.

I don't give a shit about home prices or incomes per se, I care about maximizing PURCHASING POWER. If I make $18K in a low cost area with dead cheap homes, that may KILL a place where I make $180K, but have to live in a 1,100sf million dollar shitter wall-to-wall with my fellow wage slaves, with my kids going stir crazy.

In the PURCHASING POWER equation, you will find VERY FEW places WORSE THAN BEND. You get some of the WORST purchasing power for your buck here than any place I've ever been to, and I've been everywhere. THAT is what is making me (and damn near every living wage business) think about leaving. This place is PURCHASING POWER HELL.

Anonymous said...

THAT is what is making me (and damn near every living wage business) think about leaving. This place is PURCHASING POWER HELL.
*

Ever built a ship in a bottle?? This is bend, everything has to be assembled with tweezers through a little hole.

How do you compete with people who don't have to the premium costs, shipping, weather hassles, lack of transporation, ... we have killed this dead horse, but BEND has never been, nor will it ever be a mecca of industry, its a little washed up logging town, in the great basin desert, and not even close to any kind of transportation corridor.

Anonymous said...

Comic books cranked right on through in the crummy economies. We might see kids move from videogames to comics.


*

We might see MRS breeze and dubois selling cotton candy at the D&D, and pigs will be flying out of my parrot timmy's arse, but don't hold your breath.

Anonymous said...

It's the wrong question. How about: "Will people want to move to a resort town (with its high gas and food prices) in a recession?"

*

Bend is NO more a fucking resort town than redmond, madras, or prineville.

Just because some stupid fucking developers have planted grass at some 24 golf courses in the bend area doesn't make this a fucking resort town.

Resort towns don't have walmart, kmart, and other fucking bullshit.

YOU PEOPLE are so FULL OF SHIT to call Bend a resort town.

Perhaps SUNRIVER is a resort, or black-butte ranch, but BEND is a bedroom community for walmart shoppers.

Anonymous said...

If you want to be near a ski resort on the west coast where do you go?

*

Bends fucking mt-b lift will be bankrupt in a year, then what the hell is bend going to use as a prop to sell itself as a resort?? The water-slide in redmond??

Anonymous said...

Resort towns don't have Wal-Mart, Kmart, and other fucking bullshit.


Tahoe and Bozeman Mt to name a few real quick.

This is a resort town, the west side is small town living with running/walking trails for miles and miles a river and ski resort 25 miles away.

Yes I know it is not the place that it once was, but your nimby attitudes need to go and fuck themselves.

Real estate prices will crash hard, no doubt. But when that happens people will come again as someone mentioned California corrects faster. Also if the Economy really is going into a dark depression there is going to be a big group of people that want be some place cool and yes I know you have said Bend is no longer "cool" and in some you are right. Bend has the worst of the "Yoga Practicing, 80k SUV Driving, I am better then my friends that work in a city, Organic coffee sipping, 2 kids in 3200 sqft home buying" folks....BUT........we still have a mountain with snow, a river and good breweries, lots of young families (yes some of them will leave after their short sale) But all in all this is a great place with or without false marketing

Maybe it is actually the old timers that need to leave. People moving here are grasping for a quality of life and they will find their way unless there a fucking realtor/lender. The new generation does not crave excess, they want a quality of life and then new information age allows them to live anywhere.

Some of your arguments on this blog are just as bad as the bubble deniers and there its just as cycle, bend will always go up bullshit….what legs does your argument have that 50-75% of the population directly related to real estate have?

Maybe Bend is not a resort town by your worldly experience, but lots of people don’t want Aspen, Telluride or Big Sky. Miserable weather, zero jobs, no families and EXPENSIVE housing.

Things are going to change, for the better AND there will be no bankruptcy!

Anonymous said...

Bankrupt 3 years? That's pretty optimistic in my eyes - 2 years max...
And if you don't think it's going to happen your an idiot (anonymous 12:55pm). Oh, and the Bulletin article that has data that only reaches to 2005 is funny...

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Bend has the worst of the "Yoga Practicing, 80k SUV Driving, I am better then my friends that work in a city, Organic coffee sipping, 2 kids in 3200 sqft home buying" folks....BUT........we still have a mountain with snow, a river and good breweries, lots of young families (yes some of them will leave after their short sale) But all in all this is a great place with or without false marketing

You've rolled it all up there pretty well. Hell, I've agreed OFTEN that living in a town that you think is a Big Tubba Shit is fairly irrational.

But your "bad reasons" are sort of what SUCK. This place used to be AWESOME! Now it is merely "OK".

And what sucks is that is moving quickly towards OK-ness, away from AWESOME-ness, and that trend is disturbing. When will it hit The Shits?

I mean when all that Bad Stuff you pointed out overwhelms the Good, what will you do? Probably LAMENT the shitification of Bend... and start thinking of leaving.

Anonymous said...

Bankrupt 3 years? That's pretty optimistic in my eyes - 2 years max...
___________

I smell.... "east coast education wanna be limousine liberal or raciest redneck, damn new age hippies ruined my town"....... kinda guy.

Chicken little is running, the sky is gonna get dark and nasty, but it is not going to fall.

Anonymous said...

BEND MLS DATA LAST 24 HOURS

New Listings 30


Back on Market 4


Price Increases 0


Price Reductions 29


Contingents 0


Pendings 8


Solds 7


Expireds 5


Inactives 13

Anonymous said...

Maybe it is actually the old timers that need to leave. People moving here are grasping for a quality of life and they will find their way unless there a fucking realtor/lender

*

FUCK YOU, A BIG MONDAY DESCHUTES HAPPY HOUR FUCK YOU.

GO BACK TO CALI, and ROT in HELL.

Anonymous said...

Tahoe and Bozeman Mt to name a few real quick.

*

Tahoe and Bozeman are resort towns,

The next thing you'll tell us is that San Jose is resort town.

Bozeman is a lot like Bend, an old washed up logging town.

Tahoe, is a suburb of the cali SF valley. Just because you can see snow in the MTN's doesn't mean your a fucking resort, hell by this definition, riverside and san-bernardino are resorts, ...

Bend is part of the fucking great-b basin, its not even part of the west coast. If bend is a resort, then so is Madras, and Prineville, and Redmond. They're all the same. Yuppy's don't make a resort.

Anonymous said...

I left bend 3 years ago.What have you done?Oh i am mad now!!!!!

Anonymous said...

Informal survey at Deschutes Monday Night Happy Hour.

Question: Are you getting a season pass?

Answer: Nada

+90% said they would get point-passes as needed.

MT-B is fucked, and fucked themselves.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

MT-B is fucked, and fucked themselves.

Yeah, what they are asking for a season pass is insane. After the early Big Hair 80's when skiing was popular as hell & got REAL EXPENSIVE, it became equally Unpopular for about 20 years, and a lot of ski resorts went under.

Price something far too high, and people will give it up. And not for just a little while... damn near forever.

Wait... am I talking about Bachelor or Bend housing? Oh right... BOTH!

Anonymous said...

SQUAK! SQUAK!

"Bend up 30% per year it is"

"Bend is the only west coast resort"

"If you didn't arrive in the past five years, then leave! Squak!"

"Bend is exceptional"

"Bend is Aspen"

"Sqauk"

Anonymous said...

MT-B is fucked, and fucked themselves.

+++++++++
Has anyone heard how many passes they have sold this year compared to last??? I have a freind that works there, says they are actually up fom the past few years-No idea if there is any truth to that, but might be better then your cali monday night beer crew.

Anonymous said...

SOMEONE PLEASE TELL ME A RESORT TOWN???????

Tahoe and Bozeman dont work. I am sure houses are cheap and good jobs are plentifull in Steamboat and Park City. Do they qualify???

Anonymous said...

Has anyone noticed the data on Doug Farmers website for last months sales. Seems like the discussion is getting away from trends. The important info besides the 6mos for market time is the 330k median. I see this falling into the sub 300 in the next two months.

Bend Economy Man said...

If you want to be near a ski resort on the west coast where do you go? Have ya lived there?

How about Gresham (<1 hr to Mt. Hood resorts) or Reno (35 mi to Incline Village, Tahoe)?

How about Flagstaff, AZ (Arizona Snowbowl w/in city limits)?

How about Boise (Bogus Basin 16 mi from downtown)?

How about Boulder? Hell, how about Denver? OK, I know the traffic to the ski resorts is pretty bad.

How about Spokane (30 mi to Mt. Spokane)?

And how about the granddaddy city for easy ski resort access on the West Coast, Salt Lake City (less than 40 mi to Alta, Brighton, The Canyons, Deer Valley, Park City, Snowbasin, Snowbird and Solitude)?

Bend is great. It is really nice and really cool. And it is unique and beautiful. But it's great, nice, cool, unique and beautiful in the same way a lot of places west of the Rockies are.

And why am I pointing this out? Well, I can't speak for Paul and I definitely can't speak for BendBust. The reason I point it out is that the town would be foolish to assume that this town is so uniquely attractive that people will move here with their money in enough numbers to maintain economic stability, let alone growth.

But that's exactly what a lot of town leaders assume, or at least that's what they say publicly.

Anonymous said...

what a lot of town leaders assume, or at least that's what they say publicly.

*

Taxpayer money is spent on promoting Bend. Go downtown and its Southby's "Real Estate as Art" Gallery's,... How in the hell can an RE shop be a gallery??? Only in Bend.

Bend is NOT a resort town. Bend is not an industrial town, hell there are no towns in Oregon that are working-man's paradise. Oregon is what it is, a NW version of the deep-south.

Anonymous said...

Steamboat and Park City. Do they qualify???

SQUAWK SQUAWK

"Bend is park city, bend is steamboat, real resorts they are"

Anonymous said...

I have a freind that works there, says they are actually up fom the past few years-No idea if there is any truth to that, but might be better then your cali monday night beer crew.

*

The Deschutes Beer Crew, are the MT-B's best customer, and if they're not buy season passes, then MT-B is fucked.

Nobody is buying passes this year, because the last two years mid-week everything was shutdown.

People are pissed "Never again, they Say". People buy passes to ski mid-week and avoid the crowds, but with 90% lifts shutdown mid-week, the lines were longer.

Until MT-B can make a commitment to actually deliver a product, rather than selling a pass, they're fucked.

Besides the current mission of Powdr is to sell Real Estate at MT-B, the lifts is just a 'tool' to get suckers up there.

The season-pass is just a little cash flow in advance, 90% of all money is made on holiday weekends.

In summary local season pass holders get fucked, and are taken for granted, its called Bend CRM.

Anonymous said...

The reason I point it out is that the town would be foolish to assume that this town is so uniquely attractive that people will move here with their money in enough numbers to maintain economic stability, let alone growth.

*

Critical Mass in my humble opinion is Sun-River, long ago exploited by JD-Gray ( Salishan, ... ).

Basically a few folks that live in PDX that have money, had second homes in Bend ( sun-river ), sunriver is the resort, bend is where you went out to dinner, and shopped.

This 'new' idea ventured by 24/7/365 BEND PR/MARKETING machine that "Bend is Aspen", was all about selling real estate to suckers.

A zillion un-sellable crap shacks now sit vacant out east of East-27th, all these were marketed as 'resort homes', right next to COSTCO.

20+ years ago people with money, and time had a second home in the area, and they came over from the valley to escape the rain.

During the last 5-10 developers organized the BEND RE scam, led by boss hogg hollern ( black butte ranch ). Then in 2002 with the stimulus of easy-money because of 911, everyone and his dog knew that every sucker that came to bend would buy RE given zero down, and low teaser entry. All you had to do is get them here.

The whole town colluded in the fraud. All of Bend are con-artists, well at least 80%, but then 75% are in the RE biz.

Bend is NOT a fucking resort, bend is an over-marketed desert town with a lot of product and no buyers.

To this day, its still the same, "JUST GET THEM HERE", run events 365 days a year, the SORE only exists to promote events for Boss Hogg Hollern RE Sales.

Bus them to Bend, and they'll BUY. Hell why and the HELL haven't we opened a giant CASINO here? Rival Vegas, and BUS them up from LA, they'll BUY, especially if we can front taxpayer municipal CDO bonds to cover the zero-down loans.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

I can't speak for Paul

Sure ya can!


...and I definitely can't speak for BendBust.

Of course you can. He speaks for you, right? Well, he speaks as you. He speaks as me. He speaks as Timmy. He's spoken as everyone here at least once. I love that crazy bastard!

The reason I point it out is that the town would be foolish to assume that this town is so uniquely attractive that people will move here with their money in enough numbers to maintain economic stability, let alone growth.

Bend - 1 trick pony. "Marketing got us into this, Marketing will get us out." Fundamentally improve the economy? That's for LOSERS! That's like caring What A Company Does, when you're buying it as a Bubble Stock. Who cares?

Bankrupt in 2 years, 363 days... tick, tick, tick....

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Gat damn, BendBuster... you up at this un-Godly hour? Shouldn't you be nursing a mind-numbing hangover? I wish I was...

Anonymous said...

+

New UGB formula on the table
Residential developers would get more, Juniper Ridge less
By Peter Sachs / The Bulletin
Published: October 09. 2007 5:00AM PST

Bend’s new project manager for the Juniper Ridge mixed-use development wants to limit how much of it gets included in an upcoming urban growth boundary expansion, a move that the project’s critics are calling a step in the right direction.

By cutting the Juniper Ridge-related UGB expansion from 840 acres to 400 acres, Ron Garzini said he hopes to diffuse political tension and quell the concerns of landowners with property just outside city limits. Landowners have complained that the city is favoring bringing in Juniper Ridge land over their properties.

“In the course of analyzing the best way to go forward in Juniper Ridge, it became apparent to me that one of the conflict points is the large amount of urban growth boundary expansion,” Garzini said.

While Garzini’s proposal doesn’t specifically identify the parcels that would be left out of the UGB, the document does say the total 440-acre cut would include at least 75 acres planned for residential development. And his proposed breakdown of the remaining 900 acres, which includes 500 acres of Juniper Ridge already inside the city limits, sets aside only 35 acres for a university, high school and performing arts center.

In the past, officials had envisioned a 200-acre “university district,” which would have included a high school and performing arts center.

“It’s not that we’re cutting back on university land, it’s just that we’re not including it in this UGB expansion,” Bend City Councilor Mark Capell said. “The council is still interested in dedicating 200 acres to education.”

Garzini’s proposal says that additional university land could be included in the future through a minor amendment to the UGB.

“Conceivably this round of the UGB expansion could include a high school and performing arts center and the university gets added in the future,” Capell said.

Garzini’s proposal suggests that the city put the 440 acres into the urban reserve, which is land earmarked to eventually be brought into the UGB.

Garzini’s plan must get the OK from the Bend City Council before UGB maps are redrawn. The UGB is meant to give the city a 20-year supply of land for development while controlling urban sprawl.

If Garzini’s proposal gets the council’s blessing, it would also mean some changes to a formal development agreement still being negotiated between the city and Juniper Ridge Partners, the master developer of the 1,500-acre parcel of city-owned land.

Eventually, Juniper Ridge could hold a university, research and development park, retail businesses, a regional performing arts center and thousands of homes.

With the UGB working its way through a series of workshops at the city planning commission, it could be some time before a new map comes out, Bend Senior Planner Damian Syrnyk said.

“We were aware that it was coming, but we haven’t started to use it as a guide for the UGB expansion right now,” Syrnyk said of Garzini’s proposal.

Syrnyk added that the Bend Planning Commission may take up the topic in more depth at a work session later this month.

Garzini’s proposal was a positive sign for some of Juniper Ridge’s critics.

“I think we’ve made some great steps here,” former Bend Mayor Oran Teater said. “The devil is in the details.”

Teater has helped organize a group of residents calling itself Do Juniper Ridge Right to encourage the city to reconsider its plans for the project.

Teater said he would still like to see more performance feedback measures for Juniper Ridge Partners, the master developers. Details in Garzini’s memo about the creation of a board of governors to oversee the project, Teater said, was a good step in that direction.

The possible reduction in Juniper Ridge land for the UGB was also welcome news for Bend Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Mike Schmidt.

“Obviously this is one of the objectives we had, is to not have so much of the land taken up by Juniper Ridge so that the other lands that have been waiting for a while (to come into the UGB) at least have a chance at it,” Schmidt said.

Garzini, who has twice been Bend’s acting city manager, was recruited about two weeks ago to help coordinate the city’s side of the Juniper Ridge project.

For now that means finishing up the development agreement, which Garzini hopes to publicly unveil in early November and bring to the City Council for approval in early December, he said.

“This has gone on long enough,” Garzini said. “It’s time to finish.”

Jeff Holzman, who along with Ray Kuratek is leading Juniper Ridge’s development efforts, said that while the cutback in land may slow down Juniper Ridge somewhat, that isn’t necessarily a bad thing from his view.

“Because we’re a small development company, we’re able to look at the long-term value, and if we need to be flexible or we need to wait, we certainly can,” Holzman said.

Garzini said that assuming the City Council approves of his plan, he hopes to finish negotiations over the development agreement by early November. He would then release it to the public for about a month before seeking City Council approval in early December, he said.

“Let’s have some of this debate out in the open,” Garzini said. “I believe overall the agreement, as currently configured, is a really good beginning, and I don’t think it will take a long time to finish it.”

Proposal reveals more details about Juniper agreement

The formal development contract for Juniper Ridge, also known as the disposition and development agreement or DDA, is a lengthy legal document that will spell out the roles of the city, the master developer, and AIG, an insurance company that is investing in the project. The contract will detail how profits from land sales get divvied up and who will be responsible for doing what when it comes to marketing, building roads and many other details.

While the nuts and bolts of the DDA are still being worked out, a draft set of bullet points released by city Project Manager Ron Garzini provides much more information than was publicly available before.

Garzini and Jeff Holzman, one of Juniper Ridge’s master developers, both stressed that the agreement will shield the city’s general fund from financial liability.
“What it clearly does is illustrate that the city’s general fund is not the one that is putting up this guarantee (of returns for AIG),” Holzman said. That guarantee will come from a reserve fund generated by a slice of early land sales and from a cut of the developer’s share of proceeds from land sales. AIG would have no recourse against the city if it doesn’t recoup all of its money, according to Garzini’s summary.

The document also says that Juniper Ridge Parters, the master developers, will receive a monthly fee of $60,000 to cover salaries and expenses.

The contract will also set in stone a greater proportion of residential areas for affordable housing. During the first third of the project, 5 percent of single-family homes and 10 percent of multifamily units will qualify as affordable. After that 15 percent of all units will qualify as affordable.

The development contract will require that developers stick to sustainable development guidelines, design rules and other conditions.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Rock on Kuratek!

The document also says that Juniper Ridge Parters, the master developers, will receive a monthly fee of $60,000 to cover salaries and expenses.

He's gotta be pissed about a cut clear down to $720,000/year. According to True Believers though, that's what EVERYONE in Bend makes!

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Everyone knows the Bubble Bust has claimed every major city in the US except 3: Charlotte, Seattle, and Portland. Welp, now make it 2.

Condo sales down, cancellations up in Portland

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) -- The Portland condominium craze appears to have run out of steam.

The first sign came months ago when Opus Northwest announced it switched its Ladd Tower from condos to apartments because of slow sales. More recently, developer Bob Ball opted to convert the Wyatt building under construction in the trendy Pearl District to rentals.

Before the switch, Ball said he'd cut prices and still sold only 53 units, just 21 percent of the total.

"The problem wasn't with the Wyatt," Ball told The Oregonian newspaper. "It was the overall change in the market. We just have too much supply on the market."

The building boom that boosted the supply came as demand for homes and condos soared following the dot-com bubble, fueled in part by investors who saw real estate as a foolproof moneymaker. Condos in the early 1990s went for about $120 a square foot ($96,000 for an 800-square-foot place). Today, prices are often $400 to $500 a square foot, and developers are finding it hard to find takers at those prices.

When developers of The John Ross tower, a 31-story building on the Willamette River, started looking for buyers in the in 2005, 222 potential owners quickly put down $5,000 or more to reserve their condos.

Today, The John Ross has so many canceled purchases that only 192 of the 303 units are sold. Bob Scanlan, whose real estate company invested in the John Ross, says sales are so slow that he expects his returns to be cut in half.

The 104-unit Westerly tower near Northwest 23rd Avenue is scheduled to be complete this winter. It has sold about 40 percent of its condos.

The Civic, across the street from PGE Park, got hit by canceled pre-sales. Gerding Edlen Development Co. still has Civic condos to sell. But it is competing with about 20 of its own customers who are reselling just months after they moved in.

And competition awaits those sellers. There are more that 2,000 condos still under construction in the city.

Bend Economy Man said...

Jeff Holzman, who along with Ray Kuratek is leading Juniper Ridge’s development efforts, said that while the cutback in land may slow down Juniper Ridge somewhat, that isn’t necessarily a bad thing from his view.

“Because we’re a small development company, we’re able to look at the long-term value, and if we need to be flexible or we need to wait, we certainly can,” Holzman said.


Not a surprising position from a fellow who'll be splitting $60K a month while he waits for his real payoff. Now that's long-term freakin' value!

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Not a surprising position from a fellow who'll be splitting $60K a month while he waits for his real payoff. Now that's long-term freakin' value!

Someone tell me in what other town in The World, you can con a city out of $60,000/mo for "managing" an asset they bought for $1?

We salute you Ray Kuratek; You Are The Master Of The Long Con!

3 years, 363 days.... tick, tick, tick....

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

2 years! 363 days...

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Holzman/Kuratek & Co, probably LOVE that JR is getting scaled back. Cut this baby into itty bitty MANAGEABLE chunks... and charge an arm & a leg to MANAGE them.

These guys got a good 20-30 year con job going here....

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

It's hard to notice, cuz Bend really overwhelms the little fringe communities around here, but has anyone else noticed that on craigslist, Christmas Valley seemingly has every property in that "town" for sale? Funny, but for CV, selling 80ac + mobile for $50K is the hottest RE market they've ever seen! That $50K is a quadruple in 3 years!

Anonymous said...

Someone tell me in what other town in The World, you can con a city out of $60,000/mo for "managing" an asset they bought for $1?

*

You missed the best part, if we lay him off, we must pay him $2.5Million dollars!

This is PERS pension, without the time.

Is Kuratek cool, or is BEND fucking dumb?????

Kuratek is a pure con-man, google him from his bay-ahrea days, a total flim-flam man, he plays his UBS ( swiss bank connections ) wherever he goes.

That said, his specialty is taking on un-popular projects in liberal towns and forcing them up the ASS. What that means in plain english is that JR was always known to be un-popular, like BAT, and the city needed a GOON like Kuratek to be the bad cop.

Anonymous said...

There are more that 2,000 condos still under construction in the city.

*

There are a lot of broken dreams in PDX right now, a lot of good friends don't even lift their head anymore.

Everyone that had an APT building converted, and everybody that had an empty lot was building condos.

like I mentioned here back in April 07, that the BANKS started mandating 25% SOLD before you get first round financing. This article is mentioning whopping 40% SOLD, that is a positive. All my friends are looking at less than 5% pre-sold, which means their entire project sits. There are now unfinished, and un-started condo projects all over the city.

Condo builders are now offering to BE their own bank to the land-owners just to stay busy, because the bank will not loan the money. That's some scary shit.

I only say one thing to all this "WHY in the fuck would anyone want to live in a condo?? "

Note all the stuff in the towers on the Willamette River was Schnitzer land, the biggest scrap metal biz in the world, and the largest contributer to LIKUD in Israel. At one time almost all the Willamette river condo-towers had been pre-sold that was two years ago, now that everyone knows they're unsellable, and they're were all pre-bought on paper based speculation its completely unravelling.

Remember the MOST important thing like Bend and the PLAZA with a CONDO the entire project has to be 100% complete to be liveable nobody wants to live in a mexican rebar villa.

Anonymous said...

Morons, idiots, "butt-bangers", oh my!

How are those 200K medians coming along?

Bend will be just fine in three years.

Anonymous said...

Ron Garzini said he hopes to diffuse political tension and quell the concerns of landowners with property just outside city limits. Landowners have complained that the city is favoring bringing in Juniper Ridge land over their properties.

*

I need to expand on the above, and this is the FUCKING sad truth about Bend, remember I have been saying that 80% of Bend is pond scum and scam artists, the parasitic-electorate worships KURATEK he is one of their own.

At all the JR/UGB meetings I attended nobody cared about the environment, all of Bend is "Where is MINE". Everybody is-was pissed at JR project, because that land was part of UGB and not their land.

So ALL garzini has to do is take out a pencil and give more beggars the right to build, and then everyone will be happy, including KURATEK.

The good news for the beggars is their is NO money for them to build, there will be NO more remote sub-div tracts in mongolia for a longtime, unless you use your own money, which none of them have.

JR is still about lessening the commute for Brogman, so he don't have to drive to Prineville, cost to the Bend?? About $50 Million dollars.

Anonymous said...

How about Gresham (<1 hr to Mt. Hood resorts) or Reno (35 mi to Incline Village, Tahoe)?

How about Flagstaff, AZ (Arizona Snowbowl w/in city limits)?

How about Boise (Bogus Basin 16 mi from downtown)?

How about Boulder? Hell, how about Denver? OK, I know the traffic to the ski resorts is pretty bad.

How about Spokane (30 mi to Mt. Spokane)?

And how about the granddaddy city for easy ski resort access on the West Coast, Salt Lake City

*************

Salt Lake to many Mormons to much traffic. Boise great town, but similar to Salt Lake if you are not a Mormon your fucked. Also both places are hell in Friday afternoon traffic. Boulder is worse then Bend, to many new age yuppie, wanna be healthy hippies. VERY EXPENSIVE. Denver is a joke. Reno, not a chance, don’t do the casino thing, lots of rednecks. No jobs in Flagstaff. And Spokane? well don’t know anything about that town.

resort town, not a resort town I dont know- but lots of trails to run and ski a decent resort (cheaper then Park City and Tahoe)
and a good vibe EVEN with the bubble heads.

Anonymous said...

“Because we’re a small development company, we’re able to look at the long-term value, and if we need to be flexible or we need to wait, we certainly can,” Holzman said.

*

Master developer, Master Planner; small development company created in the darkness of public meeting laws. A two man firm, that gets $720k/yr forever, and $2.5M to go away.

Note that at $2.5M go-away, and $.72M/yr burn, that it would be cheaper to pay Kuratek to leave now, he's already gotten bucks since 2005. I agree that the bankruptcy of Bend may be sooner.

The real issue with putting a handle on the Bend bankruptcy is that Wall-Street still loves Municipal CDO's, they're considered safe, thus the city can actually easily get into much more debt, and still keep its head out of water.

The thing to watch is MUNI-CDO's and the Bend credit-rating. I think watching this would be way more useful than watching Medians that come out of the ass of NAR.

Duncan McGeary said...

Does anyone actually believe the house inventory is even close to accurate?

Seems like they take some off the market, put some on, hide the number, change agents and numbers, never mind all the FSBO's, and on and on.

I mean, it seems to me that the number has to be considerably higher.

Housing sales and so on are probably accurate, because it's in the real estate industries best interest to be accurate.

But accurate numbers of houses on the market is probably something they'd rather fuzz up.

Anonymous said...

Seems like they take some off the market, put some on, hide the number, change agents and numbers, never mind all the FSBO's, and on and on.

*

I quoted a WSJ article here from past saturday, nobody commented but its a fact YOY FSBO is up between 50-100%, and growing like hell. RE commissions are going, going gone.

What is MOST interesting is that year to date RE licenses are up 150K, with all the loss, folks are still coming in, just now realizing its an easy way to get rich. The WSJ summarized the reason is that that in most states getting an RE license is as easy as getting a drivers license, sort of like buying a lottery ticket, you never know, you might win a sale.

Anonymous said...

Duncan, It's quite eerie, I'm not sure what's going on, this past winter everything was for sale, and then walking around I noticed that almost every other home had a lock-box, but no sign.

Nows its just complete paralysis. This is a excellent definition from the 1932 depression, buyers wouldn't pay the high price, and sellers wouldn't go down.

Paralysis.

In the next couple years once granny finds out her CDO-MTG bond fund has wiped out her retirement, the MTG money will be gone, which is why I have suggested to those that MUST buy, to do so while they can still get money.

It's such a mixed bag, so much inventory, so many buyers are no longer buyers with the absence of nuttin-down, and of course almost all of Bend is JUMBO, and JUMBO has been shutdown just like CONDO Pre-Sale has shutdown condo building.

Pure & Simple we're in Real Estate Paralysis, it's 1932. The bleeding is wiping out 401k's, and most still had a little balance on their HELOC's, but forget a renewal. Once the layoff's start hitting the area with our 50-75% RE related biz, they'll just start moving away.

I think the older inner hoods like mine, there's enough of us that paid $15k, and don't have payments, and that are retired, that we can hunker down. I think that ALL the new subdivisions in general will get wiped out.

Note, the above is NOT bad, remember that a recession is when you neighbor loses his job, a depression is when you lose your job.

Duncan, you'll probably see -50% in sales drop, and you'll probably have to let your help go, but at least you didn't extend yourself to a new shop, and higher burn rate.

I think most rational people will accept the statement that the last 5-10 years has been an easy-money orgy, and now a little renewal of respect for dollar must be paid. Besides USA MUST get back to work, and people MUST start hustling, this sitting on the ass and letting the chinese make everything is some dangerous shit.

Tough times, make us Tough, Nietzsche I think said "that what kills us makes us strong", this is all a good thing.


Lastly, there's been a little talk about entrepreneurial-ism. Back in 1983-1986 when everyone lost their job, many people got off their ass and started their own biz, and it made the high tech revolution. I expect this again, and it will happen.

The critical-mass to create new jobs, especially high-tech cannot be created by government, and LOTTO money for party's to be spent by EDCO/SAO, which is largely insurance salesman, and other wannabe parasites. Real entrepreneurs in their garage, with a solid education just need a little hunger to become creative.

The biggest problem in Bend, is TOO MUCH wine, and TOO much bacon-tempura at the DEEP, its made everyone lethargic. Starvation, is the most critical element in mans evolution. Most of this wine money, for all these party's promoted by HOLLERN by the SORE were taxpayer dollars, like the current FILM-FEST, sure it brings suckers to BUY Real-Estate, but it also brings amenity-parsites.

Yes, I like my occasional beer, but I also work my ass off +90% of the time.

I would love to see some real entrepreneurial-ism in Bend, I have talked to many friends over the years here about starting some exciting shit, and they always say "I came here to play, I'm done". A lot of these folks bought big homes, and have burnt through their savings that was supposed to last. Thus I can see a lot of hungry, experienced, tenured, hard-working, smart, well connected folks coming back to work in the next few years, and a lot of them want to stay here, but they ALL want to down-size their home, back to the little inner 1200sq-ft, and NO more of this mongolian 5,000sqft BT shit.

I think this is why the bastards and bitches running the city today have gotten away with so much, is that so many 'good' people in Bend, were just tired of fighting. Once the easy money is gone, post Bend Bankruptcy, theres going to be an enormous political vacuum.

tim said...

Aside from the FSBO, which I am seeing more and more of, there's a ton of hidden inventory Duncan. Builders in NW Crossing and The Parks have a lot of houses for sale. They put up a couple on MLS, undercutting the existing home sellers. When you call to look at them, or drive up to the on-site sales office, you are shown the selections.

So, yeah. At least in the new neighborhoods, tons of stuff in the shadows. I wouldn't be surprised if there's close to 1000 houses for sale you don't see on MLS.

tim said...

>>I think that ALL the new subdivisions in general will get wiped out.

I think people who would have denied this outright three months ago may be trembling now, as some optimists who paid $800k last year in upscale NW subdivs are going to foreclosure, and that includes the golden people in Broken Top and its satellites.

It's just begun.

Anonymous said...

Seems like they take some off the market, put some on, hide the number, change agents and numbers, never mind all the FSBO's, and on and on.

*

I have said it a million times, here and I'll say it again "NAR medians don't mean shit".

Modern science is all about data, and correct interpretation.

RE is a speculative flim-flam biz here in Bend. The numbers are all massaged, and pure garbage.

A good decision, cannot be made on bad data.

Like your recent pessimism, I have long advocated here to "look out your fucking window", last night I walked by your shop, it felt like the entire strip along super-burrito is now all taped up, closed, and shut-down, I feel that you have been looking out your window.

You don't have to study NAR numbers to know what is happening in Bend.


Last night downtown, with the exception of Deschutes was quiet, the only PRETTY retail front's now are the CONDO-HO, RE TIME-SHARE cabin flipping "RE is ART" shops. Pretty sad state of affairs. If I were a tourist in this shit-hole I would run, I can see pretty soon folks running out of Tehtherow, Brasada, Southby's, Pronghorn, and grabbing folks and begging them to come in for a 'free' glass of wine.

Bend is a scary fucking pathetic little ex-tourist town, that wanted to be a resort, and wanted to have industrial jobs, and wanted it all, and everybody was going to become a millionaire, and we were going to consume chinese made shit forever, and have mexicans do all our shit work.

Bend is Sand Point Idaho, a place where every white hair-lip is a millionaire. A place where +75% of population's only purpose in life is push RE onto unsuspecting tourists.

If I spent as much time downtown as you do, I would be very pessimistic.

Anonymous said...

optimists who paid $800k last year in upscale NW subdivs are going to foreclosure, and that includes the golden people in Broken Top and its satellites.


*

My yuppy friends with MONEY that bought in these gated communitys regret it big-time, they're actually embarrassed when they have visitors.

The folks that actually jog, bike, use phils trail, e.g. have a life in this town, live in affordable pleasant little old hoods.

This CCR shit where you cannot hangout your laundry is now going to go from the Secret of the Brooks formula, to its demise.

With the money gone, its means hunkering down, doing the cheap 'fun/good' things in life that don't cost shit, like hiking, fishing, fucking all day, ... Folks in these big burn rate homes are bleeding to death, from a biz decision it would be best to cut losses.

As a landlord you never let a renter have a home bigger than 1200sq-ft why?? Because renters will fill the space with all their loser friends crap, there's going to be some horrible shit coming down, these +3,000sq-ft mcMansions are going to be the eye-sore from hell.

Anonymous said...

golden people in Broken Top and its satellites.

*

I meet these golden people all the time, they're always from BT, and they're always renters, and they have all moved here in the last 5 years, and they all drive monster new suv's, and they all did something other than Real Estate before they came to Bend.

Why are they renters?? Because smart con-artists that came to bend knew the shit was over-priced, so they rent, and they con other suckers into buying. By renting they could spend more money on wine and party's and look better than other golden's. At least when these people 'move-on' they will not be sitting on a negative investment.

Think about this for a moment, our city hall has spent a fortune in taxpayer dollars to market Bend and bring these people here.

You want to get into the Bend RE biz, you hang out and golf and get a membership, want to get invited to the good partys and good people then you get a BT address.

Bend is 90% marketing hype, hot-air, PR, and plain BULLSHIT, so when it implodes there will be little to nothing left of value for even the sharks to feed on.

Anonymous said...

Builders in NW Crossing and The Parks have a lot of houses for sale.

*

I heard about a month ago that NWXC has terminated all new construction.

They have finally figured out that nothing sells, during the past six months they had started building little stuff and even that didn't sell.

The other interesting thing is that NWXC is no longer limited to the CHOSEN seven contractors, now there are 24, and virtually anyone can get approval to build at NWXC.

Remember that NWXC like all of bend was a +40% marketing premium. With everyone in Bend now playing the same PR/MARKETING hustle, there is no differentiation.

It must be real hard in this town, if you were a real BUYER, and started looking around at all the 'resorts', 'developments', ... It's like a giant movie set was built, and now the movie is done, ... What do we so with the set?

Duncan McGeary said...

So real estate numbers are probably accurate on the upside (sales and asking price), but inaccurate on the downside (inventory).

That's like me basing the health of my business solely on sales. While you have to have them, sales don't mean you're making a profit. Without Cost of Goods and Overhead and Inventory, you don't know what kind of profit I'm making.....

So it could be way worse than we know.

Duncan McGeary said...

A 50% drop in sales. In the words of IHTBYB, that was be a 100% wipeout, plus or minus .5%.

But it doesn't require that kind of a drop. 20% would do it, for many businesses. 30% would probably do it for most of the rest.

I'm probably really unusual in businesses, because of the bubble nature of my product, I actually factor in a 35% decline in my business plan.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Nietzsche I think said "that what kills us makes us strong"

I'll remember this next time I'm about to kill someone....

"STOP STRUGGLING! I'm empowering you! LET ME EMPOWER YOU! How can I make you stronger if you won't let me beat you with this shovel!"

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

I actually factor in a 35% decline in my business plan.

I say again:

DUNCAN McGEARY FOR MAYOR!

tim said...

>>Remember that NWXC like all of bend was a +40% marketing premium.

Yep, and that included award-winning and very-well-done TV ads that played for a couple years in very heavy rotation on Bend Broadband cable. God knows how much all that cost.

Apparently, if people hear about the "good life" in NWXing for long enough, they want it. They pay for it.

tim said...

>>Nietzsche I think said "that what kills us makes us strong"

I believe it's, "What doesn't kill me makes me stronger." Pretty sure what kills me makes me weaker, if not dead.

Duncan McGeary said...

I factor in a 35% drop in sales. That probably sounds a little weird.

I was making enough money, based on overhead and margin, to make about the same profit 3 years ago that I make now. If I just maintained.

But I would've had no margin of error. I've been pushing on the sales front for the last 3 years, buying an extra 4 or 5k product a month, selling, hopefully an extra 5 or 6k a month and so on. Lousy margins, but higher sales.

So now I'm sitting comfortably at 35% margins higher than I need to maintain.

If I hadn't completely run out of room, I might have kept pushing.

So now, if sales maintain (unlikely, with me now longer pushing so hard) I make a good profit. If sales drift down a bit, I still make a profit.

If sales drop 35%, which I don't expect, I still make as much profit as I did 4 or 5 years ago.

I'm just gun shy, I guess.

Anonymous said...

"What doesn't kill us makes us strong, but damn close"

Somebody has to die, to convince the other bitch monkeys that your going to die.

*

That which kills man, like big cat's caused man to develop tools to over-whelm the cat. The monkey-man didn't get until he saw quite a few fellow primates become din-din.


We have gone from greed to fear. This is a good thing.

We're going to see a lot of folks in Bend Economically get eaten alive. Those that survive will be stronger.

Anonymous said...

>>Remember that NWXC like all of bend was a +40% marketing premium.

Yep, and that included award-winning and very-well-done TV ads

*

Yeh, all Brooks HOGG Hollern was a geniu-ass at the time, but its all human see, human do. Now everybody is doing to PR/MARKETING just like NWXC.

Thus the advantage is NIL.

The other con-artists saw Brooks getting premium dollar because of marketing, and copied his program, hell even the city caught on.

Brooks spent a fortune on "SMART GROWTH", and bringing all the con-artists into town, to sell the NWXC concept out at the High Desert Museum.

Anonymous said...

A 50% drop in sales. In the words of IHTBYB, that was be a 100% wipeout, plus or minus .5%.

*

You guys are wimp's, I have seen high-tech companys wiped out by 90% gross sales, post y2k, and then another 90% post 911.

Today some are operating at 1% of pre y2k sales, all you have to do is layoff all the people and go lean&mean.

I guess if your in Bend in your selling widgets for $1, and your rent is $5k/mo, and your selling 5010 widgets/mo, and you go down -50% you got to dip into savings. I say that at some point you should have moved the op into your garage, to survive.

This is the problem with so many businessmen, they get all hung up having to have all the employees, and space, ... and then when times get tough ( they always do ) the burn rate kills them.

Be ready for a -50% duncan, its coming, and I think you'll find you'll be working by yourself in order to minimize burn.

Anonymous said...

I say again:

DUNCAN McGEARY FOR MAYOR!

*

Duncan, is going to have to put in 110% just to not lose what he has, please don't distract him, with having to manage the Bend Bankruptcy of 2009.

Besides he wouldn't make a tenth of what bitch KURATEK makes ( $60k/mon ), what would be the point of losing everything to save nothing????

Bend is bankrupt, any human toil, or good-money put down the rat-hole at this point in time is good-money chasing bad, or in duncans case good-time chasing a bad-time.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Be ready for a -50% duncan, its coming, and I think you'll find you'll be working by yourself in order to minimize burn.

I hope Pat is not a fan of this blog....

Duncan McGeary said...

And here I just gave him a raise.

Anonymous said...

And here I just gave him a raise.

*

Get him out there on the street 24/7, pay him salary, and have him offer wine to passerby's like they do over at tetherow, brasada, pronghorn, southeby's, yarrow, and all the other bend 'retail' shops.

This is what everyone in Turkey & Greece does to tourists, carpet salesman offer tourists and drink, and travel agents in Greece. Before you know you got all their money.

Don't fight duncan, join them. Get your 'staff' out there drag them in the store, and then you charm them, and get them hammered. They'll be buying several of everything.

Welcome to Bend.

Anonymous said...

Yep, and that included award-winning and very-well-done TV ads

*

Never forget that before boss hogg hollern came to Bend with his cali MBA, he HO'd in Montana as a TV con-man. Thus he knows the TV racket well.

Those are probably his happiest days now that he's living in a "town of non-placement bound people, without real jobs, or real children." { quote from Mike Hollern }

Sorry to mention ol boss-hogg-mikey so much, holy shit, ignoring him is like ignoring every BUTTE in the area.

This is a one horse old washed up logging town, and once the easy lumber biz was gone, Brooks-Scanlon-Shevlin brought in Mikey to sell the land. Hell he's even take over Madras, Priny, and Reddy ( brasada, pronghorn, & yarrow ).

Great TV ad's, Great marketing, the best con-job a cali MBA can buy.

Anonymous said...

Great TV ad's, Great marketing, the best con-job a cali MBA can buy.

*

Throw in easy-money, and let Sand-Pt, Idaho hair-lips get JUMBO loans with nothing down, and no job. Mix it all together with Brooks Marketing, ... and you get Bend, Oregon.

Come to Oregon, come to Bend, if you got a heartbeat, we got a cabin, condo, 'home' for you. Live the dream, resort country.

What a place.

Only in Bend.

Anonymous said...

We talk this week about whether Bend is 50% RE, or 75%.

Do you realize that Brooks Resources is 100's of shell LLC's in the area, almost all them condo-ho time share golf resort, snag a moron boutiques are Brooks.

When Brooks goes bankrupt, I suspect that 25% of the commercial/retail space in this city will go empty, that's how many Brooks front shops there are.

So there's another mystery number.

How many folks in Bend are RE related? Its got to be somewhere between 50-75%

How many business, or false-front shops are a Brooks boutique?? Remember theres Brooks Investment ( sic), Brooks Real Estate, there's dozens of those, then every little NWXC is a dozen LLC's doing everything from RE to marketing, and all the Brasada, Pronghorn, Yarrow, ... are setup the same way.

I simply can't walk on a street in Bend and NOT see "Brooks XXXX", what's most interesting is NO op is over 50-100 people, so he doesn't even show up as the largest employer in the tri-county.

When this OP goes BK, that's going to make the BEND BK look like nothing.

Remember right now is October, all the quarterly 'granny you lost your retirement' letters go out now, for the second quarter losses, this means that a lot of cash flow will be pulled out of "Brooks Investments".

Anonymous said...

I simply can't walk on a street in Bend and NOT see "Brooks XXXX", what's most interesting is NO op is over 50-100 people, so he doesn't even show up as the largest employer in the tri-county.

*

Hollern says there's no real people real jobs, or real children in Bend, and they're all non-placement bound?

Is he talking about HIS employees? Now or in a the future??

Anonymous said...

LET ME EMPOWER YOU! How can I make you stronger if you won't let me beat you with this shovel!"

*

Isn't that how the Marine Corp builds men??

Anonymous said...

What makes you think Brooks/Scanlon BHHollern is going BK? They've made so much freakin' $$$ over the past years that they could be sitting on a mountain of cash.

Enlighten me.

Anonymous said...

Did anyone read about the 2.9 million dollar "green building" in the bulletin yesterday? I just can't believe they talk about conserving energy with a straight face and then quote that kind of price.

tim said...

>>Remember right now is October, all the quarterly 'granny you lost your retirement' letters go out now, for the second quarter losses, this means that a lot of cash flow will be pulled out of "Brooks Investments".

Yep. Should be any time. My old man and I were on the phone and he has his unopened pile of quarterly statements he's just starting to get to. Most of them came today, he said.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Did anyone read about the 2.9 million dollar "green building" in the bulletin yesterday? I just can't believe they talk about conserving energy with a straight face and then quote that kind of price.

Many "green" projects are nothing more than horribly conceived economic disasters meant to assuage the irrational guilt of liberals. My kids brought home a kiddie version of the Nat Geographic, or something, and one of the pieces asked kids to MAIL their used up tennis shoes to this recycling place, so they could grind them up & make a basketball court.

They estimate it would take millions of pairs of shoes (and dollars) to get 'er done, FAR more than a "non recycled" court. No mention of the enormous expenditure in fuel to transport these MILLIONS of pairs of shoes, or run the machinery to process the shoes. It sounded heinously inefficient. I love that my kids are being taught to "RECYCLE" at ALL COSTS, including the production of more waste & greenhouse gases than simply manufacturing items from scratch. SOME recycling does work, but kids are being taught that EVERYTHING should be recycled, NO MATTER HOW MUCH FOREST WE KILL OR RIVERS WE POLLUTE to do it.

I HATE this sort of MINDLESS pursuit of "Green" everything, when it is typically NO SUCH THING. "GREEN" is Corporate Americas New Mascot for selling you crap YOU DON'T NEED.

How about Randy "GREEN" Sebastian? He's building HUNDREDS of "Green" homes, but does he mention the VAST SWATHS of timber being cut, rock & granite being mined, carpet being spun out, or HUNDREDS OF TONS of NON-Green bullshit processes that KILL the environment? Hell no. Not to mention the elk pathways the fucker cuts off just to cram another UNNEEDED house down someones gullet. The GREENEST HOUSE IMAGINABLE is the UNBUILT FUCKIN HOUSE YOU CAN'T SELL ANYWAY.

Anonymous said...

http://marvelousbend.wordpress.com/2007/09/26/marvelous-green/

Anonymous said...

They've made so much freakin' $$$ over the past years that they could be sitting on a mountain of cash.

;>

What makes anyone think that Bend will go Bankrupt, they have built such a huge wonderful resort in the last five years, and they're sitting on a mountain of cash, and good will of developers, banks, and builders. When Kuratek starts selling Juniper Ridge it is projected that the city will make over $3 billion.

Anonymous said...

http://marvelousbend.wordpress.com/2007/09/26/marvelous-green/

Sally committed suicide two weeks ago in Atlanta. It's over, time to move on.

Anonymous said...

What makes you think Brooks/Scanlon BHHollern is going BK?

*

During the 1983 timber recession, MH aka BR, almost went BK, in those days they were cash-poor, land-rich.

Today they're cash-poor, and house-rich, and the homes were built with OPM.

The bigger they are the harder they fall.

Anonymous said...

Ok, Guys I'm going to tell you a little secret, so you can place your bets.

MUNI CDO's are still HOT, so Bend can borrow its way out of BK, just watch, and when MUNI-CDO's are no longer considered safe, its game-over for Bend.

BR aka MH aka boss-hogg-hollern, as another angle, its called M49, mikey, john-gray, and phil knight the three 'richest' guys in Oregon are putting all they got into M49.

M49 says that you can take all that pre 1972 land, and transfer those M37 rights. The problem right now is nobody has money, and that include poor old Mrs. English.

If M49 passes, then mikey can sell all his pre 1972 land to foreign investors to the highest bidder. Right now all the land is essentially without value. If M49 doesn't pass, then mikey goes BK.

John Gray is in the same situation. He's sitting on tons of pre 1972 purchase land, that without the ability to 'transfer' pre-1972 rights to a third party the land is worthless.

Phil Knight recognizes that when the old guard moves to the BIG logging camp in the sky, that its just him and Schnitzer ( biggest steel salvaging biz in the world ).

We live in interesting times. It was only forty years ago that Gray built Sunriver, and Hollern put together Black-Butte Ranch, and started today's PR/Marketing of Central Oregon. Today its game over unless outside investors can be brought in, but they're NOT going to buy unless they can build what they want, and Hollern and Gray don't have the cash-flow anymore to build anything.

In summary, if you want to shutdown Brooks Resources, vote no on M49, and watch them implode.

If M49 passes your going to see Japanese, Chinese, Indian, and German resorts all over Central Oregon.

Anonymous said...

f M49 passes your going to see Japanese, Chinese, Indian, and German resorts all over Central Oregon.

*

What you sow, so shall ye reap. All the calis left LA for Sand Pt, Idaho then came to Bend to become RE millionaires.

They shopped at Walmart ( all made in China ), and they hired mexicans to do their shit work. Soon the chinese and mexicans will have all the money, will own all the land, and the white hair-lips will be selling their daughters to the new owners.

I love Oregon. Bend is the best third world town in the galaxy.

Anonymous said...

Last 24 hours MLS info for city of Bend

New Listings 49
Back on Market 42
Price Increases 5
Price Reductions 32
Contingents 0
Pendings 4
Solds 4
Expireds 3
Inactives 5

Anonymous said...

[[[


Property sale could land Bend $200M
Money would be paid over next 20 to 30 years of public-private contract
By Peter Sachs / The Bulletin
Published: October 10. 2007 5:00AM PST

It’s no easy task turning 1,500 acres of sagebrush and lava rock into a new focal point for the city of Bend.

And the legal document that will direct that whole process is hardly simple or easy to understand. But its expected completion by the end of this year will codify how the city moves forward on Juniper Ridge and allow the city to start opening up the land to businesses and developers who want to tackle pieces of the project.

A document released Monday gives some details of what that development contract could look like. If everything goes according to the city’s plans, the city could be more than $200 million richer by 30 years from now after it sells off its Juniper Ridge land.

If the city were to just sell Juniper Ridge’s 1,500 acres to the highest bidder, it could make about $65 million, City Councilor Jim Clinton said.

But that would leave the city with little control over what the finished product looked like, and would mean the city would be missing out on even more money.

Under the formula for splitting up the proceeds of land sales, released in a summary of the development contract Monday, the city could make more than $200 million over the next 20 to 30 years. That’s money that would go into the general fund and could be used for just about anything, from police cars to new highway overpasses. It could mean funding for a plethora of improvement projects that the city doesn’t even have on its radar screen yet, including freeways and mass transit that the area might need three decades from now.

Meanwhile, by the time Juniper Ridge is developed, it could have a large light industrial park, a university, thousands of homes and a performing arts center.

The Juniper Ridge development contract is also known as a disposition and development agreement, or DDA. It could easily be more than 80 pages long and will be much more complex than the terms for your credit card, car loan or mortgage.

“These are quite common for public-private partnerships, especially large ones,” said Jeff Holzman, who runs Juniper Ridge Partners along with master developer Ray Kuratek. “No two are the same, and they all seem to be very long.”

Public-private partnerships combine the resources of governments and private developers to help projects move faster. In Bend, a new partnership between the city and a developer will help fund improvements to Reed Market Road next year. In the past, a similar partnership on the west side of the city helped pay for a number of roundabouts and road improvements.

But the DDA for Juniper Ridge will cover a much larger area e_SEmD more than two square miles e_SEmD than many other projects.

“The complexities arose because of that attempt to make sure the city benefits when the project is successful and makes a lot of money,” Clinton said.

The contract includes an elaborate system to divide up money from land sales between the city, Juniper Ridge Partners and AIG Insurance, which has committed to invest up to $30 million in the project.

The city needs AIG’s money to pay for early engineering, design and construction costs, like for roads and utilities, Clinton said.

“We’re making sure that the DDA gives all three parties what they need in order to be successful,” Clinton said.

The system of payouts has two parts: what happens during the first $100 million in sales, and what happens when land is sold after that.

In the first phase, profits would go toward five different areas. They include closing costs on properties; a reserve fund for Juniper Ridge’s overall operating expenses; a separate reserve fund to help insure AIG’s investment return; a $1 per square foot payout to the city; and then a three-way division of profits between the city, master developer and AIG. In that split, the city would get 55 percent of the remaining profits from each sale, AIG would get 40 percent and Juniper Ridge Partners would get 5 percent.

In the second phase of land sales -- that is, after the first $100 million in sales -- the distributions are somewhat more simple.

Once again, the first priority for profits would be to go toward closing costs. Then, the city would get $2 per square foot on land sales, followed by a slice for the project’s operating reserves, and then a split between the city and Juniper Ridge Partners. In that split, the city would get 90 percent of the remaining profits while Juniper Ridge Partners would get 10 percent.

The breakdown is different than what the city and Juniper Ridge Partners agreed to in last year’s nonbinding memorandum of understanding. That agreement gave the city a larger chunk of earlier profits and a smaller chunk of those profits went to AIG. Under the old model, AIG would have received payouts until $175 million in land had been sold. The total amounts AIG will bring in are about the same for both profit-sharing models.

The DDA runs partially on the assumption that AIG, the investor, would get back its investment and the 20 percent annual return within the first $100 million of land sales. If not, half of Juniper Ridge Partner’s slice of the profits would go toward AIG instead until the insurance company is repaid.

The longer it takes to repay any of AIG’s money that the city uses, the more AIG will get by the end. If it puts in the maximum $30 million that it has pledged to invest, it could earn back another $10 million or more, in addition to what it invested, Clinton said. That’s because the guaranteed 20 percent return is calculated each year, not just once at the end of the project.

“To you and I, it sounds like a ridiculously high percentage because we can’t get that when we go to the bank,” Clinton said. But he added that typically, real estate investors would expect returns on the order of 25 percent to 30 percent.

Ron Garzini, the special project manager brought in by the city to help coordinate the completion of the DDA, explained that the reserve fund for AIG that would be in place during the first part of land sales is as much for protection of the city as it is for AIG.

“The reserve will be to make sure the investor is not going to have a year when they don’t get any return,” Garzini said. “There could be a period of a year or two where nothing happens. So that’s why these reserves are set up, to protect the investor.”

If the project goes south, the investor would be paid first out of the profits that Juniper Ridge Partners reaps and then out of that fund. The contract would prohibit AIG from going after the city’s general fund. The legal details of that arrangement haven’t been spelled out yet.

If there are leftover funds in that reserve after AIG has been repaid, that money would go back into Juniper Ridge’s operating reserves, Garzini and Holzman said.

The development contract hasn’t been finalized, but a version should be released to the public by early November, officials have said. Between now and then, some of the nitty-gritty details may change. But if the City Council adopts the Garzini’s policy bullet points, that would help set some of the overarching elements of the contract in stone.

“The most important part of the whole project is basically the vision, which has been developing over the last three years,” Clinton said. “The DDA is an attempt to make sure the city’s finances are protected while this project goes forward.”

Bend Economy Man said...

The DDA runs partially on the assumption that AIG, the investor, would get back its investment and the 20 percent annual return within the first $100 million of land sales. If not, half of Juniper Ridge Partner’s slice of the profits would go toward AIG instead until the insurance company is repaid.

The longer it takes to repay any of AIG’s money that the city uses, the more AIG will get by the end. If it puts in the maximum $30 million that it has pledged to invest, it could earn back another $10 million or more, in addition to what it invested, Clinton said. That’s because the guaranteed 20 percent return is calculated each year, not just once at the end of the project.

“To you and I, it sounds like a ridiculously high percentage because we can’t get that when we go to the bank,” Clinton said. But he added that typically, real estate investors would expect returns on the order of 25 percent to 30 percent.


Man are we getting snowed. Yes, a 20% return does sound ridiculous to you and I, Jim Clinton. 20-25-30% is what real estate investors expect when they're TAKING A RISK. Here the land is free - there's really no question of whether there's going to be a PROFIT. There's no regulatory risk - their partner is the city. And it's basically a municipal project, right? Why can't the City of Bend set up a Juniper Ridge Improvement District and issue some damn muni bonds - at 10% you'd have TONS of takers!

20% annual return? They are really giving it away. In NYC the people at AIG headquarters must really think they found a town full of shitheads. This. Makes. Me. So. Mad. And the way The Bulletin is just sanguinely reporting on it WITHOUT A SINGLE INTELLIGENT QUESTION - Drives. Me. Nuts.

It's just that the City Council members really are a bunch of drooling, incompetent dipshits whose research on this has probably consisted of each of them having dinner and a couple bottles of wine with Ray Kuratek and the AIG guy.

“The most important part of the whole project is basically the vision, which has been developing over the last three years,” Clinton said. “The DDA is an attempt to make sure the city’s finances are protected while this project goes forward.”

Protecting the city's finances? What he means is that THE CITY COUNCIL HAS IT SET UP SO THAT THEY DON'T GIVE AWAY THE CITY'S GENERAL FUND. Whoopty-fuckin'-doo. "Of course we're paying 20% annually on $30MM rather than the 7% we could be paying, and of course we're handing these fly-by-night developers $720,000 a year. We're total idiots. But don't accuse us of giving away the city's general fund too! We safeguarded that!

BendBust/Bilbo, friend to friend, please don't clutter this part of the discussion up with 50 different posts. People need to see and understand the discussion on Juniper Ridge and how we're getting hosed, and you know this more than anyone.

Anonymous said...

BendBust/Bilbo, friend to friend, please don't clutter this part of the discussion up with 50 different posts. People need to see and understand the discussion on Juniper Ridge

*

Bem, If you pay much attention, I have been hitting JR non-stop for six months, and my own site 'bendbubble.blogspot.com', that's pretty much all I post. You need to write more frequently about JR, you need to post what you posted above far and wide, and we need to pay Kuratek his $2.5M to go away, and shut JR down. Today.

This group is only composed 1/2 a dozen regulars, you need to make sure that what you wrote above get's posted at ALL Bend-Oregon Sites.

Send what you wrote to the BULL as letter to the editor, or fwd it to one of the 1/2 dozen anti-JR websites that now exist, and have them submit it to the BULL. The problem is nobody in this town has the guts to go public. This is a mob town, and I have myself been threatened too many times by developers for speaking up at the public meetings. There are DAMN good reasons to be anonymous in this town, but this is also why many of us are SO ANGRY.


Take what you have written above and POST it everywhere, and make sure that its NOT ignored.

Anonymous said...

20% annual return? They are really giving it away. In NYC the people at AIG headquarters must really think they found a town full of shitheads.

*

All insurance money firms are a racket. They all take in premiums and deny claims, and 'invest' the premiums in the best return they can.

Insurance companys are the bank of last resort. This is why Bend is paying 20% Bend is a 'bbb--' credit risk, and everyone knows it, and Bend is going to have to pay for it.

The fact that Kuratek hasn't found anybody but AIG to invest in JR, shows how tenuous the whole project has become.

The people at AIG know that the 'goldens' of Bend are desperate for this project. AIG has Bend by the balls.

The city would be better off promising a pound of flesh from every citizen, then it would have found more investors.

Then there is the subject of why don't make this a public project, and just get a MUNI-CDO finance package, which would be cheap. The problem their is EVERYTHING would have to be public. This whole JR deal is about secrecy, insiders, mystery, and fraud. There's NO WAY in hell that TEAM-JR is going to go public NOW, and that's what a MUNI-CDO deal would require.

Thus TEAM-JR has found the sleaziest insurance company in America, who will let them do business in the dark, but they'll have to pay the price, or I should say the citizens will pay the price for TEAM-JR secrecy, and violation of State open meeting laws.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

It's just that the City Council members really are a bunch of drooling, incompetent dipshits whose research on this has probably consisted of each of them having dinner and a couple bottles of wine with Ray Kuratek and the AIG guy.

BEM, I have to disagree here. I don't think any such wine-N-dine took place. I think there was the issuance of a Grocery Outlet gift card for $5 to each Councilor, so they could drive themselves there and get a $3.99 bottle of wine, and 3 Snickers for $1.

Kuratek & Co know full well they don't have to Wine and Dine these dumbshits.

Anonymous said...

Kuratek & Co know full well they don't have to Wine and Dine these dumbshits.

*

IHTBYB - You really should do a cover blog for next sunday on JR, things are really starting to hit the fan. Not sure your site has the coverage that BEM thinks it does, but its a good start. Another useful thing would be to publish all the ANTI-JR sites, on your tomb-stone here, so folks can keep up with the other good info on the subject.

JR isn't the only issue coming, down I have written over&over about M49, and who is behind it and why, and the music just goes on. There are probably a dozens things in Bend right now as important as watching JR like a hawk, but putting a wooden-cross through the heart of JR RIGHT-NOW, would be a good bitch-slap on those running city-hall, and thus its a fairly good idea to hit them hard.

Anonymous said...

Then there is the subject of why don't make this a public project, and just get a MUNI-CDO finance package, which would be cheap. The problem their is EVERYTHING would have to be public.
*
There's some real dirt here, and nobody wants to put a flash-light on it.

Old Kuratek got ran out of cali ( google kuratek on the bay horse track fiasco ). If the city got JR MUNI finance everything would have to be public, and a public vote.

1.) KURATEK and friends have made this secret, dark, from the start there's some skeleton, there is SOMETHING somewhere that nobody wants light on, there is somewhere a FELONY or something. This is the smoking gun.

2.) Just like the BUS BAT fiasco the city knows if this PIG was put to vote it would get shut down. How can a public MUNI deal be public, when its secret, and thus its not possible to get public MUNI financing on a deal NOT approved by the taxpayer.

JR is rotten to the core, and there is DEEP rotten reason why to date its all been secret, and they had to had out-of-town fly-by-night men running the project, and now they have to have the lender of last resort finance the preliminary deal.

Anonymous said...

Juniper Ridge is the Problem.
Recalling Clinton is the Solution.

---------

New bumper sticker for-sale

Anonymous said...

Yes, a 20% return does sound ridiculous to you and I, Jim Clinton. 20-25-30% is what real estate investors expect when they're TAKING A RISK.
*
Today in Bend your lucky if your RE investment isn't losing you -30%/yr.

A positive ROI in Bend with a guarantee? This smells like the 15%/yr promised to PERS employees a few years ago.

The rats are hungry, and Bend has lots of cheese. Perhaps too much cheese. Disinterested non-involved electorate, all hoping that city-hall bring back the +30%/yr ROI on tract homes, I mean resort-homes.

Anonymous said...

Hollern is smart. No way he's going to watch his fortune drip away. He'll do something big, soon. He'll be decisive and act along many fronts. Keep your eyes and ears open. Shouldn't be long now.

Anonymous said...

Hollern is smart. No way he's going to watch his fortune drip away. He'll do something big, soon. He'll be decisive and act along many fronts. Keep your eyes and ears open. Shouldn't be long now.

*

He's doing it right now, him and John Gray are the $$$ behind M49, and it will bring foreign cash into Oregon, but being able to DUMP all his pre 1972 land-holdings. Him and Gray are the largest owners of forest in Central Oregon, but it has NO value because of M37.

M49 will allow the pre-1972 development rights to be 'transferred' right now, you can develop pre-1972 land, but nobody has the CASH. M49 fixes that problem.

Overnight ALL the pre 1972 land will have value, and the post 1972 land value will collapse, ...

If this isn't a smart play, what the hell is??

Then his heirs come in and buy the post-1972 land cheap, and they do it all over again, as they have since 1972, when Gray & Hollern created SB100 which created LCDC & UGB in the first place.

Anonymous said...

Hollern is smart. No way he's going to watch his fortune drip away. He'll do something big, soon. He'll be decisive and act along many fronts. Keep your eyes and ears open. Shouldn't be long now.

*

Smart has NOTHING to do with it, duncan is smart, but that doesn't mean his biz will survive this cycle in the 2006+ Bend recession.

In the last cycle (1983+) Hollern barely survived, land-rich, cash-poor. Today he's home-rich, and cash-poor, and bleeding like everyone else with homes that WILL NOT SELL.

His only hope is to raise REAL CASH.

How do you do that??? You can't SELL BEND RE land or homes, nobody wants them, they're over-valued.

The only play is 'unlock' all the land pre-1972 that Hollern controls that essentially cost nothing, but has no value because of SB100 ( 1972 LCDC ). M37 said that you could file a court case and build, but nothing happened, because nobody has money. Thus the 'fix' is M49 which will allow Hollern to SELL the cheap land for a lot of MONEY, and the BUYERS will pay, because under M49 the Pre-1972 'rights' can be transferred to them.

Under M37, you can build if you own pre-1972 land, but the lawyers took their cut, and now most cannot build.

M37 makes it perfectly clear that the BUYER has the right to those pre-1972 rights, and thus the owner can dump his land, get the premium cash, and NOT tie up any of his own cash in investing homes that will not sell.

The ramifications of this are that in these times of NO USA cash, most of the BUYS will be coming from foreigners. Thus in the next cycle Central Oregon will get built like shit, but ALL owned by folks outside the USA, which means that OUR elected WHORES will even be MORE removed because they'll not even be owned by people of this country.

We created the situation where city-hall doesn't give a fuck about the people of Bend, pretty soon they'll not have to give a fuck about the people of the USA.

Anonymous said...

Can you point us to the text of Measure 49 that authorizes this transfer? I have looked around the web and found no arguments against it, except from timber companies like Seneca. What is the angle that everyone is working. Seems to be a lot of confusion out there (like ALL ballot measures).

Anonymous said...

Can you point us to the text of Measure 49 that authorizes this transfer? I have looked around the web and found no arguments against it, except from timber companies like Seneca.
*

Do WHAT I DID READ THE MEASURE.

The text is available on the internet. DO I have to post the link, and highlight the actual text. Can't anybody in Bend read anymore? Does everything have to be handed to everyone in a pink bucket of shit??

Everyone is just spitting out talking points. I had a long talk about this with the person running the pep in valley this weekend, and the person could NOT go off the talking point's and admitted she hadn't read the actual measure proposal.

Anonymous said...

http://www.sos.state.or.us/elections/nov62007/guide/m49_text.html

Above is the link to the title.

***

Below is the text, but I suggest you PRINT & READ the measure, and then use a yellow marker, to highlight every instance of 'transfer', and study the WHOLE doucument.


(6) An authorization to partition or subdivide the property, or to establish dwellings on the property, granted under section 6, 7 or 9 of this 2007 Act runs with the property and may be either transferred with the property or encumbered by another person without affecting the authorization

tim said...

Allows claimants to transfer homebuilding rights upon sale or transfer of properties; extends rights to surviving spouses.

Anonymous said...

I have looked around the web and found no arguments against it, except from timber companies like Seneca.

*

The above is right off the "1,000 friends of Oregon" a group created by Hollern&Gray back in the early 70's.

It says that those opposed to M49 are all from Stimpson Lumber, and Seneca.

So we know the person who is asking the question is from "1,000 friends", incidently, before 1972 it was friends of Oregon, and they were NY bankers, thus its fit today that AIG is now running Juniper Ridge.

NY bankers have been running Oregon since the 1950's.

The HOLLERN/GRAY front groups website is ..
http://www.friends.org/issues/m49/m49_ballot_title.html

and they're link to the ballot is wrong to keep people from the truth.

Anonymous said...

The HOLLERN/GRAY front groups website is ..
http://www.friends.org/issues/m49/m49_ballot_title.html

and they're link to the ballot is wrong to keep people from the truth.


*

1,000 friends of Oregon, is WHOM created UGB/SB100 aka 1972 land-control, they did so in the name "GREEN" as IHTBYB so eloquently points out in OREGON is 100% BULLSHIT.

In the day HOLLERN&GRAY were the biggest loggers in Oregon, and they created UGB to limit land, and make the price go up, and now 30 years later, their pre-1972 land is worth a fortune, and they're going to flip it around so that 1972-pre land is worth a fortune, and post-1972 land is worth nothing.

They did it thirty years ago, they'll do it again. How do they do it?? Just like "smart growth", when boss hogg hollern sold NWXC to Bend, just hire a LOT of pretty young PR bunnys, and shit happens. Same right now for HOLLERN/GRAY and their M49 they have 1,000's of PR bunny's working Oregon, these cunts having even read the measure, but they know the talking points.

Does it have anything to do with GREEN?? Yes, the color of money.

Sorry BEM, this has a lot to do with Juniper-Ridge, because that's SMALL shit compared to this deal, this is the big picture, and JR is really just about one con-artist doing a Rasputin on dumb fucking city hall.

Anonymous said...

If developer negotiates in good faith but a DDA is not executed and the Exclusive Negotiating Agreement is terminated, the City will reimburse developer and investor 75% of their masterplanning, design, legal, marketing and related expenses, up to a maximum reimbursement of $2,500,000. (emphasis ours)

The Source Weekly ( 9/12/07 ) actually beat the Bulletin to the punch on this one (here). Either way, the news has left many who have questioned the city on its approach to Juniper Ridge to wonder if the city's actions are reasonable.

*

The above is just like the M49 bullshit I read all the JR MOU's last year, I had been writing about the $2.5Million to Kuratek forever, and NOT a fucking person cared, and then all of a sudden on Sep 12, 2007 is was DISCOVERED by the SORE.

Let's hope the SORE, the BIGGEST WHORE in TOWN for HOLLERN and his M49 'discover' soon that this is just a pre-1972 rights transfer program so the largest land-owners in Oregon can cash out of their 30 years artificial land lock-up, and shortage creation program.

Anonymous said...

Allows claimants to transfer homebuilding rights upon sale or transfer of properties;

*

The reason M37 passed, that folks felt sorry for Mrs. English, the poor old widow couldn't build a home on her land, guess what she still hasn't?? Why?? She has NO CASH.

Now with M49 SHE can sell that land, and any ass-hole that has money can build whatever they please.

M37 would NEVER have passed, the way they got it to pass is with Mrs. English, now they're going back and 'fixing' it so that everybody that hold's pre-1972 land can make a fortune.

If the folks that passed M37 said it was so the rich could get richer it wouldn't have passed, now they're going to fix it, so the rich can get very rich, and everybody else get's fucked, and Oregon will become FUCKED.

One of the MAIN talking points by the PR bunny's is right now M37 is in LIMBO, limbo is a good thing, it keeps the banks from loaning money to developers.

What M49 will do is make it very clear that if you hold title to pre-1972 no matter WHO you are, you can build anything you wish.

The GREEN of the GREEN are ALL PRO M49, yet its the worst thing to ever have been on the ballot.

Why are all the GREEN fucks so DUMB? Does it really require stupidity to be GREEN? or is it just a code-word?

Remember if you see someone talking Green in Central Oregon, it means they're on the Boss Hogg Hollern Payroll.

tim said...

By the way, it should be easy to find a multitude of arguments against. In fact, the voters pamphlet will have the MOST pro and con arguments in the history of all ballot measures. It dwarfs the giant M37 booklet.

So don't worry. If you want to read both pros and cons, there will be plenty in the pamphlet.

Anonymous said...

http://bend.craigslist.org/rfs/445514455.html

...

Here's a starter tumble weed farm right in the heart of Redmond. A read starter home, for under $200k, 1200 sq-ft never lived in, and your own tumble weed garden, these weeds are so big you could lose your children.

Why people that are trying to sell homes make a feeble attempt to make them attractive??

Who says there are no affordable homes, this seller will take anything.

Anonymous said...

So don't worry. If you want to read both pros and cons, there will be plenty in the pamphlet.


*

Any idiot with $50, or a 1,000 aliases can fill up the pamphlet, nobody reads the actual proposal, they just read the funny pros & cons, and they can be funny.

M49 is sadly not about entertainment, but its also going to be the most OVER-MARKETED OVER-HYPED measure in initiative history. Desperate rich, do desperate things in desperate times.

At least the State will make a fortune on all the pros & cons.

Anonymous said...

The pivot of M39 was Dorothy English, a granny on TV that didn't get to put up an outhouse on her land, and thus had to walk miles to the shitter every AM. A sad fucking story, but it worked, and it got M37 passed.

To this day ol dorothy english, still doesn't have that fucking outhouse on her land. Why pray tell? Because she has no cash.

Now with M49 she can sell that land, and buy a house with a bathroom at the senior floor at the Breeze Plaza.

Anonymous said...

Well timmy, if you really did read the text of M49, then that means that two people in Oregon have read it, and I doubt anyone else will.

The BULL and SORE are 100% behind M49, as its going to 'fix' all the problems created by M37. Of course there are never no specifics of how.

Sometime in probably a year, e.g. after it passes the BULL or SORE will discover the passage about 'transference' of pre-1972 right to new buyers, and then they'll be against M49, after its too late.

This is just like less than a month ago when the BULL & SORE on the same day discovered that KURATEK gets $2.5M. It had been in the MOU for a year, but it took the BULL to tell people what was in the doc to make it real.

Like todays MANDATE from BEM, the fucking AIG deal has been smoking for months, and BEM gets all worked up today because BULL now says it a legitimate topic of conversation. I hope someday BEM learns to get ahead of the curve.

I can't wait until the BULL tells BEM its OK to talk about transferring pre-1972 rights to new buyers, aka M49.

People in this town have a real fucking hard time reading, e.g. until Uncle Bull reads the bedtime story to them. Since the beginning of the year I have been publishing and commenting on the MOU crap, and not a fucking comment from anyone. Then in September it becomes a legitimate topic, and the SORE proudly announces that it found the secret MOU's.

The real message here from IHTBYB & BEM is that no all topic's are verbatim, until UNCLE BULL has turned on the green light.

Welcome to Oregon. Welcome to Bend.

Anonymous said...

The real message here from IHTBYB & BEM is that no all topic's are verbatim, until UNCLE BULL has turned on the green light.

*

Whoops, "ALL topics are VERBOTEN, until uncle BULL turns on the green-light".

Anonymous said...

DID YOU KNOW THESE FACTS ABOUT
JUNIPER RIDGE?


1. Juniper Ridge will accommodate over 18,000 new jobs for Bend.

2. At build-out, Juniper Ridge will generate every year:

* A local economic impact of over $1.5 Billion
* Over $50 million in annual tax revenues to the City, County and State
* $5 million to schools, $3 million to police and fire, $1.5 million to parks, $600,000 to libraries, and over $3 million to the General Fund

3. Compared to the earlier all-industrial plan, the mixed-use Juniper Ridge master plan will have nearly twice the annual economic impact ($1.5 Billion compared to $800 million), and be completed in one third the time (30-35 years versus 80-90 years).

4. Of the estimated 2,550 vacant acres needed for housing and related uses in the proposed UGB expansion, only 350 acres would be at Juniper Ridge.

5. Juniper Ridge will generate over $50 million in fees (called System Development Charges, or SDCs) for local road improvements, sewer upgrades, and other City projects all outside of Juniper Ridge.

6. Juniper Ridge has been planned by Cooper Robertson & Partners, the nationally-recognized leader in new urbanist, traditional neighborhood development.

7. The design firms for Juniper Ridge have also successfully planned and implemented master plans for Harvard, Yale, Caltech, MIT, and Stanford, among many other universities.

8. All buildings, parks and infrastructure at Juniper Ridge will incorporate best practices in sustainable design.

9. The City expects its investment in Juniper Ridge to be repaid many times over by excess land sale revenues.

10. Juniper Ridge will be the home of the new Central Oregon Performing Arts Center, a 2,000-seat performance hall hosting music, dance, theater, lectures and other signature cultural events.

11. The project and the Developer, not the City, are guaranteeing a 20% return to the Investor. The General Fund is not at risk.

12. The majority financial partner for the $30 million is AIG, the world's largest insurance company. AIG has investments throughout the world and is a major investor in sustainable technology and alternative energy.

13. The Boyd Acres Neighborhood Association strongly supports the development direction of Juniper Ridge. As the adjoining neighborhood, they would have the most to gain or lose from its development. See BANA's letter on the City's web site.

14. Juniper Ridge will provide a mix of housing types for all income levels and ages.

15. The money generated from Juniper Ridge will help fund solutions for numerous City and County improvements, including new roads and utility connections.

16. After advertising nationally seeking a master developer, the City Council chose Juniper Ridge Partners unanimously over two other qualified candidates.

17. Other than Juniper Ridge Partners, no local development companies made a proposal to develop Juniper Ridge.

18. Juniper Ridge Partners and their consultants have met with the school districts, park district, ODOT, the Central Oregon Irrigation District, the Chamber of Commerce, Central Oregon Builders Association, neighborhood groups, educators, the public library, affordable housing groups, and the performing arts committee among many other groups to get their input and advice.

19. Juniper Ridge Partners has agreed to work exclusively on Juniper Ridge, so they will not have any conflicts of interests in other projects.

20. The principals of Juniper Ridge Partners have over 50 years' combined experience in residential and commercial real estate, specializing in mixed-use, new urbanist, award winning development. Ray Kuratek has lived full time in Bend area since 2001, and first developed in Oregon in 1983.

Anonymous said...

19. Juniper Ridge Partners has agreed to work exclusively on Juniper Ridge, so they will not have any conflicts of interests in other projects.

*

If you were getting $60k/mo, plus $2.5M golden-parachute would you have a day job?

JRP is ONE person, why does the city always talk like its an army??

tim said...

Watch the ads. There will be big money spent on this measure.

Anonymous said...

homebuilder is marking homes down from $630,000 to $285,000. The front-page story includes a large graphic: "$630,000 - current residents -- $285,000 prospective residents"

A San Francisco Bay Area homebuilder can't sell all the houses it built in a development in Manteca. Current residents paid up to $630,000 for a 3-hour round-trip commute. But now they're auctioning the remaining homes, starting at a more realistic price of $285,000.

Anonymous said...

The Bulletin

Investors back out of Juniper Ridge deal

Published on: 8/31/2006

Stockbridge Capital Partners LLC is no longer willing to put $30 million into developing Juniper Ridge, master developer Ray Kuratek said
"It's too tough of a deal. There's a lot of angry people in Bend. The Bend council is not united," Kuratek said.
...
Instead, Kuratek has been the go-between.

Attempts by The Bulletin to reach Stockbridge Capital were unsuccessful.

*

Read the carefully from Aug 2006, note Kuratek observes that folks in Bend are angry, note that BULL trys to contact stock-bridge, and is unsuccessful, this is because stock-bridge is Kurateks LLC for his Bayview gig he was doing in cali. This is the kind of reporting that the BULL has done all along.

BULL say Kuratek is the go between, does that mean he talks to himself? How in the fuck can the folks at the BULL call themselves reporters?

FYI, the deal fell through because UGB backed out once the MOU was forced public, it took Kuratek one year to get the AIG to commit to the deal and the city to guarantee the 20%/yr.

Anonymous said...

$630,000 - current residents -- $285,000 prospective residents"

*

This is Bend Oregon, all those BT, Shevlin, highlands, awbrey, its all going to fall from $750k to below $300k.

All along we have predicted that mongolian suburbs were fucked.

The best part is this is the mothers milk, these calis make up the majority of second home ownership in Bend.

Anonymous said...

$630,000 - current residents -- $285,000 prospective residents"

*

How in the HELL is Hollern, with his dozens of resorts full of this that cannot sell, how can he survive this implosion.

This is not a land-rich, cash-poor implosion. This is sell the shit below cost before its worth zero from the desert elements.

Just look at the stuff on craigs today, brand new homes covered in tumble-weeds.

The end is near.

Anonymous said...

Watch the ads. There will be big money spent on this measure.

*

Mike Hollern, John Gray, and Phil Knight have already put in over 1/2 a million.

The hypocrisy is that the BULL & SORE talking points of M49 is that its the rich land-owner that is opposing M49, when the TRUTH BE, its the richest men in Oregon that are running the campaign.

This is what draws me to this issue, the absurd hypocrisy, sold as GREEN, and 180 degrees opposite of what the FUCKING CUNTS (HBM CAN YOU READ) at the SORE AND BULL SAY IT IS.


GRAY, HOLLERN, and KNIGHT are having to BUY opposition, just to oppose their own project. Their going to hire a bunch of skin-heads with anti M49 signs.

This is what is so wonderful about Bend PR/MARKETING that IHTBYB is barely touching on, he now mentions it, but doesn't get specific into the actual engine mechanics of the machine itself.

The NUMBER, the VAST NUMBER of people involved in this fraud is horrendous. The GREAT about it is that NOBODY at the BULL or the SORE knows how to read, so like a good NAZI they believe in their cause.

This is why I love HOLLERN, he is the wizard behind the curtain in this town, and has the whole town by the balls trembling in fear.

Mark twain said truth is stranger than fiction, but here in Bend we don't have to make any thing up to laugh our ass off.

I love Bend.

The whole fraud only works because nobody in Bend knows how to read, or cares, and everybody waits to think until the BULL tells them what to think, and what topic is permissible to discuss.

Anonymous said...

12. The majority financial partner for the $30 million is AIG, the world's largest insurance company. AIG has investments throughout the world and is a major investor in sustainable technology and alternative energy.

*

Simple incremental-ism, lets remember here that $30M, will not even pay for the roads and the toilet to flush. The TRAM in PDX was supposed to cost $5M, and ended up costing $60M.

The $30M is nothing, will only pay the bills to date, and hook the city to a huge debt, and a pay-day lender rate.

Kuratek is simply boiling the frog, slowly, What he care?? This PIG can and should go on forever @ $60k/mo, and $2.5Million when the pink-slip is handed out.

This is a multi-multi hundred million dollar project. Is it all going to be paid at the rate of 20%/yr.

The planners, road builders, excavators, ... will eat this $30M up with three months, and then what??

Using the sleaziest insurance company in the world as a bank? At a mob rate of interest? Look at the precedence Bend is sitting here when they look for money in the future, every pay-day lender is going to be asking Bend for +25%/yr.

Anonymous said...


http://www.zoominfo.com/people/Kuratek_Ray_856985956.aspx

Kuratek & Hollern, too many LLC's, and too little time.

Anonymous said...

This is really curious, and thanks to Land Use Watch for catching it. It seems that Oregonians In Action's Dave Hunnicutt understands that Measure 37 has gone too far in the minds of most Oregonians.

"I think the average Oregonian would like to see some sort of compromise, not a repeal - and that's exactly what (Measure) 49 is," Hunnicutt told the Eugene Register Guard.

***

The OPPOSITION to M49, the ONLY opposition, 'was' OIA ( oregonians in action ), and now even they have seen the light and now support M49, look here hunnicutt the OIA head-dog and promoter of M37, loves M49.

Thus M49 has NO opposition, its all a myth, this is the most incredible PR Measure in Oregon History.

OIA back M37, they got it passed, they got as much as they could get, but now that Hollern&Gray need to sell THEIR LAND, ( recall M37 was an attempt to neuter SB100 1972 LCDC GRAY&HOLLERN's love-child ), NOW that GRAY-HOLLERN need to sell land, they come out with M49, and its OK, by all.

What's good for Gray-Hollern, is good for ALL Oregonians. Even the Green Ones, especially the Green, the color of money.

This is completely incredible.

Anonymous said...

The tactic is crude and all too familiar: Scare and confuse the voters, even if you have to lie to do it. - HBM
*
HBM, if you bothered to read M49 text months ago, they wouldn't have been able to make you in to their cheer-leader.
Certainly Hunnicutt doesn't give a shit about Oregon Environment, but Hollern&Gray don't give a shit about anything other than money either.
Look at it this way Hunnicutt loves M49, but he still needs to get his troops all worked up, and get donations, running OIA is his biz, its how he makes his living, just like the SORE does from advertising, Hunnicutt needs to be the opposition so he can get campaign donations to 'fight m49', but hell he knows it will pass, he wants it to pass.
This is all a well orchestrated quid-pro-quo con-job.

tim said...

>>The whole fraud only works because nobody in Bend knows how to read, or cares, and everybody waits to think until the BULL tells them what to think, and what topic is permissible to discuss.

Well, that's absolutely right. And you've looked at that before yourself. It's because so many of us (me included) aren't really invested here.

It takes time to care about a place--years and years--and we haven't been here long enough to truly care. Our hometowns are somewhere else.

Mine is a middle-sized midwest poster-town for the depressing loss of large industries.

Bend has attracted (apparently deliberately) people who like to move. When Bend sucks, we leave. When crime picks up and houses are being reclaimed by the desert, we'll go.

What has become clearer to me from reading this blog is the path that Bend might take to get to suckiness.

Anonymous said...

What has become clearer to me from reading this blog is the path that Bend might take to get to suckiness.

*

If you look closely there is NO orchestration, you have KURATEK raiding city-hall with clintons approval. You have Hollern pushing smart-growth up the ass of the city, you every developer getting rich, ... Breeze, Dubois, running their party's at the Plaza. You had Hummel going down to LA and buying buses for tons of CASH without approval. It's like every RAT at city hall has a checkbook. It's completely out of fucking control, their is NO over-sight on fraud or out right theft in this town, nor does anyone care, but they should care, because in the end its we the people who will get the bill.

The rats are completely running wild, everyone trying to get theirs before its too late. Poor leadership of course is the problem, and its a sinking ship, so EVERYONE is trying to grab their own lifeboat, and FUCK everyone else.

This town is in a world of fucking hurt, and the old guard has sat this one out so fucking long, that once they get off their ass this town will be so deep in debt, and fucked up that most will move-on, even the old timers.

Anonymous said...

hell its not just bendbust that says that nobody here cares, even boss-hogg-hollern says "non placement bound people, without real children, and real jobs".

Bend is a town of gypsy's and god has told everyone of them that they have the natural right to steal, pillage, ...

Anonymous said...

This is one of the funniest BULL story's in a while. Is duBois an official?? Really, is she an un-elected check-write for the city??

The keyword is 'flat', old bend-bust calls it 'RE-Paralysis'. Remember folks there is NOTHING under the floor to support anything.

p.s. now IHTBYB & BEM can enter, as the BULL has given the GREEN-LIGHT on what topics are permissible today.


Market looks to be on plateau for now
Buyers are likely to encounter more bargains, officials say

By David Fisher / The Bulletin
Published: October 11. 2007 5:00AM PST

The key word in Central Oregon real estate this year is flat.

Flat sales.

Flat price appreciation.

And, at least in the short term, a flat outlook for all three of the major real estate sectors — residential, commercial and industrial.

But, in the wake of a flattened real estate boom, there may be some bargains hiding in the dust for anyone who’s willing to look for them.

That was the basic picture drawn Wednesday morning by two panels of developers, appraisers and brokers put together by Opportunity Knocks, a volunteer executive training group, as part of Economic Development for Central Oregon’s annual Industry Month.

About 80 people turned out to hear Bratton Appraisal Group President Dana Bratton; Renaissance Homes owner Randy Sebastian; Hayden Homes President Dennis Murphy; Cohen Skovborg LLC Principal Jordy Skovborg; MHi Corp. owner Jean Wood; Fratzke Commercial Real Estate Advisors broker Brian Fratzke; and Realtors Norma DuBois and Priscilla Martin dissect the state of the local real estate industry in the Central Oregon Realtors Association’s Fourth Street conference room.

In residential real estate in particular, numbers paint the picture of a boom that has flattened, particularly in Bend and Redmond.

Sales per month have hovered between 100 and 150 all year in Bend, Bratton noted, down from 250 to 300 per month during the boom summers of 2004 and 2005.

Prices have remained stuck, too. The median price of a home in Bend through the first three quarters of the year stood at $349,000, according to the Central Oregon Multiple Listing Service, down a scant 0.57 percent from the same period last year.

In Redmond, the median stood at $253,000, down about 2.7 percent from the third quarter of 2006.

Sellers are coming up with creative financing options to get buyers to bite, DuBois said. Paying closing costs, buying percentage points off of mortgages for the first few years — things like that.

First-time buyers, in particular, have been weighted down by tighter lending standards in the mortgage markets, Murphy said. Affordability is still an issue for many — even a $200,000 house at the bottom end of Bend’s or Redmond’s housing market can be tough for a first-time buyer to swing, especially if the banks require a significant amount down. And buyer psychology is skittish.

“Our cancellation rates have been at about 10 percent, pretty much forever,” Murphy said. “In the last six months it’s gone up to 30 percent.”

Still, there are signs that the market could be in sight of its bottom, Bratton said. One of his clients is planning to bring new homes on the market soon priced at $199,000, undercutting most of the competition, and prices on the resale markets are softening.

The Bend real estate market would have to shrink the number of houses available for sale from the 1,500 range, where it is today, to about 700 to shift from a strong buyer’s market to more of a balanced market, Bratton figured. Builders this summer have built at a rate of about 40 houses per month — about 80 below the city’s traditional “appetite” for new homes, driven by in-migration.

At that rate, the market would stabilize in about 10 months — if in-migration stays at traditional rates.

That might be a big if.

Sebastian, who sells homes in the mid- to higher-range, mostly to second- or third-time buyers, said the bulk of his buyers in Bend this summer have come from the Portland region, where the real estate market remained relatively strong this summer. Potential buyers from other regions are having a harder time selling their current homes to make the move.

Not all bad

There have been notable bright spots this year. Seventy-three homes valued at $1 million or more have sold so far this year, DuBois said, the same number that sold in all of 2006. And townhome and condo sales, largely driven by “lifestyle” buyers looking for low-maintenance living, have surged in Bend, rising 21 percent from 2006’s third-quarter levels to 167 sales through the third quarter so far this year.

And despite the overall market’s gloomy numbers, DuBois and Bratton said they see no signs of panic, despite projections of a deeper downdraft from some quarters.

A conference facilitator put up an overhead graph from Bend money manager and radio commentator Bill Valentine, showing Valentine’s projection that the Bend real estate market will perform 50 percent worse than the national economy in the downturn, since it outperformed the nation by about that amount on the way up in the boom years.

“It sure doesn’t feel that way,” DuBois said. “I mean, just being out there in the marketplace and working with buyers and sellers. Sure it’s taken a hit, but it doesn’t feel like we’ve gone the complete opposite of where we were. We’re just making a correction.”

Sebastian said he plans to build about 200 homes next year companywide, with about 50 to 60 going up in Bend. Murphy said about 100 of his company’s 600 starts will be in Central Oregon.

On the investment side, Bratton said he’d put money into developable Bend residential land, figuring that the city’s urban growth boundary expansion will remain stalled until the market feels a shortage again.

On the commercial side, Skovborg, Bratton and Fratzke predicted that price appreciation will remain flat on Bend office projects, with lease rates headed for increases and cap rates — the ratio between a building’s net income and its price — rising a bit into the 6.5 percent range.

In Redmond

The Redmond office market is expected to remain weak, Wood said, partly because executives who move their companies to Central Oregon tend to prefer to build or buy in Bend if they can. But Redmond industrial expansion, buttressed by $6.50- to $7-per-square-foot land prices that are about half the price of industrial lands in Bend, is expected to remain strong, she said.

Also, Redmond’s downtown retail space — still mired in low lease rates and highway-level traffic — could be a good buy, since a new bypass is under construction to relieve much of the traffic pressure, and local business and political leaders are already searching for ways to revitalize the area, Wood said.

Bratton said he sees contrarian profit opportunities in buying Bend housing, selling high-priced Bend industrial land, and buying buildings in downtown Redmond.

“I think in five years people will say, ‘Gee, I wish I had purchased back in ’07 or ’08, when, you know, it was a mess down there,’” Bratton said, referring to downtown Redmond. “I believe you’ve got to find it when it’s in an ugly stage.”

In a broader sense, Fratzke said, there are probably profits to be made as well on commercial land in Bend or industrial land in Redmond, but at current prices it will take some work and thought to make most projects bloom.

“You can’t just buy it, hold it and flip it,” Fratzke said. “Those people are gone. You’ve got to somehow add value, or know someone who can add value.”

Anonymous said...

At that rate, the market would stabilize in about 10 months — if in-migration stays at traditional rates.

That might be a big if.


*

There's that BIG 'IF', all of Bend is riding on the BIG 'IF', Cessna, Kuratek, ... Hell even duncan is waiting for the bags of money to fall from the sky.

This town has always been waiting for the cali in the silver saddle, with dollars falling. It's a BIG 'IF' to base all hope that he's coming.

Ten months of inventory? Shit priny has 28 years, and bend has over five years.

We will bomb Iran, and fuel will go to $120/barrel, and gas will cost $12/gal. NOBODY is coming to Bend.

It's like that town that had $800k homes drop to $300k with three hour commutes. Once the fuel sky-rockets, and nobody can afford to HEAT bend mcMansions, or drive to Bend. Then bend becomes a ghost town.

Anonymous said...

“I think in five years people will say, ‘Gee, I wish I had purchased back in ’07 or ’08, when, you know, it was a mess down there,’” Bratton said, referring to downtown Redmond. “I believe you’ve got to find it when it’s in an ugly stage.

*
Bratton is right about one thing, there is some UGLY SHIT in Redmond.

Did all see that tumble-weed tract in craigs-list yesterday??


If we have ugly shit at distressed prices will they really come?

What happened to the rich golden people that we were the marketing target??

Desert mcMansion sub-divisions are worth ZERO hanta-virus deer-mice villages, that's it. Nobody is coming.

Tumble-weeds and empty crap-shacks in the desert a deer-mice paradise, and deer-mice means hanta-virus.

This is just as bad as the swimming pools full of mosquitos down in Sacramento

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

$289000 Going Back to the Bank Act NOW!!

Bank Appoved Short Sale!!!


http://bend.craigslist.org/rfs/445231086.html

Bank APPOVED!

Anonymous said...

Hey! I want Jimmy Carter to build me a house!!

David L.

Anonymous said...

BEM,

I don't know who is MORE intellectually lazy YOU or HBM.

Want the smoking gun, on Kuratek's History of criminality here it is, but note the city-hall to this day will NOT even read this shit. They're incapable of admitting that they have been conned and have participated in FRAUD themselves.

***

Dear Mr. Costa,

This once idyllic community with a cooperative attitude towards its problems has been changed by its growth into what was recently termed “a city with a dysfunctional staff and government”

The City Council has dug itself into such a hole that it can no longer see the forest for the trees…actually not even the trees.

The council continues to blindly push ahead with its desires for Juniper Ridge, despite the ever-increasing clamor that things must be re-examined or even stopped. The more criticism is raised the more defensive they become. A poll on Juniper Ridge on the KTVZ website currently shows that 33% say they do not have an opinion on the project. Of the remaining 66% with an opinion, 20% support the project while 80% think its is risky and should be slowed down or stopped.

I.
The basic “vision” of the council is for a university, research park, performing arts center, all integrated into a community combing housing and work.

−But, as been shown repeatedly the university concept will not be met by any public funds from the state of Oregon and the cost of starting a private university from scratch does not seem possible for anyone, anywhere in our country, at least in the foreseeable future.

−As the Bulletin itself has said, “There has never been a research park without an established, prestigious university already in place.”

−The history of private, or public, performing arts center has not been good. The Hult Center in Eugene must rely on infusions of funds each year from the Hult family interests. The Circle Star Theater, a private performing arts center that was located in the heart of San Francisco on Highway 101, midway between San Francisco and San Jose failed two times before finally closing its door for good a few years ago. To say nothing of where the $50 million in donations for this center is supposed to come from.

−The plans for the housing and businesses are nice, but appear to be more appropriate for a much more densely populated urban area such as the San Francisco Bay Area.

II.
What basis is there for the council to make itself a major partner in a development venture that will compete with the local private interests (that it is supposed to represent, encourage, and regulate)? No matter how many times Jim Clinton denies it, the legal agreement, the review of all aspects of the venture, the sharing of profits, and the apparent use of city resources to further the partnership’s interests make this quite clearly nothing more than a partnership in a private development venture.

III.
The agreement, at least what we have been shown, includes features that no one with any experience in negotiating large, complicated contracts would ever agree to.

−Giving a single developer the exclusive right to develop 25% of the residential land, 100% of multi-family housing, retail, and a hotel is not reasonable. And, the developer can charge a management fee to all outside developers who participate in Juniper Ridge.

−The developer’s investor would put $15 million up front, with another $15 million committed as a line of credit. This can be recouped in the earliest years by the sale of land, leaving the developer with no financial risk in the project for the rest of its duration.

−Meanwhile the city would guarantee this “investor” a 20% annual return on investment on the entire $30 million. Haven’t we learned anything from PERS?

−The term investor is not correct. This is loan. Anyone with even a basic knowledge of economics knows that when someone commits money to a project and they receive a periodic fixed return this is termed interest. When the funding party receives assurance that it will be paid back first, i.e. have senior claim on assets or cash flows, this is called a secured loan. A sophisticated lender will look at the various credit ratings of the parties in a transaction and do whatever is necessary to commit the party with the best credit to repayment. In other words, this agreement provides for a 20% loan to the City of Bend.

−The City of Bend is putting $40 million into the partnership, as well as the land, as well as providing security for the developer’s loan. In return, the city will not be able to recoup its costs until the project’s vision “succeeds”, currently anticipated towards the end of the 15-20 year development period.

−There are other one-sided points in the agreement, however they are too numerous to mention at this time. The City Council says the above points are not important, since they are just finishing up the final DDA, and that we shouldn’t criticize until after they decide to share the agreement with the public. Let’s just hope that this doesn’t turn into a repeat of their previous actions in dealing with the public.

IV.
Among the many things that have occurred behind closed doors so far, the selection of Ray Kuratek as the developer may be one of the most troubling ones. Although John Russell of the city said many criteria were examined and used in the selection process it is hard to find proof of any.

−Russell stated Trammel Crow was rejected early in the process because their response to his RFQ was “not as responsive or in-depth” as the others. This is questionable since Trammel Crow is one of the largest and most respected developers in the country, has an office in Portland with a senior company manager as it head, and helped create the Microsoft campus in Redmond WA.

−Juniper Ridge Partners is no more than two people who formed the company in order to bid on Juniper Ridge

−Reading Juniper Ridge Partners reply to the RFQ it is difficult to find anything other than platitudes and vague feel-good statements.

−Russell further said, “Juniper Ridge Partners’ experience in developing a successful mixed-use project in San Mateo, CA was one of the key factors in recommending the team to the council.”

−Kuratek’s resume states that he was employed by Stockbridge Capital Partners from 5/94 to present. He further states that he was “responsible for the entitlements and development of a 175 acre, billion-dollar, mixed-use transit development.

−The web site of the Bay Meadows Land Co. (bmlc.com) says Phase I of the project was 91 acres and is complete. Phase II, now being used as race track, is currently seeking final approvals etc. to be able to proceed with any actions.

−Kuratek as claimed that, as the developer of Bay Meadows, he attracted Franklin to his project and would do the same for Juniper Ridge.

A phone call with the facilities manager for Franklin Templeton Funds revealed the following:

-Franklin has been located in the Bay Area since the 1950’s and began planning to build a campus in 1995.

-Kuratek was a consultant to the Bay Meadows Land Company, working for a fee and with no financial interest in the project.

-Kuratek, acting a consultant to the seller (Bay Meadows), helped the Franklin people with public meetings and working through the various regulatory requirements.

-Franklin built their campus entirely by themselves.

−bmlc.com further states, “When Bay Meadows Land company acquired Bay Meadows, approximately 39 acres were already committed by the prior owners for resale to Franklin Resources…An additional 34 acres were also previously committed to by the prior owners. Bay Meadows Land Company was not involved in the design or development of the Franklin Templeton headquarters, the JPI apartments or the Ryland Homes at Bay Meadows.”

−The fact that Kuratek was recently alleged to have opened himself to serious conflict of interest questions on side deals with surrounding landowners has not been realistically addressed by the council.

V.
Maps put out by the city show a steadily focused area for the future UGB. It is no longer well spaced, with land from all parts of the city being included. Almost all the included parcels are in the northeast quadrant of the city, around Juniper Ridge. City staff has stated this is because of their careful and rigorous rating system. When it was questioned why various higher ranked parcels, in other parts of the city, were not included the staff’s explanation was that they had relied on their internal database. When asked if they had ever gone out and actually looked at any of the parcels, they had to admit they had not.

Local developers have stated they will sue the City to have these questionable processes and actions re-examined and corrected.

VI.
Opposition to changing the immediate development from 500 to 1,500 acres has increased in frequency and volume:

The larger parcel highlights issues that cannot reasonably be addressed in the near future. K-12 education, school districts and related questions remain on everyone’s radar. Parks and their future funding are another unanswered question. Traffic issues and relationship with ODOT and its future plans present huge unanswered difficulties. Issues with LCDC are also frequently mentioned.

How many more failed city lawsuits (both present and future) does the public have to pay for? Will the city staff ever be held accountable for the many egregious errors and incompetence they have recently exhibited? How much longer can the city put up with a council that ignores other pressing city problems in order to worry about their partnership? What will it take for city councilors to listen to the voices of the public? How can we force the councilors to face reality and stop kidding themselves about what they’ve been dreaming about?

What can we do as citizens when the councilors continue to refuse to listen and the voters are being forced to consider a recall election? Don’t you think the Bend Bulletin might have voice in helping to resolve this in a more amicable way?

Thanks for reading this.

Peter Schneider

Bend Economy Man said...

BEM,

I don't know who is MORE intellectually lazy YOU or HBM.


Fuck man! Gimme a break!

Anonymous said...

-


Amenities shortage hindering Madras, some say
By Jeff McDonald / The Bulletin
Published: October 11. 2007 5:00AM PST

MADRAS — Job creation is not a problem in this fast-growing part of Central Oregon, but finding the people to staff those positions and creating amenities that will attract those people to town are the top issues facing the city, according to a group of business and community leaders who attended a business roundtable Wednesday.

Madras still needs more restaurants, shopping and cultural options to attract more residents, local leaders said at the event, held as part of Economic Development for Central Oregon’s annual Industry Month.

The Madras Urban Renewal District, which has spent $4.4 million on a variety of projects from blight removal downtown to landscaping projects on North Y Avenue, is the “largest infusion ever of public dollars for economic development in Madras and Jefferson County,” said City Administrator Mike Morgan.

The district was created to invest in a downtown area that is plagued with small lot sizes and low property value and is subject to flooding, Morgan said.

But new residents are needed in order to attract more businesses downtown and support more amenities, such as a new golf course, said Cameron Craig, project manager at Yarrow, a 900-acre subdivision east of town that has begun selling homes priced between $229,000 and the $400,000s. The city needs to continue its investment and bring more professional jobs to Madras, Craig said.

Yarrow home sales have started slow, but could pick up as more are built and an advertising blitz along the Interstate 5 corridor from Vancouver, Wash., to Eugene begins to attract more retirees and young professionals, he said.

“We’re taking some risks, but feel strongly those are going to sell,” Craig said. “We’ve had a lot of hits off the Internet — people like what we’re doing.”

Agriculture and manufacturing, two of the community’s long-established industries, were represented at the roundtable by companies that have a global reach.

Seed broker Central Oregon Seed Inc., which contracts with local farmers to produce and sell local seed crops, said farmers are in decent shape this year due to wheat prices that have reached 30-year highs, driving other crop prices up with them.

Two-thirds of the company’s business goes to Europe, where a strong euro has increased the company’s profits further, Weber said.

“Jefferson County is the number one carrot seed production area in the world by far,” Weber said. “We just want to maintain our market share and integrity.”

Another long-standing employer, Keith Manufacturing Co., faces competition from a Netherlands-based company which buys all its manufactured goods from China.

“We’re struggling most with labor,” said Mark Foster, company president.

The company could begin using robots to assemble a new pallet walker that is sold around the globe, or could use prison labor from the newly opened Deer Ridge Correctional Institution to weld and fabricate the products.

“We have a ready-made work force,” said Parrish Van Wert, community development coordinator of the prison. “If there’s a chance to lose a company or jobs offshore, we want to talk about it first.”

The minimum-security prison has 106 inmates and expects to double that by the end of the year, Van Wert said.

Deer Ridge also has 200 employees, including 19 nurses from outside the region, Van Wert said. Most of the employees came seeking Madras’ “small-town lifestyle,” he said. The county also plans to create an economic development position using lottery money and private investment, and to build a new county courthouse within five to seven years, said Jefferson County Commissioner Mike Ahern.

Anonymous said...

Madras still needs more restaurants, shopping and cultural options to attract more residents, local leaders said at the event, held as part of Economic Development for Central Oregon’s annual Industry Month.

*

Build and they will come to Madras. Here's an idea, why not stop fires all summer.

Who in the hell would want to live in Madras, its smoky all summer, and in the winter the frozen-smoke hangs over the city like darkness.

The next thing we'll be told is that Madras is a resort town.

Anonymous said...

Bem,

It's a challenge, you and HBM know how to write well, and you need to get more involved in Bend, rather than just acting like young kids who like to show us old farts how smart you are.

There needs to be MORE Juniper-Ridge websites, and more debate, and more material available. We have to quit waiting for the BULL to give the GREEN light when a subject is permissible to discuss.

Anonymous said...

New State laws on Bankruptcy, and Debtors Prisons, mean that common people will live their lives as slaves in State Run industrial military prisons producing the goods of war.

*

Todays article about Madras, and the new prison warden up there needing things for his cheap work force. As soon as Oregon re-incorporates the debtor prison, then we can fill Madras full of people working for free, and underbid the chinese and the indians. With the collapse of east-oregon RE, and the imprisoning of debtors central oregon will become quite competitive.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

BEM,

I don't know who is MORE intellectually lazy YOU or HBM.


I am.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...


I don't know who is MORE intellectually lazy YOU or HBM.


And I can only assume that I am "HBM". If so, you are a close second, cuz the "M" is from nowhere I can figure.

IHateToBurstYourMOTHERFUCKINGBubble?

Anonymous said...

I can only assume that I am "HBM"

*

HBM is the mini-me editor of the SORE.

IHTBYB is IHTBYB

Anonymous said...

It's been a long week, so far away from colubmia/cessna, and so close to god ( boss hogg hollern ). I'm glad we can get back to personal insults.

Where is timmy?

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

IHTBYB is IHTBYB

True.

I'm glad we can get back to personal insults.


Me too. Ya crazy fucker.

tim said...

Here I am! Go ahead and insult me. I love it.

tim said...

Every once in a while, the Safeway checker says to me, "You just got a deal on gasoline." And I'm supposed to drive up to Madras to get it. Does that make any sense to anyone? For the first year I was here, I couldn't have even told you which direction Madras was in.

Has anyone been there? What the hell is Madras anyway?

Anonymous said...

Bem wrote a letter to the editor on the subject of AIG's 20%/yr, that's $6M/yr on $30M. That's even better than Kuratek's $720k/yr+$2.5M. These guys are going to let this baby run on forever. PLeeeeeeeeeze someone put a stake through it heart.


http://bendbubble.blogspot.com/2007/10/juniper-ridge-rats-squandering-taxpayer.html

tim said...

>>“We’re taking some risks, but feel strongly those are going to sell,” Craig said. “We’ve had a lot of hits off the Internet — people like what we’re doing.”

Maybe they can give up on the houses and make money off Goggle ads.

Anonymous said...

What the hell is Madras anyway?

*

Does uncle bendbust have to tell the story about Rajaneesh Puram, and how Madras was created? Antelope, ... Madras. You realize that Madras is a famous town in India.

Just head 45mi north, on I97. Look for the Safeway on the right, before you head up the big hill. They call this area the BIG-NORTH-Y, why? Because they just dumped $10 Million dollars into the "Y".

Three years ago the Oregonian had story's targeted every weekend in the RE section about how Madras was going to be the next Sunriver. They built the crap-shacks, they even made them look like NWXC crap-schacks, and today the BULL bitches because there are NO amenity's for yuppy's in Madras.

Follow the money. Back in 2002 when Bend got HOT, a lot of locals in Bend, dumped all their money in Prineville and Madras, and drove up the prices. Now Priny and Madras have +10/20 years of inventory, and the Bend 'investors' are fucked.

Where are the high-end shops going to go in Madras? Next to the warm-spring injun drinking holes? Or the meth-lab shops? or the cowboy saddle shops? Perhaps all those old Les Schwab store-fronts can become coffee shops and wine bars for yuppys.

There's a lot of reasons why it didn't play out as planned, but the number one reason is that Madras SUCKS. Nobody thought about that little fact, they just assumed all the calis would automatically IN-FILL madras, once they realized they couldn't afford Bend, besides its ONLY an hour drive to Bend.

Anonymous said...

Craig said. “We’ve had a lot of hits off the Internet — people like what we’re doing.”

*

Are they doing those live web-cams? Freaky Sex?

Does anyone have the link??

Anonymous said...

Cameron Craig, project manager at Yarrow, a 900-acre subdivision east of town that has begun selling homes priced between $229,000 and the $400,000s. The city needs to continue its investment and bring more professional jobs to Madras, Craig said.

*

Why don't they JUST say "Brooks FUCKING Resources", Craig is a NOBODY, why don't they just say ...

"Boss HOGG HOLLERN says the CITY of Madras MUST take more taxpayer money from the people of MADRAS, and BUILD 24 fucking golf courses, just like Bend"

The 'manager' of Yarrow ( BROOKS/HOLLERN ), says the REASON the shit-shacks aren't selling is that the city isn't putting its money into AMENITY's for amenity vultures?? Where in the fuck are the ranchers that built that town? Did they all die? Did Brooks already take over Madras city-hall? Is the Madras city-hall just a bunch of yes-men like in Bend?

Brooks crap-shacks in bend are no longer selling either, and we have ton's of golf courses, notice that REASON #1 for Brooks failure is ALWAYS that the taxpayers are providing enough for Brooks.

Anonymous said...

Maybe they can give up on the houses and make money off Goggle ads.

*

These cunts are so dot-com, they're going to get rich on HITS.

HELL ol boss-hogg-hollern is going dot-com, no more bricks and mortar, just pic's of crap-shacks on the internet.

IPO time, timmy there may be a job here.

Anonymous said...

My guess is why Brooks Resources is getting ton's of hits on Yarrow, is that everyone wants to look at tumble-weeds.

Two possible sources are the OSU Extension Service Madras Experiment Station and ...... tumbleweed amaranth

The OSU EXT near yarrow, has one of the finest tumble-weed collections in the world.

Anonymous said...

BEM SHUT's Down JR

http://bendbubble.blogspot.com/2007/10/juniper-ridge-rats-squandering-taxpayer.html

Anonymous said...

I read the article about the Phx/Queen Creek Meltdown. I am a Phx transplant to Bend. Keep in mind that the city they are reffering to is about 1 hour 20 minute commute to downtown. You couldn't pay me to live in that shit hole. I was in the Bay area last week, ran into this article in the San Jose Mercury that plopped out front of my hotel room.

http://www.mercurynews.com/search/ci_7116307?IADID=Search-www.mercurynews.com-www.mercurynews.com&nclick_check=1

tim said...

>>The city needs to continue its investment and bring more professional jobs to Madras, Craig said.

Yeah, good luck. It's not like Bend or Redmond or Prineville or Sisters can get them, but you got a shot up there in Madras. Maybe you can get Wachovia or Bank of America to move their headquarters there and you can have a downtown full of bankers. You'll need something like Juniper Ridge to attract them.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Has anyone been there? What the hell is Madras anyway?

Dude, you haven't been to Sisters, you haven't been to Madras... how do you get to Portland? Are you one of them 900lb guys that has to be lifted by a crane out of a hole cut in the side of your house? Yeah... me too.

Madras is the meth-cooker capital of the known Universe. 8 out of 5 illegal aliens go to Madras to set up their meth-crack house when they are released from prison. That's why Deer Ridge was put there... easy transport of prisoners to & from the streets of Madras. They are actually tried & convicted on the bus ride to Deer Ridge.

Anonymous said...

I read the article about the Phx/Queen Creek Meltdown.

*

Do a search of this thread for 'queen creek', and you'll see that IHTBYB published the whole story earlier in the week.

Anonymous said...

Garzini, Holzman, and Kuratek siamese tri's that share common asshole, and BEM has plugged their rectum.

http://bendbubble.blogspot.com/2007/10/juniper-ridge-rats-squandering-taxpayer.html

*

Shit BEM, if you google "kuratek juniper ridge" your "letter to the BULL" comes up #1.

You rock dude, right some more good stuff on Juniper Ridge.

tim said...

You have me mistaken with someone else. I have been to Sisters plenty of times.

Just not Madras. My brother went through it coming down from Seattle and he said "don't bother."

Anonymous said...

You have me mistaken with someone else.

*

It's ok, there are as many aliases here that call themselves 'timmy' as there are that call themselves 'anonymous'.

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