Monday, October 22, 2007

The Collapse of Bend Has Begun

I don't know if anyone else got this feeling, but the din on the Bearish Buzz Meter seemed to redline for most of the week. There just seemed to be a non-stop cacophony of intense negative sentiment towards housing primarily, but the masses are starting to grasp the effects that wiping out trillions in Bubble wealth is going to have on the rest of the economy.

Starting locally, you can see the deleterious effects overblown housing prices are having on industry. After engaging in what are almost certainly under-the-table dealings with Columbia Air higher-ups, Cessna stated that it would keep a dramatically scaled down Columbia in Bend, only if it's rent was cut in half.

Although they probably will at some point, Cessna doesn't really address any other cost as a contingent reason for keeping Columbia, other than real estate costs. The real estate costs aren't just some small, insignificant side issue here: It's the primary driver of Cessna's decision. Columbia is just the tip of the iceberg.

Industry is evacuating Bend like there's an Ebola epidemic here. And many companies, Cessna included, probably are thinking that price per sq ft on their rented space is their primary real estate cost driver, and it's really not. The high cost of residential homes is indirectly borne by every company here. How do you think rents & mortgages get paid?

That $1 million per week in operating losses quoted by Columbia officials is going to pay for, among many other things, employees & their real estate needs. In fact real estate costs are among the highest costs for local working Bendites (some of the highest in the U.S.), and therefore one of the highest costs for local businesses.

I've said this till I'm blue in the face, but the inflation caused by high home (and commercial RE) prices is pervasive; it'll invade everywhere. Columbia Air, Bend Tarp & Liner, Oregon Woodworking, and Seaswirl are just the tip of the iceberg. These companies are either folding or moving almost entirely due to real estate costs & it's after effects.

Companies are UNABLE to hire employees here. Why? Because no one can live here on peanuts anymore. "Poverty with a view" used to be doable here. You could live dead simple, go agrarian, or even as BendBust has suggested, go into "hunter/gatherer" mode to make ends meet. "Poverty with a view" just is impossible nowadays... maybe in Burns, but not here.

So what companies are really faced with is this: Can I make the mortgage payments on the typical Bend home, plus all the other necessities of life for each of my employees to produce the goods/services my company makes at a competitive price? And the answer is becoming an overwhelming "No".

The economics of staying & working in Bend is fast becoming an untenable proposition for thousands of people, because it is completely impossible for the companies located here. I think I read that the typical Bend family needs to make something like $25/hr for each working adult to survive here. 98% of all Bend companies cannot pay a wage anywhere close to that. Somethings gotta give.

The shrill din of bearishness recently has become almost unbearable. We're almost certainly in a recession, and it is almost certainly due primarily to deflating home prices. Some people wonder why I would even have to affirm such an obvious fact... but read some of the comments, there are still a decent sized contingent of True Believers. So we are being pushed into recession because ALL home prices are declining (not just subprime), and homes are the primary "container" of wealth in this country.

And the U.S. home market has experienced a faint shadow of what Bend has gone through in the past 5 years. We literally hit the Housing Bubble Lottery Jackpot. Probably not a single other town in the U.S. that has done as well as Bend. Probably less that 1 in a 1,000 that have done as well as Bend in the past 20 years; we went from half the national median to almost double at the dead white-hot top last year.

So what happens here? Everyone else is worried about a nasty recession due to an appreciation slump that should make the average Bendite laugh. I don't think people will be laughing long. The contagion of RE inflation will reach into every nook & cranny in our local economy, even more so than it has already. Combine that with a complete cessation of lending on what has essentially been a proxy for Americans income: their housing ATM.

And the bearishness became almost intolerable. Look at last weeks comment count: Over 300 comments, many of the grave-dancing variety. Some really severe beating on those who have used local rags as their own PR/Marketing tabloids for spreading rampant misinformation. The local media & the local RE machine are complicit in pumping the Bend Dream to levels that are simply unsustainable. And this blog has take more than it's share a swipes at them for it, and most deservedly so. In fact, I consider the uncovering of blatant lies by local media as being one of the primary goals of this blog.

So Phase I, "The Recognition of The Bubble & All It's Terrible Consequences" seems to be happening, and with some decidedly furious intensity in the past week. And I'll admit that on a personal level, I get a bit of "validation satisfaction" from that. But then I start thinking about what's really on the other side of this thing. And not just from a selfish perspective of, "Hey, it'll be great! I'll finally be able to afford to buy that house I've always wanted at a rock-bottom price! Cool!". But from a real all-inclusive viewpoint: From that perspective, I'm actually pretty sure I WON'T be able to buy that house I've always wanted to because of the vicious after-effects of what the RE inflation has wrought; a completely destroyed industrial sector and a gutted business base.

There won't be anything here for me (and many, MANY others) when housing gets to very attractive levels. If you can buy for ALL CASH and have a reliable income stream that is 100% independent of the local economy, then you will be one of the rare individuals who will be able to capitalize on the Implosion of Bend. There is the occasional commenter who seems to intimate that they have a steady local job at attractive wages, plenty of savings, and a cash cushion, and are therefore pretty much immune to a local downturn. But I really start to wonder how secure ANY job is around here. I know people who moved to Bend to work at Columbia, and until recently fit this bill to a T. But they are now fully aware that they may lose their job and have to relocate. And they also know they are underwater on their home by $100K, which is where a lot of their "savings" was. They're not broke... but they are in a definite crunch, because they MUST sell their home in order to keep their income stream alive.

If the rest of the country goes into recession, Bend will almost certainly experience something akin to a depression. Even Bill Valentine said that since Bend went up 50% more than the rest of the country (only 50%?), it'll experience a commensurate decline. And the collapse of Bend, while late in coming, has begun. And we are starting to see it manifest itself in a number of ways.

First, Becky Breeze, a much maligned target for RE fibbery, has not sold nearly the unit volume at The Plaza that she claims. Whether it's "most", "about 25%", or whatever she is claiming now, it seems that only 2-3 Plaza condos have sold. Why would she lie? And lie about information that is publicly available? I know she was long schooled at the Community College of Creating Perceived Shortages, as were most area Realtors, but I wonder if she (and others) have to make such claims to assuage the fears of those they are indebted to.

Becky & Tom seem to be in a World of hurt with The Plaza. It is just a terribly conceived idea. It's the sort of thing that could only work in a real urban center, where there truly exist intractable land shortages. And at the time they were in the planning stages, I'm sure it seemed like Bends "land shortage" would only become more acute. So they went forward, completely oblivious to the fact that high land prices "produced" land out of thin air, all over Bend. Subdividing pretty much became the only game in town at the tail end of the Bend Bubble.

But peruse craigslist, or the Bulletin and you will find we are AWASH IN LAND. It's everywhere (One of the main "suppliers" is chameleon "Destination Resorts".) One of the "unintended side effects" of RE inflation; where once there was none, there is a tsunami. Every inch of Measure 37 approved scrub, is getting chopped into innumerable lots. Becky's wonderful concept both made possible AND destroyed by the RE Bubble. And have no illusions, this same fate awaits virtually EVERY SINGLE LARGE RE PROJECT IN CENTRAL OREGON. Lafky's Mercato? Dead. Redmond Water Park? Dead. Yarrow? Dead. IronHorse? Dead. Remington Ranch? Dead. These, all the other chameleon subdiv's, along with Breeze's Plaza will stand as a near permanent testament to the lunacy of the past 3-4 years. For the want of just a few short years of hyper-speculation, this town will be lost.

A commenter from many moons back said they saw a plaque on Arnie Swarens (long-time Sisters Realtor) desk that said something along the lines of, "God, give me the knowledge to not waste the next real estate bubble". Well, it's over. If you've still got skin in the game, you've overstayed and will probably lose everything you made, if not more. If you're out, well Congrats.

But if I were you, I would take my chips and go. The other side of this Mega-Bubble is not likely to be pretty. There will be little if anything to retain business, and the only thing that'll remain is outrageously overpriced vanity businesses -- which will dissipate your winnings far faster than somewhere boring, but less expensive. And they sure as hell ain't going to reflate the Bend RE souffle.

This place is utterly doomed. We've got mind-boggling incompetence in local government, the primary economic engine of the local economy collapsing, the collateral damage of RE inflation slaughtering almost everything else, local media that has no compunction about lying for the sole purpose of frisking every last nickel from locals or immigrants for the benefit of an elite few. All these parties seem bent on absolutely destroying this place.

And that's what has got Paul-doh a little depressed this week. Stock market falling apart, local builders going wholesale with imploding subdiv's, Timmy posting an ever increasing tide of preforeclosure announcements, BendBB posting listing price cuts that are truly stupefying (look at those bad boys! The single digit percent cut is becoming a rarity..), Secretary Paulson stating flat out that housing presents the biggest challenge to the US economy, and a host of other events that you'd think would make a Bearish Bubble Prognosticator positively giddy.

But no. Because I'm starting to get a glimpse of the other side. The Ultimate Product of this Experience can be summed up in 2 words: Human Misery. People getting fired, people losing their homes, peoples hopes & dreams going up in smoke. And for every Becky Breeze or Aaron Lafky whose Super Project ends in a quiet demise, at least 100 "normals", just ordinary people doing ordinary jobs, will also succumb to the Bend Mega Bubble.

And all the "validation" in the World about being dead ass right, will really never compensate for how shitty that makes me feel.

326 comments:

«Oldest   ‹Older   1 – 200 of 326   Newer›   Newest»
IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

And I think I and others have stated that Bend doesn't really have an affordability problem with housing, because renting here is very affordable.

But owning a rental home is VERY dependent on some sort of slow, steady appreciation. The landlord rents the house at rates that are admittedly below what it costs to own (usually 60-80% of buying), then counts on inflation in rents to ultimately bring the rent payments to parity with their mortgage on the property. The price inflation being a direct result of rental rate inflation.

But I am hearing a steady increase in what has been quite obvious to me for quite awhile: Absent rent inflation and the commensurate price inflation, landlords have a strong incentive to sell their rental properties. It's a simple equation: You're paying $3,000/mo on the flipper bait you bought 18 months ago, it is quite obvious you'll NEVER get more than $900/mo, AND you're starting to lose money on valuation... it is a loser any way you slice it.

Ultimately rents will "align" with mortgage payments & hence home prices. They have to. Landlords cannot forever bear the burden of making the payment gap between rents & mortgages. I don't know how it'll happen, but rents & mortgage payments will have to align at some point.

I personally live in a situation that I KNOW to be tremendously cash flow negative for the owner. I also know it's unsustainable. My rent will have to increase substantially, or the home price will have to collapse -- or some of both.

I guess my point is that "renting" as an option for permanently avoiding high RE prices in Bend doesn't seem viable in the long-term. Personally, I think the rent-mortgage payment gap will be completely bridged by falling prices. But it'll be dead slow, and leave chaos & midery in its wake.

Anonymous said...

It's virtually impossible to sell RE now in PDX or Bend. Note recontrust.com ( my favorite foreclosure site ), pdx almost 90, bend almost 50, everywhere else in Oregon, almost nil.

Bend & PDX you can't sell, I'm a land-lord, this summer was hot, all I'm seeing is calis and washy's that have lost their home, and want to move to Oregon. They don't have jobs.

I have a few rentals I would like to sell, especially the commercial stuff, its VERY hard to rent commercial in Bend now. I can see it getting hard to rent residential. In my case I have stuff that I paid less than $100K, sure I could have sole two years ago for $500k, but I didn't today I couldn't sell for $200k, and if I have a rental that sits longer than six months I sell.

I don't want to even get into the business of renting flippers when your payments are more than rent.

I'm talking about property I own FREE&CLEAR!!!!!!! I can't have shit sit empty, it will get tagged!!!!!

All you can do is keep painting cleaning remodeling and drop the price so low that some fish bites.

But I'm seeing now in Commercial a complete absence of fish.

Anonymous said...

I am somewhat on the inside looking out and it's looks really shitty for this town. I hope the best for everyone but hope will only carry Bend so far. The last 30 days have been full of bad news for local business. Bad bad news, not the kind you find in the paper. Yes, that is shit on the fan blades but it's only the beginning.

Anonymous said...

Renting is going to be hard. I need to define the problem I see in Commercial. One of my criteria, is you MUST have an existing sustainable biz, I don't rent commercial to people who would 'like' to start a biz, I don't want to be spending 3-6 months cleaning a commercial up in six months. Normally the goal is at least five years.

Right now in Bend, people with experience are leaving, getting out, ... Which makes it hard for commercial tenants to meet my criteria. Like I said, if a place sits for six months it sells.

On the residential realm, if you have a nice cut inner bend home price below $1k, remember 4X, for renters, and they both work, you might be lucky to get $800/mo with long term security. We're quickly getting back to the old bend of two jobs.

Forever in Bend a house could get you $750/mo, and an apartment $500/mo. I think that wages will drop.

None of the above effects me because I have done this for 30+ years here, the problem I see is for all these people who have mortgages and have to pay other people to maintain the home. Serious bleeding, and if a residential house sits for six months, you may never get it back from deterioration. We know this down-turn will go on until 2012+, and we know with FUEL going to $10/gal, that there will be NO reason on earth for tourists or industry to be in Bend.

I have always said here at best we'll fall back to the sweet years of 1983, boarded up downtown, and lots of sleazy bars. Now we'll have boarded up Franklin-Crossing's, and little else.

Oh ya, we'll have boarded up downtown 'realty-as-art-gallerys'.

Anonymous said...

The last 30 days have been full of bad news for local business.

*

Nothing like a small business to have your own bellwether.

You'll always know months ahead of the curve when things slow down.

The BULL will feel it, there will be a downturn in advertising.

We know from DVA/VCB that a lot of city money is literally transfered to media in this town, thus they might even have a BULL-SHIT survival fund.

Given nobody is buying stuff, advertising is a good thing to kill, when there are no sales you must kill all expense you can.

I think right now, your going to see a lot of minimal spending especially in business. Right now small businessmen are NOT looking to move, upscale, or expand. They're looking to survive.

Anonymous said...

Frankly, while I do now like nor want to see people hurting, especially the regular Joe, something had to happen as this town was out of control.
I am an optimistic but I guess from a personal and perhaps selfish perspective I am glad to see this happening. I want the people who remain in Bend to wake the fuck up and start seeing the problems and take an interest is their community and what they want it to be.
This bubble bursting was the only way to stop the insane greed and growth, and send out that wake up call! Any huge change, whether personal or larger often involves pain, we will get ours. But over time a much better community will emerge IMO - at leats that is what I hope for.
Nice blog this week, you summed it up well.

Anonymous said...

The folks running city hall are still the folks that created the mess.

All they know is PR&MARKETING, and Bend has an infinite check-book.

There is NO budget, there is NO flim-flam party that the city will not finance.

Bend is full of Rasputins, and the city-hall/city-manager will entertain and fund them all.

Sadly only systemic bankruptcy will turn this city around, as too many pigs LIVE at the trough. Note FOR so many in this town, feeding at the city-hall pig trough is the ONLY game in town.

Like BITCH-HOG-HOLLERN says - "No real people, NO real jobs"

DAMN straight bitch-hog, there are NO real jobs in Bend, all that came here simply go to city-hall and propose an event, and get cash. Why work in Bend?????

Then you have Brooks Resources that didn't even pay its share of Infrastructure and now we have wide scale flooding, and the BULL says no easy fix!!!!!!

EASY fix, quit wasting taxpayer money, and MAKE BROOKS retroactively pay the actual cost of infrastructure.

EASY-FIX.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

I know this sort of post is quite a bit less popular than my usual "Gleeful Bloodlust". But it just seemed like one of those weeks where my contrary nature made me start looking for the next shoe to drop.

I think True Believers are in real danger of extinction after a week like this one. The housing market seems to be The Lead Story (or damn close) on the nightly news almost constantly (that's National News... note the curious absence of RE news locally...). It's not an "if" story anymore... it's a "how bad" story, and the answer seems to be "worse than you thought possible".

So what comes after? We're a town absolutely chocked full of Jumbo loan properties when no one can get Jumbos whether they have the income or not, in a town where the income & business outlook is disastrous. Look at our largest manufacturers. It's a Who's Who of housing products. Brightwood, Jeld-Wen, Fuqua Homes, Brians Cabinets, Clearpine Mouldings... and then there's the "second tier" infrastructure builders: Hap Taylor, Hooker Creek. Probably over 80% of local manufacturing jobs are very closely tied to home building, and those that aren't (Columbia, Seaswirl) are in peril. Nothing is safe. If you think your job is safe, it is less an indication about the stability of your job than it is your inability to comprehend the interrelationships inherent in business.

The Aftermath. Man, it's going to be ugly. And I mean so gat damned ugly, I will probably have to read about it from afar. I actually have to work, and I think Bend is about to give a bunch of Cali's an instructional course on what DEPRESSED really means. All these bullshit vanity businesses are going down hard. There are more "high-end" ghost-town specials downtown for sale than anyone knows about. "King of Sole", high end footwear place in the old Hot Box Betty space? For Sale. "Prairie Chic" over next to B&N? That's a Becky Breeze special. Already talked about that art gallery in St Claire & the one on Wall...

Most will probably let you have the place if you'll just pay them for their inventory. That's their optimistic scenario. Shutting down & defaulting on their suppliers & landlord is Option 2.

And these closures are almost 100% driven by totally unrealistic rental rates, which are of course caused by inane purchase prices. Anything over $2/ft downtown is suicide. Hell, anything over $1.50 is Russian Roulette. Downtown will be a abandoned ghost town in 3 years.

And I think when the True Believers & The Gravedancing Bubble Busters are all standing around in 5 years, they wll look around at a town that has been completely decimated by the aftermath of this RE Bubble. Every decent "family wage" business will be gone. There'll be T-shirt shops, knick-knack traps & cruddy art galleries (maybe)... but this sort of stuff gets really old fast. There'll be no diversity, nothing really interesting. You'll be able to go to the movies, take a walk, eat overpriced sushi, and that's about it.

That recent "Don't Worry, Be Happy" mortgage piece by The Bulletin said there are 75,000 homes in Deschutes County, up from 55,000 in 2000. What's this place going to be like when at least half those 20,000 "bubble" units go permanently unoccupied? Vicious cycle, that's what. Anyone who did buy there will try to sell, and once you're selling anyway, people start looking to leave the area completely. Ghost towns beget ghost towns. Mountain View Mall, Ask Duncan.

I just wonder, for those that survive the coming calamity... Is Bend even going to be a town worth staying in if it's crime ridden, devoid of ANY economic opportunity, and awash in abandoned eyesores? I'm starting to see the other side... and like the housing market... it's worse than I ever thought possible,

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

So they went forward, completely oblivious to the fact that high land prices "produced" land out of thin air, all over Bend.

Think "Orion Greens" golf course..

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Getting creative to move houses; Woodhill Homes offers lease-to-own option

In todays paper... anyone got a copy/paste available? :-)

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Funny, but the lead Business story in the Bulletin at about 3:30AM was about Elemental Technology, the co that won the $150K VC competition... gone now. Now it's about planting wheat.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

If you want to read a classic case of inflation contagion, read the piece in the Bulletin today, Harvesting profits by planting wheat
Region's farmers are taking advantage of higher prices


The price increases were much needed in an agriculture industry where crop-growing expenses — fuel, fertilizer and land — have increased, while prices for crops have remained low, according to ag industry representatives.

Statewide, farmers and ranchers recorded the highest gross income in the state’s history at more than $4.8 billion last year, but saw almost a 10 percent drop in net income due to mounting business-related expenses, according to an Oct. 10 report from the Oregon Department of Agriculture.

Central Oregon farmers could begin to see higher profits as the global demand for their products continues to rise, but it won’t make anyone rich, said Ryan Boyle, managing member of Boyle Family Farms LLC, based in Madras.


Higher prices, but lower profits.

Like many farmers, Boyle will use the profits from this year to pay off debts from down years and to invest in new equipment, he said.

“That’s how farming works,” he said. “You hope to get a few good years out of 10.”


Typical boom/bust industry. Massive capacity addition during periods of high prices, makes subsequent years supply glutted with crushed pricing.

But by God, them farmers think a short-term price bubble is all good.

Fuel & RE pricing bubbles will lead to out-of-control inflation soon. Bernanke will want to take back that recent cut soon.

Duncan McGeary said...

Paul-doh.

Don't give up your bloodlust just yet. I still mostly get bland, "Oh, yeah, it's happening where I come from, too."

Or, "Bend will be O.K."

Or, "I think I'll probably buy this winter, maybe in the spring."

Stupid and uninformed is still the prevailing.

Duncan McGeary said...

I mean, I had a conversation just two days ago from a guy who was going to buy this spring.

I'm pretty convinced that on a 350k house, that if you wait less than a year, you could save 50k easy. That's over 5 years of payments for waiting one year.

I'm pretty sure that equation works for every house in Bend.

What kind of fool would buy now?

5 years of years for one year of waiting. Maybe 10 years of payments for waiting 2 years.

But the guy blandly brushed me off.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Anyone who did buy there will try to sell, and once you're selling anyway, people start looking to leave the area completely.

In my head, I was thinking about "there" as Traditions East. I'm not sure that place will make it over the hump...

Don't give up your bloodlust just yet.

No worries. I'll be back to tearing this place a new corn chute in no time...

Stupid and uninformed is still the prevailing.

Your piece, Dreamers. Big plans. Hey, let's build a ballpark in the middle of a corn field! Build it and they will come! A little voice told me so! is very indicative of Blind Optimism that seems to be a recent import. It's Great... till it doesn't work. Then, like climbing Everest, it kills you.

Retrench Folks. It's about to hit the fan like you never thought possible.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

I mean, I had a conversation just two days ago from a guy who was going to buy this spring.

You could sell his name to a Realtor for $10,000!

Anonymous said...

I am wondering with 300 plus comments last week, how many people out there reading this blog are like me........somehow working in or vested in the RE biz, stumble upon this blog and FIRST…...make some useless, NAR inflated , people will always come to Bend, they can telecommute now, supply and demand, not making any more land, bullshit argument. Perhaps even swear off the, "negativism" in this blog because we can, "manifest a good market if we just stay positive, and besides real estate always comes back."

Then time passes and you read a little more, AND start paying attention to REAL numbers...i.e. what is coming on market, what is being sold and you listen to what buyers are saying and the reality what is happening to the mortgage industry begins to sink in.....
All of sudden you can admit the bubble bend created is real------you can see clearly now- AND start to talk to and those FEW in industry that will actually listen and realize most them are still in denial which makes the Bend market even more fucked...

Anyone one else care to admit they have joined the RE Bubble dark side recently? Perhaps now that we can see clearly it is actually leaving the dark side...
I know it is hard to admit , kind of like AA you have to take the first step.
Anyone with me?

Duncan McGeary said...

I suspect you are a rare breed of cat.

Duncan McGeary said...

"Bad, bad, news..." for local business.

Err, what do you know? Anything in specific?

Duncan McGeary said...

pigpen,

I'd be interested to know if you think this new awareness has helped save you money, or if you think it will help in the future?

Duncan McGeary said...

Most people don't like to admit when they're wrong.

Or so I've heard.

Anonymous said...

I'd be interested to know if you think this new awareness has helped save you money, or if you think it will help in the future?
-----
Saved me money....Shit yea, more then I care to admit, glad you all dont charge the commsions that brokers do. I am still not in a great posistion, but my time was much better spent blogging then at a HBA or NAR convention. More importantly (well almost as important) I am no longer trying to walk up an esculater backwards, fighting an uphill battle sucks emotionaly.......soooo much more fun to get out, live simply and watch the WILD RIDE its gonna be....

tim said...

Krusty says:

Let's not forget that the local head of Sony (in that building right next to Breeze's Folly) has said, right in the Bulletin, that hiring is tough now with RE prices so high, and that the last several people who moved here have not been able to buy houses, just rent.

Anonymous said...

I bought a house in Bend several years ago, but I live in CA. I was planning on moving to Bend in 4 or 5 years (around 2011 or 2012). Right now the house is rented and all costs are covered by that. I put in extra principle every month to pay it off faster. I really hope Bend prices drop, but I don't want to see the entire community hosed due its ties the housing market. I bought the houses and intend on moving because I like the community and the proximity to skiing,biking, and rock climbing which I love. I can't move to Bend now because I have to pay down more of the house from CA where I can make much more money. I have no interest in struggling to make ends meet. Even if my renters moved out I could still easily pay the mortgage, but it would take me another 3 or 4 more years to be able to move. I guess the benefit is I'd gain a vacation house but lose the 1100 per month in rent. I love Bend and sincerely hope the community weathers this storm well.

tim said...

>>The housing market seems to be The Lead Story (or damn close) on the nightly news almost constantly (that's National News... note the curious absence of RE news locally...).

Yeah, but note that it's still only 29% of people who admit their house dropped last year and 25% who think that their houses will drop next year.

They're all from Lake Wobegone.

Anonymous said...

No dark side for me, the worst the bubble gets the less chewing gum I have to give bendbb for sex. He used to ask for a full pack, now he's only asking for a stick. In time I figure one month he'll be letting me go around the world for half a stick.

I love bend.

Anonymous said...

I bought a house in Bend several years ago, but I live in CA. I was planning on moving to Bend in 4 or 5 years (around 2011 or 2012).

*

You need a property manager. Call Deschutes Property Management. Ask for Al Koholik.

Anonymous said...

Homer,

I agree with you, your non-specific abstract rants about the sky falling bend really suck.

I guess its damn near impossible to stick to specific issues that can actually fix problems in Bend.

Far better to rant about pigs flying out of realtor asses, and use no specific name other than Breezy Bend.

Keep this post, you could use it over and over every other week, and then only have to write new stuff on alternating weeks. Completely generic, and non-specific. Have you thought about a government job?

tim said...

>>Have you thought about a government job?

He better have. Won't be much other than that in Bend in two years.

Anonymous said...

I have been looking at job openings in the bulletin and on the Oregon state employment site. There isn't shit out there. I have been self employed in various things over the last 8 years, and haven't had to look for a job since I moved here ten years ago. Guess what, the average pay in bend is the same as it was ten years ago. I wish food,housing and fuel were too.

Anonymous said...

>> I guess its damn near impossible to stick to specific issues that can actually fix problems in Bend.
*
Now there's a sore loser if I've ever seen one. Homer, can you believe this guy? He's looking to you for salvation in this little blog!

Here's a tip for our RE connected friend: BETTER START PACKING FOR THE MOVE MOTHER FUCKER!

Anonymous said...

Bring out your dead and dying to Bend Oregon. Mortuary Today, has rated Bend Oregon as the fastest growing funeral destination in America.

***

Hot Spots That Have Cooled Lure Savvy Retirees
BusinessWeek - Oct 19, 2007
Central Oregon's largest city is a onetime timber town that turned to tourism—skiing, camping, hiking, and fishing in the nearby Cascade Mountain Range—for ...

Anonymous said...

. There isn't shit out there.

*

Well that's what I'm telling you,

Most jobs in Bend or America are created by 'small business', obviously not known by the cunts that beg for free food and lodging from the city PR&MARKETING trough.

When times get tough a small business, doesn't hire, downsizes, and lays off everyone they can. These days already most people were part-time to avoid bene's. When you layoff a part-time person, its really not a lay-off, because a full-time job has not been lost.

Yes, folks just click on the craigs-list here for jobs, and look what you find? Nada.

Find dish-washing job in Bend on I-97, and work two of them. That's how folks survived in 1983, and that's how they're going to survive in 2008. If you don't like the above proposition then get out while you still have a nickel in your 401k.

Anonymous said...

>>Have you thought about a government job?

He better have. Won't be much other than that in Bend in two years.

*

There aren't any other paying jobs now other than government. Duncan calls them the ball-busters, generally PR babes they came here post 2002, and now they're all bailing.

The city isn't cutting easy checks anymore to new ideas for events.

Let me tell you all a little secret, all these party's at the Broken-Top, High Desert Museum, ... Les Schwab Ampth concerts with reserved areas with $300/person tickets on all the above. The city has been handing these out to goldens for the past few years just to get the beautiful people to show up. The wine has flowed, folks have eaten like pigs at events,...

The money is still flowing, we're still bring people in by plane and wining and dining them.

Sure they fired Anderson, and they said it "WASN'T FOR FRAUD", you know its got to be good when they have to say that.

The BEND RE biz has ONLY been about fraud, hustling tens of thousands of MORONS to visit, and sell them time shares. City budget pays for a all events, and pays the attractive people to fly here, and pays for their hotels. Its still going on.


BEND RE is about FRAUD, Bend is about Fraud. Bend MTG is about Fraud.

The other day BEM said "Its ok to PAY people to write storys in mag's everyone does it".

NO BEM everyone doesn't DO-IT, a mag exists to sell advertising. If an editor at the BULL or OUTSIDE magazine is on the bend-city payroll that is FRAUD. YOU cannot be working for company X, and get money for company Y, to use the property of X, to make money for Y.

Everyone doesn't do-it. Its in the city of bend plan, to pay editors, tax-payer CASH to get favorable story's about how wonderful a place Bend is for almost dead people to die. ( Buy a condo, and then die. )

The Fraud in Bend is MUCH more interesting than the RE implosion, the implosion is just an effect of the fraud.

Anonymous said...

Here's a tip for our RE connected friend: BETTER START PACKING FOR THE MOVE MOTHER FUCKER! - IHTBYB


I can almost see with precise forecast that you'll be gone from here before any of us.

You admitted your a renter. There's nothing keeping your here. You can't make money here.

You don't provide any positive help to fix Bend, because you don't give a fuck about Bend.

Anonymous said...

I was talking with an attorney last night at Deschutes Brewpub.

He had an interesting theory about what's happening in Bend right now.

They're trying to bring as many elderly as possible, and cash out their 401K, and buy real estate. Then when they die the County will put the property in probate and get a cut, and of course the realtor's get a cut, and the lawyers get a cut.

The probate revenue for Deschutes county is supposed to keep the county afloat during the time the Property tax revenues decrease.

The other thing about elderly is 'turnover' its simply the best transaction level you can have. Down in Hemet, CA, for the prior twenty year it was a retirement community and homes literally flipped every five years, because that was the average time people lived in the house before they died and/or downsized. Then about two years ago, commuters finally 'discovered' hemet and forced out the retires, as the commuters bid higher on the property post-death, than the incoming retires.

In Bend there will NEVER be a commuter problem, as nobody will ever live in Bend, and drive to work in Salem, or Portland because its cheap.

Thus once Bend becomes a critical retirement mecca they can enjoy five year average turn-around, which means that we could actually support a huge number of realtors.


The model of Bend being a high RE transaction retirement community has been well planned. At this point in time all we need to do is MARKET&PROMOTE Bend as a retirement paradise.

Anonymous said...

Monday, October 22, 2007
The Collapse of Bend Has Begun

*

The collapse in Bend started in the summer of 2006. The announcement of the "The Shire", was the peak. That signaled to the world that Bend had hit peak insanity. Ever since then its been ALL downhill for Bend Oregon RE.

It's disingenuous to suggest that the collapse is starting now, also it takes a majority for the hysteria. The current stats are that 80% of American's think there home is worth what they paid, and 50% it worth more.

When 80% Americans think their home is worth less, then you'll have hysteria, as everyone will try to sell to avoid loss. For right now its only the smart people trying to dump, before its too late, and those 'smart' people saw the writing on the wall last summer. Long before you announced the collapse had started.

tim said...

>>At this point in time all we need to do is MARKET&PROMOTE Bend as a retirement paradise...


Time for some kind of McMann and Tate slogan. How about...

"You'll Die For Bend"

tim said...

No, wait.

"Bend: It's To Die For"

Anonymous said...

9 out of 10 Bend 'entrepreneurs' agree that wine tastes better when Oregon Pension money is used to pay for it.

ROI? Gluttony, alcoholism, Bend esprit d'crap.

Oregon Lotto money is especially good with salted-pork.

.....

Will the entrepreneurial spirit of Bend Venture Conference take root in Central Oregon?
By David Fisher / The Bulletin
Published: October 22. 2007 5:00AM PST

Acollection of transplanted entrepreneurs set out to attract some clouds when they launched version 1.0 of the Bend Venture Conference in 2004. The hope back then was the conference would attract clouds of entrepreneurs, clouds of local investors and clouds of people with executive experience to find the connections they need to rain new businesses over Central Oregon.

Today, three years and four conferences later, it appears that the clouds have discovered Central Oregon. The question is whether the synergies they spark here will also take root in the desert soil.

As with most of the West’s newest small-town entrepreneurial pockets, that question is still an open one, said Erik Benson, managing director of Voyager Capital, one of the venture capital firms that helps invest some of the state’s pension fund money into small Oregon-based businesses.

Anonymous said...

Usually, it's the public that is left holding the bag. [ Bend Film Festival, Juniper Ridge, ... Bend Golden Wine & Champagne funded; tax payer funded to get the golden people from leaving Bend]

*

Who else would invest in these fly by night scams?

Its like Juniper-Ridge, no matter how stupid or inflated or ridiculous your proposition is, someone in city-hall will embrace the concept and fund it.

It's endless, Bend has an INFINITE checkbook, and no matter how insipid the idea, they'll spend the money. Especially if the idea involves food & wine ( party's ), if the idea has golden people show up, and special VIP areas to avoid the common taxpayer. Then EVERY TIME you propose such a Fraud someone like Jim Clinton will expend ALL their political capital on your behalf.

Certainly, Bend is a city with a loose budget. A city with too much money, and taxpayers with too much money. Bend is a magic place, where everyone gets to eat food and drink for free, and nobody ever pays for anything.

How come there are never any private investors for the events?

Everyone in Bend is an amenity parasite, and amenity ain't the view, its the people, food, and wine; the party's the endless VIP party's all summer long at Drake Park, where everybody except about 10% get free VIP passes. Music, wine, ... Nobody ever has to pay. There are always pre-partys, post-party's, ...

Like ball-buster that started the Bend Film Festival, she quit and left, because they cut her budget. This year the party's were nothing compared to the past, thus the Bend Film Festival is dead.

Anonymous said...

Bend $5MILLION dollar/year Real Estate Promotion Budget and Ten Commandments.

***

1. Bend is the west’s premier year-round destination.

[ Bend is the west’s premier mortuary, a beautiful place to rest.
]


2. Bend is situated on the sunny eastern slope of the Cascades, with 250 days of sunshine annually
(dispel any rainy Oregon perceptions).
[ Every gravesite in Bend has sun, all year round. ]

3. Bend’s recreation opportunities are virtually limitless, and are on par with any other destination.

[ No dogs will trample your gravesite in Bend. Ever. ]

4. Bend’s arts/culture scene has long been a key attraction, and continues to grow.
[ Some of the most interesting people in America are buried in Bend. ]

5. Bend’s dining and nightlife has experienced tremendous growth, with some of the best dining to
be found anywhere.
[ Every funeral includes all expense paid wine and catering by the city of Bend. Your loved ones will truly remember you forever. ]

6. Bend has convenient year-round access via non-stop flights from Seattle, Portland, San
Francisco, Salt Lake City, Los Angeles and Las Vegas.
[ You don't even have to die in Bend, we have 24/7 incoming casket service. Courtesy of the City of Bend. ]

7. Visitors to Bend co-mingle with locals in any given location, on any given night.
[ Locals and non-locals enjoy the same 'tomb with a view'. ]

8. The Bend Visitor & Convention Bureau is the resource for visitors and the authority for Bend
information.

[The B-VCB has full visitor services for any bereaved wishing to locate a loved one. ]

9. Calls to action: www.VisitBend.com, 1-877-245-8484, downtown visitor center.

[ Call today, and reserve your grave-site from Brooks Memorial Services. ]

Anonymous said...

Over here in Portland, Buena Vista Homes is giving Hawaii vacations to anyone who LEASES a new home from them. According to the guy who owns Legend Homes, his business is off 2/3 (he blames the media).
Just so you know.
When I drove to Bend a couple years ago, I saw all the new developments, and the first thing that came to my mind was, "Where are all these people going to WORK?"

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Here's a tip for our RE connected friend: BETTER START PACKING FOR THE MOVE MOTHER FUCKER!

Yeah.... if I actually listened to every True Believer Dumbfuck who told me what to do, I'd have probably killed myself by now.

Dumbshit PR/Marketing morons... actually think closing down this blog will avert the most immense loss of wealth ever witnessed by this Boss Hogg infested shithole.

Why don't you deluded RE big-haired double D's (dumbshit & dumbass) leave the blogging to us, and you just limber up... cuz you're gonna have to kiss your ass goodbye in a few months...

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

According to the guy who owns Legend Homes, his business is off 2/3 (he blames the media).

That stupid shit reminds of a bit by Chris Rock that is just funny as hell:

"Niggas vs. Black People" is the title of one of Chris Rock's most famous and most controversial comedy routines. This bit, which appeared as track 12 on his 1997 album, Roll With the New, as well as his 1996 HBO special, Bring the Pain, is widely considered to be the breakthrough routine that established his status as a permanent comedy fixture after he left Saturday Night Live.

Essentially an eight-minute rant about behaviors that Rock sees within the black community; he describes "niggas" as a certain cohort whose behavior is usually detrimental to the image of other black people and embody many African-American stereotypes. He describes the condition succinctly as being a "low-expectation-havin' motherfucker." The "niggas," he said, glorify ignorance and sloth, and show excessive pride for any bearing of token responsibility. Rock rejects the view that this image of African-Americans is purely cultivated by the media. In fact, he goes as far as to defend this point within the routine:

'Now, I see some black people looking at me: "Man, why you gotta say that? Why you gotta say that - it ain't us, it's the media. It ain't us, it's the media. The media has distorted our image to make us look bad, why must you come down on us like that, brother? It ain't us, it's the media." Please, cut the fucking shit, okay. Okay? Okay? When I go to the money machine tonight, alright, I ain't looking over my back for the media: I'm looking for niggas!'

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

If you dat, you love dis:

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/116579/nigga_please_cereal/

Anonymous said...

Be gentle, tonight is happy hour @ deschutes. Tonight is 'fourth monday' the night where bendbb and all his drag queens march up and down Bond in their bikinis.

If you have never seen a bunch of hairless, shaved, middle age, white guys, slightly overwieght in Bend Bikinis, then this is a MUST event.

Note, duncan personally cleans up all the spent condoms on the street the next day after the event.

This message was paid for by the City of Bend, all food and beverage provided by VCB & DVA.

Anonymous said...

Sterling announces best quarter ever.

***

Sterling Financial Corporation of Spokane, Washington, Announces Third Quarter 2007 Earnings of $26.5 Million
PR Newswire
October 22, 2007: 04:30 PM EST

Credit Quality

Total nonperforming assets were $57.7 million, or 0.49 percent of total assets as of September 30, 2007, compared to $30.4 million, or 0.27 percent of total assets at the end of the linked quarter ended June 30, 2007, and $19.2 million, or 0.21 percent of total assets as of September 30, 2006. The majority of this increase resulted from construction loans obtained in recent acquisitions and reflects the lower underwriting standards that were used by the institutions that we acquired, particularly in the Boise, Idaho marketplace. Residential construction loans accounted for 61 percent, or $35.2 million, of the total nonperforming assets as of September 30, 2007. The nonperforming residential construction component is comprised of 81 loans, with a median balance of approximately $330,000. In addition, classified assets also showed an increase to $215.6 million at September 30, 2007, compared to $95.0 million at June 30, 2007 and $46.0 million at September 30, 2006. Sterling anticipated a rise in classified assets following its recent acquisitions. However, the recent weakness in real estate prices in the Boise, Idaho and Bend, Oregon markets has resulted in larger increases than projected. During the quarter ended September 30, 2007, classified assets related to residential construction increased by $96.7 million. Properties in Boise and Bend accounted for 57 percent of the classified assets related to residential construction. Sterling's Credit Administration and Special Assets Group continue to use aggressive and early intervention tactics to work with borrowers in protecting the value of loans and their underlying collateral.

Anonymous said...

DOES BEM SUPPORT BEND FRAUD??

BEND RE is about FRAUD, Bend is about Fraud. Bend MTG is about Fraud.

The other day BEM said "Its ok to PAY people to write storys in mag's everyone does it".

NO BEM everyone doesn't DO-IT, a mag exists to sell advertising. If an editor at the BULL or OUTSIDE magazine is on the bend-city payroll that is FRAUD. YOU cannot be working for company X, and get money for company Y, to use the property of X, to make money for Y.

Everyone doesn't do-it. Its in the city of bend plan, to pay editors, tax-payer CASH to get favorable story's about how wonderful a place Bend is for almost dead people to die. ( Buy a condo, and then die. )

The Fraud in Bend is MUCH more interesting than the RE implosion, the implosion is just an effect of the fraud.

tim said...

Great story in the bulletin today about the city's communication problem with the citizens. Hilarious. Any time they hear that they suck, they think, "well, we know we don't suck, it must be a communications problem (the citizens are deaf about how cool we are)."

The solution? Well they spend more of our money, of course. They are going to be looking at their PR, going to be calling us for a survey, and hiring an outside consultant to figure out the problem.

If we're smart, we'll shut up. Otherwise they'll spend all our money trying to figure out why we won't shut up.

Our gov't is a simple beast, really. Something going wrong? Must be something wrong with the citizens. We'll spend their money to find out what.

Anonymous said...

Great story in the bulletin today about the city's communication problem with the citizens. Hilarious.

*

Let's understand this. The city spends taxpayer money on wine & ho's for the BULL. The BULL says the city think the taxpayer doesn't love the city & staff. Solution? Spend more money on wine & Ho's for everybody in Bend.

Someday when the amenity vultures wakeup and get the fucking bill. There's going to be 100's of staff without a fucking job, and poly-tick-ians without a fucking career.

Let's see the picture you have a parasitic electorate that just wants 2005 to come back forever, you have city staff that just wants 2005 wine,dine,&dash to come back. You have an electorate that just wants to have 70%/yr appreciation to come back. Then you have a city heading towards bankruptcy, and NOT one fucking mother fucker in the entire city willing to tell the truth.

Not a pretty picture.

Anonymous said...

Great story in the bulletin today about the city's communication problem with the citizens. Hilarious.

->

Could someone please post this??

Anonymous said...

If we're smart, we'll shut up. Otherwise they'll spend all our money trying to figure out why we won't shut up.

*

Fucking miserable cunts we work our ass off on Juniper Ridge, we spend all our free time with Ray Kuratek on the zombies and what thanks do we get? Truly Bend staff & city council are most unloved. Perhaps this is because they're out of their league morons. Who obtained postition because every fucking cunt in Bend that had a brain was flipping, only retards ran for public office during the past five years. Now that the party it truly over, there is no money, thus on fun. The city council & staff having missed the chance to get rich is wondering when they're going to get there's.

This city is ripe for cannibalism.

Anonymous said...

Great story in the bulletin today about the city's communication problem with the citizens. Hilarious.

*

They said a few weeks ago that they needed more PR, so they hired Garzini back, and nobody listened.

This is expected so long as parasitic cunts were making money buying homes randomly and providing no added value, and everyone was making money. It was a hap-happy Bend.

Now of course no matter what you do in Bend, other than a cop writing tickets your fucked. Thus its a little late for the city to spend any money on PR, its very hard to show pic's of pretty young girls eating steak to a starving man. This worked when everybody was making money. It just goes to show you how out of touch the city is, in their biz, things are great money is still coming in, life is good.

Party on City.

tim said...

What's the deal on Bend and all their hidden content? They want $40-some for a year, and that's with the discount for getting the paper.

I hate going to their site. Half the stuff is hidden. Not even a teaser paragraph.

tim said...

>>Perhaps this is because they're out of their league morons.

That's right. I get the feeling they're just plain lost.

We've talked about cities in Oregon and in California that are done right, with smart leadership that does the planning and the infrastructure first. And ends up with, surprise, a great economy and happy people.

Anonymous said...

Good story in todays WSJ about how all major lending outfits are pulling out of ALL towns that any drop in RE pricing at all.

As I have long predicted soon, you'll NOT be able to get a loan in Bend, even if you wanted to

Don't wait if you really want to borrow, and must borrow.

Otherwise have lots cash, and pick up cheap stuff in time.

The WSJ did mention if local/regional banks refuse to loan that you can shop around, as there are some banks doing very well that are willing to take on risk.

I think the main problem is in places like Bend, where you have a drop and the local banks have huge non-performing accounts, they simply cannot keep adding bad loans. Simply put any loan in Bend is a bad loan, unless the person is putting 50% down.

Another note is that use of chapter 13 bankruptcy is skyrocketing, but it only works if you have a job, and income. It will not keep the un-employed flipper in his mcMansion.

Also in todays paper is most banks are refusing to loan on large loans, this may seem redundant, but JUMBO has just gone from bad to worse. All of Bend is JUMBO, which means most homes in Bend MUST fall below $400k.

Like I have long said here, $200k ( afford 4X income ) homes will do just fine, perhaps see 10% or 20% drop, but these +2mi out of downtown mcMansion subdivisions that started at $500k went to $750k, and folks were waiting for $1M. These homes will drop way below $400k and still not sell. Sadly most people paid on average $550k.

Bend is amazing, everyone bought these siberian subdivision crap-shacks with the idea of becoming a millionaire, and now become a pauper.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Interesting comment by Bill Moseley, owner of GL Suite in Bend:

Externally, the biggest threat to our business is the availability of talented, values-oriented people who can afford to live in Central Oregon. GL Suite’s clients do not care about the cost of living in Central Oregon. We compete in an international marketplace with pricing pressures. We need to be able to employ people at a rate our clients can afford. The long-term ability for the area to satisfy GL Suite’s employment needs is inversely related to land values.

Doesn't get more succinct than that: "ability to satisfy employment needs inversely related to land values".

This place CANNOT GROW with prices where they are. GL Suite is exactly the sort of business this place needs, and they're thinking of leaving, Moseley has mentioned this before.

This is why Aspen is NOT chocked full of software developers. And also why Aspen is only about 5,000 population.

Anonymous said...

I hate going to their site. Half the stuff is hidden. Not even a teaser paragraph.

*

Teaser only works if there's something that gives you an idea of arousal that you want to see more.

The BULL is so lame, that a tease will turn folks off.

The BULL is going, going, and will most likely not survive this recession.

Why in the hell would anyone who could write copy that could attract people, and suck them in, and really tease them work for the BULL?

It's no different than the SORE, people move to Bend for lifestyle, and get poverty with a view. Always been this way. Some say the view is gone. The road to poverty, the road to Bend has always been the same.

Like the current city tombstone on DVA/VCB tourism, it says that folks that want to live in Bend, should consider starting their own business. Yeh, more bead shops that's what we need in Bend.

There is no simple solution to the problem. The problem has not been defined. The current people running the town thought they could/would all get rich by attracting infinite dumb rich people. Well they're not coming the city will soon be broke.

Before we can have a solution, we all have to agree on what we want.

All along I have been assuming the 1983 model, quiet town, boarded up downtown, not much going on. Just live.

Once things get boring, most will leave. Just like the gal that started the Bend Film Festival left. It didn't take her long to figure that this town was going no where. Now we just have to educate the other 60k hustlers, thats its not going anywhere.

Bend is Mayberry, nothing less, nothing more. Mayberry on the edge of the Great Basin Desert. Far, faraway from any transportation, and $10/gal fuel looking at us in the face.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

I hate going to their site. Half the stuff is hidden. Not even a teaser paragraph.

I know... what a rip. Many papers are just going to ad supported cuz their online subscription $ is a pittance.

Anonymous said...

This is why Aspen is NOT chocked full of software developers. And also why Aspen is only about 5,000 population.

*

This is perhaps the way it should be. Today been is-was over-marketed, and over-sold.

GL will leave, he's an idiot to stay, nobody ever stays. Many come here start a business, find a few that want to live here, but its hard, its VERY hard to survive here. Then you CON some poor new hire to move here, and he HATES his job, and he's fucked, because he has to move, there are NO other jobs in Bend. It's always been that way.

Move to Bend, and work weekends. Why? Because thats how Bend biz competes with the world, by making their employees (salaried) work for free on over-time. Always been this way.

Bend is NOT competitive nor will ever be, you cannot artifically have cheap land, all that happens is if build out like (IHTBYB) want's too, is that the pain of the commute increases. If there were more jobs here, more would move here, and it would suck just like San Jose, where they came from.

Bend is a little town, that probably would do best at 20,000, there are lots of places with land, there is LOTS of Great Basin desert land in America. There is NOTHING special about Bend.

The trend is today, that infrastructure is moving away from Bend, with fuel costs up, there really is NO economic reason to live in Bend, except a lot of egotistic CEO's would like to live in Bend.

The best way to live in Bend for CEO's is get a golden-parachute, and then bail, and come live to Bend and NOT work.

Looking back the only company of high-tech that I can think of that has survived during the last decades is harry-lonsdales 'bend sci', all others have moved on.

You can NOT attract good people with a brain. We don't have diversity of employment, and tons of money has been spent since the 1970's, and its ONLY gotten worse.

Borrowed money, and Brooks Resources dont' make a city. Today we have non-real people, with no jobs. Twenty years ago we had un-employed loggers. Today we have un-employed realtors.

I see NO change whatsoever. Bend is what it is, a Great Basin desert town, that long ago expended its natural resources.

We can continue to attract 'retirees', but like todays article in BULL and NEW-WEST, we're not paying for ADA, we're not paying for any of the kind of infrastucture to support the dead and dying we want the infirm to move to bend and buy a condo, but there is NO infrastructure.

It's really not clear that 'we' want Bend to be a blue-hair crematorium, that is of course just one more short-term solution.

The high-tech solution is dead, we have killed it too many times, we lack the transportation infrastructure, we lack the established university's.

Anonymous said...

Below is a good story about what I have been talking about recently in this DVA/VCB fiasco. They want Bend to become a retirement mecca, but not a dime has been spent on ADA, which is critical to comforting the nearly-dead and dying.

Like most problems in Bend today, they REFUSED to charge Brooks the true cost of infrastructure, so now we have NO money, and very little ADA, yet we march on with this 'bend retirement mecca' bullshit.

.......

Bend: a nice place to be a jock

New West Unfiltered By peter webster, New West Unfiltered 10-21-07

Bend, Oregon, is a fine place to be athletic (and young and wealthy), but not too good for those of us who are neither able-bodied, young, or financially well-off. On the other hand, neither is America, these days. But, here in Bend, the situation of physically disabled people has reached the point where even the life-is-wonderful daily paper had to click it’s editorial tongue.

Bend’s compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requirements limps (uh-huh) along, frustratingly slow and over-cost. Compliance is a long way behind schedule. This is about as surprising as the foot-dragging that went along with Bend establishing a fixed-route transit system.

The city’s delays in meeting the standards would be a joke if it wasn’t so unfunny.

In a recent story, the Bend Bulletin covered the delays and excessive expenses in meeting some of those requirements. According to the story, the city has had difficulty in getting competitive bids from contractors—on something as simple as accessible parking places. The bids received were high: many were for several times the estimated costs. The city decided to do much of the work itself. But the recurrent theme is oh-it’s-just-sooo-expensive...

Yes, it is expensive. So what? The compliance is mandated by federal law—and being in compliance is the decent thing to do. People are not disabled by choice. Nobody seriously wants to spend their life in a wheelchair. I’ve spend various periods of my life in wheelchairs and no doubt will again—it’s just not all that great. It’s a continuing stream of frustrations. The Americans with Disability Act makes mobility easier, but “easier” is a relative term.

My own intuition on this is that Bend doesn’t really mean to go slow, it’s just that accessibility is down the priority list. Disabled people aren’t as visible or vocal as, say, serious bicycle riders or joggers. Nor are disabled people as numerous or as wealthy, as a rule. There are a lot of wealthy jocks in Bend; that gives them political power. The city is likely to listen to the money. That’s the reality of politics, like the old joke: the golden rule—the rules are made by those with gold.

But what’s frustrating is that there’s so little public advocacy for those who are segregated by mobility problems. I use the word “segregated” deliberately, because up until the enactment of the ADA, the disabled were discriminated against right and left. Even today, there’re a lot of informal restrictions on those of us who don’t get around too normally.

Anonymous said...

WHAT THE FUCK IS BEND???

REHO's say we got condo's to sell.

Bend is a tourist town.

No Bend is a jock-town ( Outside )

No Bend is a retirement town.

No Bend is a high tech incubator.

No Bend is a community of talented, artistic, creative people.

WHAT IN THE FUCK IS BEND???

They try everything, everyday taxpayer money is spent, and shit thrown on the wall, and nothing ever sticks.

WHAT THE FUCK IS BEND???

Anonymous said...

Personally I don't think that Bend is a retirement town, because little to no thought was given the expense.

When you position yourself as such, ..

1.) ADA
2.) Health care costs, most of these people will be broke, you have a high percentage of infirm in your county, who will pay?
3.) Old people want year-round activity, Bend is seasonal, its simply too cold nine months of the year.

I feel that what Bend really wants is 'second home' retire's sunbirds that flock north in the summer, and south in the winter. But that lifestyle is largely a product of the stock-market 80's, and the low fuel cost. These are all over. The sunbird will quickly become extinct.

Again I ask, what the fuck is Bend?

tim said...

I think people get the journalism they want. Take a gander at this from the Tampa Bay paper...

[quote] The news media is being too negative in its coverage of the challenges facing the housing market.

That's the consensus of 65 percent, or 279, of the 427 readers who responded to the Tampa Bay Business Journal's Business Pulse Survey question assessing the media's current reporting on the housing industry. A little less than a third - 31 percent, or 133 people - said the coverage hasn't been too negative, while just 3 percent, or 15 people, said they were undecided. [/quote]

People are whining that the media is too negative about housing In other words, yeah, tell me all about Anna Nicole Smith's tortured life, but just shut up about the biggest asset bubble in US history.

Anonymous said...

We are constantly told by the folks that run bend.

Bend is artistic, creative people.

The best marketing and PR people are in Bend.

What is the MOST creative thing to date they have pulled out of their ass?

To give city taxpayer money to editors of national and local magazines to write positive storys about Bend.

This is the their most creative solution, to the limited PR budget problem of today.

The MOST creative, and artistic people of Bend have made fraud and crime a solution to all of Bends problems.

A truly creative person would have found a low cost solution to a problem.

I think the real problem here is we don't know what the problem is. If there is ONE problem in this city its that EVERYONE wants 2005 go on forever.

It's OVER 2002-2005 was a once in a lifetime anomaly that is NEVER coming back.

tim said...

>>WHAT THE FUCK IS BEND???

Bend is the place where the gov't feels unloved, and must spend our money to figure out why.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Bend is the place where the gov't feels unloved, and must spend our money to figure out why.

Sounds like a whorehouse. City Council is the "Johns".

Anonymous said...

People are whining that the media is too negative about housing

*

I'm not sure 'people' are whining, all these polls are always loaded questions. The RE industry and the media are largely one,

We all know that problem here is nothing to do with good feeling, there are dozens of reasons of why nationally over-priced markets like Bend are imploding, and all the happy talk, isn't going to fix the problem.

That said, we have met the enemy, and he is us.

I'm sure if the majority of the populace of Bend, could make a bargain with the devil, or a say a pound of their own flesh, in exchange for a perpetual 2005 boom, they would make the bargain. It's human nature to want something for nothing.

Besides, as we all know, its always the bringer of bad-news that gets hurt, their simply is no positive way to tell people they are fucked,

The BULL doesn't come out and say your fucked, but there really isn't any good news.

Like the guy said, the BEND-BOOM-BUST wasn't really a greed problem, it was a fraud problem, and 80% of citizens participated in the fraud, and criminals generally deny guilt, even Dillinger and Barrow thought they were good guys.

Like the Great Depression, by 2010 we'll be looking back at 2005 like the 1920's, and people will be asking why did so many people break the law, e.g. commit fraud. To quote BEM, its because everybody does it.

Like getting a MTG, they want you to lie, they tell you to lie, and they tell you that nobody ever gets caught.

So you have a town of pathological liars and criminals, what's a newspaper to do? Tell its customer the truth?

NADA

Anonymous said...

Bend is the place where the gov't feels unloved, and must spend our money to figure out why.

Sounds like a whorehouse. City Council is the "Johns".

*

We don't call them REHO's for nothing.

All politicians by definition want to be loved. The did what was best for us, by meeting Kuratek in secret, and signing secret documents.

Now they're all looking a criminal indictments.

All was done for the love of Bend. They knew what was best for Bend.

Anonymous said...

>>WHAT THE FUCK IS BEND???

Bend is the place where the gov't feels unloved, and must spend our money to figure out why

*

That didn't answer the question, but it is a symptom.

What your talking about here is that people are told to COME TO BEND. They come and find no jobs, then they're told to create their own job.

There is NO money, the ONLY money is taxpayer money, so the new golden's beg for city money for an event.

The money gets spent, everyone makes money, the city gets more in debt. We do this for six years, and then party is over.

The drunks get the bill? And the HOST says "But we through such a great party". "Why don't you love us?"

Rule #2 in politics, get out when its NOT fun anymore, and rule #1 get out when there's no money to steal.

Party is over, time for the bill.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Bankers to the Rescue with $80 billion!

Not.

Who'll rescue homeowners in the housing mess?

Big banks and the feds are working to throw an $80 billion lifeline to companies holding bad loans. But no one seems interested in rescuing families who need just a little help.

By Jim Jubak

Banks to customers: Drop dead!!

Nobody in the financial industry is saying that in so many words. But their actions speak volumes. While bankers have plenty of time to negotiate the terms of an $80 billion fund to rescue their own mortgage portfolios, customers are getting a busy signal if they want to fix a problem mortgage before it explodes into foreclosure or bankruptcy.

According to a Moody's (MCO, news, msgs) survey of the mortgage companies that service about 80% of all subprime mortgages, lenders have eased terms on just 1% of the subprime mortgage loans that reset to higher interest rates in January, April and July of this year. That's a huge problem, again according to Moody's, because data indicate that between 5% and 15% of subprime loans that are current before they reset will go into default after reset they if they are not modified.

And this is before the mortgage resets really hit the fan. Adjustable mortgage resets are projected to hit $55 billion in October, up from $22 billion in January, and then continue to climb until the market hits a peak of $110 billion in adjustable mortgage resets in March 2008.
A deluge of foreclosures
In other words, without some kind of modification of the terms, we're about to see an explosion of delinquency and foreclosure rates for subprime mortgages far above the 10% rate during the housing market's boom years. And the mortgage industry is doing almost nothing to head off the problems.

Nobody disputes that homeowners with less than sterling credit -- the so called subprime and Alt-A segments of the mortgage market -- who used adjustable-rate mortgages to finance the purchase of a house over the past year or two face a crisis. Many of these mortgages are about to reset, from low teaser interest rates and monthly payments to much higher rates and payments.

Look at how that works on a 2/28 mortgage, one of the most common types of adjustable subprime mortgages, with interest-only payments -- no payments to reduce principal -- over the first two years. With a low 5.375% teaser interest rate and the interest-only feature, payments on a $300,000 30-year loan would be $1,344 a month for the first two years.

But then at the end of two years comes the reset -- often 2 percentage points or even 3 percentage points annually. With a two-point reset and the expiration of the interest-only period, the interest rate jumps to 7.375% and monthly payments rise $769 to $2,113. That's a 57% increase. The next year, the reset could take the interest rate up to 9.375% and the monthly payment to $2,549, an increase of $1,205, or 90%, in two years.
Who's to blame?
And because these loans were so often used to shoehorn buyers into more house than they could actually afford with a conventional mortgage, that kind of increase is more than enough to produce delinquency and then foreclosure.

The Mortgage Bankers Association reported that as of December 2006, delinquency rates for prime mortgages remain near their historical rate since the early 1990s of 2% (for fixed loans) and 4% (for adjustable loans). But in that same month, 14% of adjustable subprime mortgages were delinquent.

Why did these borrowers get into this mess? Some were greedy, figuring that a rising real-estate market would let them sell the property before the mortgage reset. Some were overly optimistic, hoping that home prices would keep rising and that they could refinance before the reset hit. Some were foolish and didn't do the math for the years after the reset.

(Never underestimate good old time-honored human stupidity. According to a recent survey by Peter D. Hart Research Associates for the AFL-CIO, about 75% of borrowers didn't have a clue about how much their payments would climb after a reset.)

And some were defrauded by mortgage lenders and mortgage brokers who guaranteed that house values would climb and refinancing was a lock, and then hid extra costs and the full size of the monthly payment from those signing on the bottom line.
The industry has changed
Traditionally, though, the debt markets don't care why a deal has gone bad. The saved and the damned are all offered a chance to work out a deal. It's simply good business. Better to get 70 cents on the dollar than 60 cents; better to slow down payment increases so the borrower doesn't go into default; better to take a slightly lower monthly payment than to have to go to the expense of foreclosing and reselling.

So, for example, mortgage lenders could extend initial teaser rates for a year or three, or stretch out the reset by setting a lower annual cap to interest-rate increases, say one percentage point a year instead of 2 or 3 percentage points. Mortgage lenders would still get paid -- less than if they didn't modify the loans, it's true, but more than if borrowers go into default and then foreclosure.

So why, then, has the mortgage industry been so slow off the block in working out deals with the borrowers facing resets and foreclosure?

Because the structure of the modern mortgage industry, which has sliced and diced each part of the mortgage process and then farmed out each of those slices to separate companies, has destroyed much of the incentive to work out solutions with mortgage borrowers.

Here's how it works
Think about the life history of the average mortgage.

* Some company originates it. That could be a mortgage broker, who qualifies a potential borrower and then puts that borrower together with a mortgage lender, or it could be a mortgage lender itself that also serves as the originator.

* That mortgage is usually then sold to another mortgage company, to a quasi-governmental entity like Freddie Mac (FMC, news, msgs) or to an investment bank.

* After purchase, those mortgages are most commonly bundled into securities, called residential-mortgage-backed securities, that are then sold to investors such as insurance companies and pension funds.

* Even that's not the end of the road for many mortgages because many residential-mortgage-backed securities, a bundle of, say, 1,000 or more mortgages, are then themselves bundled and then re-sliced into pieces of varying risk. These are then sold as collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) that might own as many as 100 residential-mortgage-backed securities, or 100,000 mortgages.

* There are even CDOs made up of CDOs that might own as many as 10 million mortgages.

* A separate part of the mortgage industry, the mortgage service companies, collect payments from mortgage borrowers and then make sure that the right number of dollars gets to the right party.

So who has an incentive to work out a deal with that mortgage borrower before he or she gets into trouble? Not the mortgage service company. These companies operate on the slimmest of margins, and any mortgage that requires extra work eats into that profit. Not the mortgage broker, certainly. Many brokers have gone out of business in the housing slump. Those that haven't, having already been paid for originating the mortgage, have no incentive to help with any debt workout.

That leaves the mortgage lenders. And here's where it all gets very ugly.
Oh, that fine print
Typically when a mortgage lender sold its loans to investors, the deal came with fine print that discussed the mortgage lender's obligations to buy back the loans from investors. For example, the $122 billion in mortgages sold by Countrywide Financial (CFC, news, msgs) from 2004 to 2007 often included a buyback provision that would be triggered if the terms of the mortgages purchased by investors were changed to help borrowers remain current.

The decision on when to change the terms of a mortgage to help borrowers remain current is left to the mortgage service company. In this case, that's usually the home-loan servicing unit of Countrywide Financial itself.

Any wonder that the Office of Thrift Supervision has been looking into claims that servicing representatives at Countrywide Financial have failed to follow through on offers to restructure the mortgages. (Countrywide Financial disputes those charges.)

And there's no reason to think that Countrywide Financial is the only mortgage company feeling this squeeze. Remember, 1.3 million subprime adjustable-rate mortgages are due to reset between October 2007 and the end of 2008.
What a difference
Contrast the barriers to working out problem mortgages for borrowers who owe a few hundred thousand dollars with all the energy going into an effort to work out the problems of borrowers who owe billions:

A plan put together by big banks -- with the U.S. Treasury nodding approval -- would create an $80 billion "conduit" that would buy distressed paper before sellers strapped for cash are forced to sell their asset-backed debt securities in the public market. These sellers have been forced to the wall because they used money borrowed in the short-term commercial paper market to buy long-term assets. They depended on their ability to roll over the commercial paper into new borrowing in that market when it expired every 90 days or so, but the commercial paper market is still shut tight for this class of borrowers. If they can't access that market for capital, they have only two choices:

* Sell their assets for whatever the market will give them.

* Go to the big banks that are on the hook to lend them money that the commercial paper market won't.

About 30 structured investment vehicles, or SIVs, holding about $320 billion in assets have found themselves in this pickle. For the big banks like Citigroup (C, news, msgs) and JP Morgan Chase (JPM, news, msgs) that have so far signed on to fund this $80 billion conduit, the plan represents a chance to work out a debt problem before it gets toxic.
Protecting the pricing
First, by creating a conduit that would buy these assets from distressed SIVs before they go to the public market, the banks and other investors who hold big amounts of these assets in their own portfolio avoid creating a distressed public market price that would require them to mark down the value of their own assets. Right now, without public prices, investors have wide discretion on how to price their portfolios.

Second, by creating this conduit, the banks that created these SIVs -- and that are on the line to fund them -- avoid having to shell out big dollars or take these assets onto their own balance sheets. The SIVs were set up as off-balance-sheet vehicles so that banks could invest in these markets without putting the risk of these deals on their own books. This is especially important for Citigroup, which, as the largest creator of SIVs, is on the hook for about $100 billion.

This workout for SIVs and the big banks (and investment companies such as Fidelity Investments and Federal Investors that hold a lot of asset-backed commercial paper in their money market funds) is turning out to be a hard sell. Some big banks and investment companies are balking at the idea of ponying up money to buy risky assets that don't have market prices. How can they be sure, they ask, that the conduit will pay a reasonable price for these assets when there is no public market for them and no accurate method of assessing their risk?

Very good question. Perhaps good enough to sink the conduit plan completely. Which could be good news for mortgage holders on the edge of delinquency or default.

Maybe then mortgage lenders, the investment banks and institutional investors would be willing to turn their attention to offering home-mortgage borrowers who owe hundreds of thousands the same kind of workout that they're so willing to offer big debtors who owe billions.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

And Fleckenstein...

A super-duper bad-loan bailout scam

Call it Super SIV Mae. Wall Street's pals in the Treasury Department want to ride to the rescue with a new entity of entitlement, the 'structured investment vehicle.'

By Bill Fleckenstein

"Gambler Mae" made its debut in my Aug. 13 column. That was my name for the fictional entity I proposed should be created to bail out all losing trades everywhere, be they stock losses, racetrack losses or losing lottery tickets.

I modeled "Gambler Mae" on proposals being floated by our comrades in Congress who seem to think that the entire mortgage and housing sectors are deserving of a bailout -- despite the reckless behavior on display there that has brought us to where we are today.
Recipe for a no-fail subprime soufflé
This week I have another entity of entitlement to add to the list: "SIV Mae" (SIV = structured investment vehicle). That seems a fitting description of the super-duper bailout put together by the Goldman Sachs (GS, news, msgs) subsidiary known as the U.S. Treasury Department. (Goldman itself doesn't appear to be participating in the bailout, which is interesting.)

When I first heard about this, I was outraged, disgusted and slightly depressed. I thought, here we go, another bailout. Barney Frank and friends are trying to bail out the homeowners. Wall Street, the Treasury Department and the Bank of England appear determined to do whatever it takes so that we have absolutely no price discovery on any mortgage-related assets that may have gone bad -- thereby giving a pass to the folks who've made obscene amounts of money conceiving and marketing them. Whether you call this crony capitalism or socialism, the worst of it is what we have become.
Short-lived SIV Mae?
However, with the devil being in the details, this bailout may not get pulled off. For instance, at what price are these dodgy assets going to be moved into the new SIV Mae?

Obviously, the boys planning this scheme might like to make things look like the Treasury is standing behind it. And, for all I know, it might. On the other hand, will arm's-length buyers really be so stupid as to buy an asset that could easily be mismarked?
Keenly motivated to concoct the schlock
To quote a knowledgeable friend of a friend: "How anyone can look at the creation of this fund as anything other than a cynical way of moving an existing pile of crap from one place to another is beyond me. The fact that no one seems to think there is anything wrong with it (and I include the regulators) tells you just how 'fixed' the markets' problems are.

"The level of terror that must exist in the boardrooms of the banks and regulators that peered into Pandora's box this summer must be extreme. They set up the conduits to skirt balance-sheet constraints, and investors realized they were getting paid no-risk premium to buy the paper and fled. The answer? Do it again, in the same way, but call it something different."

And, to be filed in the further-reason-to-flee department, the Lord of the Dark Matter writes: "Meanwhile, in the background, Moody's is telling us in no uncertain terms that massive downgrades of subprime-laden CDOs are coming. To be sure, the ABX has been telling us for many months what the market thinks about the value of these things, but until the actual downgrade comes, an investor isn't necessarily obliged to sell. The IRS is also investigating accounting for mortgage-backed securities."
Gordian Knot all tangled up
The latest potential problem child in SIV world is Gordian Knot (which, until last Wednesday, had not appeared in the news). Bloomberg reported that Gordian Knot, a London investment house, completed a small financing of about $20 million, which is a rounding error.

I don't know why they even bothered. Gordian Knot has about $58 billion in SIVs outstanding, and Fidelity has about 4% of its money-market funds invested in Gordian-Knot-generated paper. This explains why Fidelity may be willing to be involved in the super-SIV bailout program.

It seems that Gordian Knot did not have any paper that needed to be rolled until mid-October, which is about where we are now. And, if it doesn't have a solid, enormous back-up liquidity line, life might get very complicated. So, Gordian is a name to keep your eye on.
Treasury-only money funds
Meanwhile, I suggest that readers be extra-careful with money-market funds (as I discussed here). I think that Treasury-only money funds are the way to go, until such time as financial-institution accounting becomes truly legitimate, which may be quite a long while from now, given where we are.

In any case, the level of desperation on the part of players involved in anything SIV-related -- witness their attempts to pull off this anti-capitalistic bailout -- suggests that the situation could be quite dicey.

Anonymous said...

GL Suite, what a bunch of dipshits!!! I interviewed with those guys a couple years ago when I was losing interest in my job and it was straight out of office space. The entire thing was some sort of stupid mind game. Never in my career have I ever had to answer such dumbass pyshological questions. I'm a programmer and they ask me 50 questions about people stealing pencils from work. I would never work for them even if I needed a job and I doubt they could afford me now anyway.

Anonymous said...

I thought about posting some SIV info last week, but what the fuck so much going on in Bend.

SIV's are what short-term money market's use. Your favorite money market is about to break-the-buck, which means that your dollar asset value money-mark buck, will soon fall below a buck, this has really never happened in the history of money-markets, but will happen now. Here's why.

10-20% of all money markets today HOLD SIV's which basically in the short term world is a CDO ( MTG PAPER ), as we all know BBB MTG paper is posted at 27 cents on the dollar, but in fact is worth ZERO.

This means quite simply that MOST money-market money will quite soon drop from ASSET-VALUE of ONE-DOLLAR to 80 cents on the dollar, ...

Which of course means MASSIVE redemption of money market money before its too late.

ONLY ONE SAFE place for your money, and that's T-BILLS in the USA, or better yet the EURO market abroad, albeit 2%, you'll NOT LOSE your principal.

The current 'bailout' is create a slush fund to buy the SIV's and replace the paper with cash, and then go back later and find value in the SIV's. Short term is a complete solvency collapse.

Stocks fall, homes fall, mtg bonds fall, and now money market falls; investors lose all confidence in the system. The BANKS are criminal. A good story this past weekend by Stein in NY Times about how US economy is quite good, but the makes are insolvent and corrupt. Steins point was much like Bend, nobody has gone to jail, but should have gone to jail.

Anonymous said...

I'm a programmer and they ask me 50 questions about people stealing pencils from work.

*

Welcome to Bend, OR when your the only employer in town in your industry, you can ask an applicant to suck cock, and get away with it.

Don't laugh I know a gay HR person who used to make guys take off their t-shirts in an interview.

Welcome to Bend.

Anonymous said...

talented, values-oriented people

If you want to work for GL Suite. Be ready to prove you are "values-oriented" by answering innumerable questions about what you would do if the employee in the cube next to you steals pencils or has a bad day. These guys shoot themselves in the foot. They should move to the bible belt and hire some faith based programmers. Fits right in with "government reguation".

Anonymous said...

IHTBYB - you have to find Steins article from sunday, in the NY Times, there he calls this whole 'conduit' a dream of paulson the ultimate insider.

The entire banking establishment has the biggest fox running the chicken-coop, and all the chickens are dead, and granny is about to get her quarterly from her money-market.

FRAUD, FRAUD, FRAUD, and DUBYA has completely neutered the prosecutors in this country, this is why KURATEK can force the city to violate open meeting laws, because there is NO longer any over-sight or concern of FRAUD.

It's now get yours, and get out!

There's going to be some ugly street lynching and call for national-guard for riots in the street before this is over.

While we have documented here that BAD people perhaps flipped or stupid people. Generally good working people FINANCED the bubble, and even their MONEY-MARKET is at risk.

Traditionally money market was only cash equiv, e.g. t-bill, .. then corporate paper, and today SIV; A SIV is just a short-term CDO/MTG Tranch collection, aka toxic-paper-waste.

The best numbers right now is that the average Money-Market contains NO more than 10-20% SIV, but we know for a fact its MUCH more than that.

Anonymous said...

These guys shoot themselves in the foot. They should move to the bible belt and hire some faith based programmers. Fits right in with "government reguation".


*

Naw just to sisters, they just approved that biggest bible-thump camp in America, and every christian gets a AR-15.

Anonymous said...

Fits right in with "government reguation".

*

Think about this, the only way to start and business, and make money is BEND is to attach yourself to a GOVERNMENT TIT.

This is the IRONY of the DUBYA years, they were anti-government, but created more spending for their own kind to get rich, and ran the USA into the outrageous debt.

BEND is DUBYA country, and MOST people in BEND suck GOVERNMENT BUSH-COCK.

Anonymous said...

I shudder to think what GL Suite is willing to pay if they think the cost of living in Bend is too high for a software company. What a joke.

Anonymous said...

Treasury-only money funds
Meanwhile, I suggest that readers be extra-careful with money-market funds (as I discussed here). I think that Treasury-only money funds are the way to go, until such time as financial-institution accounting becomes truly legitimate, which may be quite a long while from now, given where we are.

*

BULLSHIT, go to www.treasurydirect.com, and do it yourself, no reason to use a mutual.

All money-markets are mired in commercial paper, and most of the paper is toxic.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

GL Suite, what a bunch of dipshits!!

I've heard good & bad....

That "values-oriented" wording is a little strange.... People who use terms like that believe that they have cornered the market on "values" (religious extremists & cults), and simply wish to figure out if new recruits can be brainwashed...

tim said...

I see three ways to go if you want to run a software business.

1) Bay Area. Programmers like to be there, because they know if they start to hate their job, there's another job down the road.

2) Bull fuck Egypt. Go somewhere with a super-cheap cost of living, and you can pick up people who don't want to do Bay Area. Works well with family-oriented programmers.

3) Virtual. I know someone who does this. It would drive me NUTS. Dealing with conflicts and personality issues (not to mention slackers) is hard enough when you can do it all face-to-face. Trying to manage via Skype is an concept that gives me an ulcer.

Bend is the exact wrong place to have a software company, unless your company floats on money you made from selling your first company (yes, there are a few of those here). In that case, you can float your employees for a couple years, then you'll look for a way out. Possibly, Bend is a good place for virtual, as you can hire programmers around the world and live here. But you have to start with big money first.

If you try to set up a "normal" software company here, your employees will feel trapped and broke.

tim said...

As for "values," let me say something about a company where the owners have values that make people want to work for the company. I had friends at this company and they loved it!

"SAS Institute remains a wholly owned private company, enabling the management, led by James Goodnight, to run the company in the manner they think best, without worry about the demands of shareholders. An unusually high percentage (approximately 25%) of the revenue of the SAS Institute goes to research and development, which is widely considered to be one factor which keeps them ahead of their competitors. [1] In addition, the management goes to great lengths to keep employees happy in their jobs. For example, on-site amenities include such things as "Free Fruit Mondays", "M&M Wednesdays", "Free Breakfast Fridays", as well as soda fountains and snacks in every breakroom. Other employee benefits include, "two on-site childcare centers, an eldercare information and referral program, an employee health care center, wellness programs, a 58,000 square foot recreation and fitness center, and many other work-life programs." As a result, SAS Institute has frequently been included in lists of the best places to work in America. CBS' 60 Minutes did a segment on the employee benefits of SAS, entitled "The Royal Treatment." These benefits also pay off for the company in terms of low turnover: SAS lost 3.7% of its employees in 2000, which is about a tenth of competitors' rates."

That's how you make a company that works long-term. Make the people LOVE the place their working for. So many programming shops are really sweat-shops where there's an adversarial relationship between owners and employees.

So don't push your damned moral stances, be a fuckin'-good employer instead.

Anonymous said...

But if I were you, I would take my chips and go.

Are you going to take your own advice?

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

That's how you make a company that works long-term. Make the people LOVE the place their working for. So many programming shops are really sweat-shops where there's an adversarial relationship between owners and employees.

Man, and unhappy programmers can raise & lower their productivity by factor of 10 at will, all the while looking like they are busting their ass. In fact, frantic, harried programmers are a good sign that that something has gone terribly wrong. Managing programmers is like managing DaVinci... if they are worth a shit, it's best to let them do their own thing.

SAS is in the Carolinas, right?

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Are you going to take your own advice?

Thinking about it more & more.

Anonymous said...

Anybody know the results of Brooks' auction? Were they all sold? How much?

Anonymous said...

As a "values oriented" programmer... If you hire me I swear to shun all "by reference" data types. I will place nothing on the heap.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

As a "values oriented" programmer... If you hire me I swear to shun all "by reference" data types. I will place nothing on the heap.


Lisa: My family never talks about library standards. And every
time I try to steer the conversation that way, they make
me feel like a nerd.
ComicBookGuy: We are hardly nerds. Would a nerd wear such an irreverent
sweatshirt? [open his jacket to show off his shirt]
Lisa: [reading the shirt] "C:/DOS C:/DOS/RUN RUN/DOS/RUN".
[laughs] Oh, only one person in a million would find that
funny.
Frink: Yes, we call that the, "Dennis Miller Ratio."

tim said...

>>SAS is in the Carolinas, right?

Research Triangle.

You know, NC's version of "Juniper Ridge."

Anonymous said...

Please send your child to DUBYA for amusement.
...
"You don't have money to fund the war or children, but you're going to spend it to blow up innocent people if we can get enough kids to grow old enough for you to send to Iraq to get their heads blown off for the president's amusement," he said.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous said...

Anybody know the results of Brooks' auction? Were they all sold? How much

*

The so called 'brooks auction' is a catalog of NW land there are a few homes, I got the catalogue about two weeks ago because I buy at RE auctions. I'm tired now, the auction is at the Marriott in November by the PDX airport. You must be valid buyer to enter, e.g. you must register and prove your a buyer.

I'll post info tomorrow on how to get on the catlogue list list, and how to become a buyer. I'm too tired to do this now, I have beer to drink.

Having their three condo's in the huge colored catalogue was hardly newsworthy, as WE all predicted, it wasn't news at all. This would be exactly like ...

"Brooks Resources takes out 1/8 page yellow pages ad for Brooks Memorial Services". Only the BULL would make this 'news'.

Anonymous said...

For example, on-site amenities include such things as "Free Fruit Mondays", "M&M Wednesdays", "Free Breakfast Fridays", as well as soda fountains and snacks in every breakroom.

*

Sounds like some real fucking pigs, what ever happened to all day free beer on friday? I remember that.

Anonymous said...

Before I lose my train of thought on tuesday two buck beer, ...

On the SIV issue here is the critical today there is $3.2 TRILLION dollars in money market. The BIG-BOYS admitted two weeks ago in WSJ that 10-20% is toxic-SIV. I think its more.

The buck will break, this called 'break the back of the buck', its never happened before it will happened this time.

How much loss are we talking 10-20$ of $3.2 trillion, $320 Billion to $640 Billion lost in the money market alone. The $80Billion is just to cover Paulson's (treas sec) CitiCorp, to bit to fail.

The idea is buy pumping up he SIV's they can be orderly sold so that upon redemption ( its going to happen quick ), the markets don't collapse.

There is more shit like this coming, they're simply letting people know a little month by month. The EARLY BIRD gets his money out early, the late dodo gets a letter of 'bank holiday'.

Anonymous said...

Bend is the exact wrong place to have a software company, unless your company floats on money you made from selling your first company (yes, there are a few of those here). In that case, you can float your employees for a couple years, then you'll look for a way out. -timmy

*

Wow timmy you really understand the biz, I know a lot of SW entrepreneurs in town, and they all sold out before coming here, starting a high tech company in Bend is insane. Far better just to start it in the bay, and commute like Kuratek.

Most of us old entrepreneurs came to Bend to 'retire', not to fuck with employees.

The reasons for not starting a biz in Bend, have been said too many times here. Too bad we can't do a once and for all posting on the subject, and just reference it as Item 101, whenever it comes up.

Anonymous said...

Works well with family-oriented programmers.

*

Jeezus fucking christ I want to puke your really wrecking my beer appetite, but I cannot pass this by.

What an oxymoron, most 'family-oriented' people are fucking creationists, they're anti-science, as a high-tech physicist, I cannot stand these fucking programmers that think the world is fucking 4,000 years old, and believe all this shit.

In order to do say embedded systems, you need to understand the HW to program, but if you knowledge of the world is the fucking bible then you have a fucking BULLSHIT model.

If bible-thumpers really ran the world we would be back in the dark ages, no computers, no quantum mechanics, DNA, no science nothing, we would still be burning fucking witches.

Mrs. Breeze would have fried a long time ago if Bend was a family-value town.

tim said...

>>Works well with family-oriented programmers.

Well, what I meant by that was guys 35+ with kids they actually want to see. I did that all day all night thing in my 20s. That's Bay Area stuff. Us old guys want to hike around with the kids, help with homework, and just plain goof off with our kid.

I'm an atheist. When I say "family-oriented," I mean I actually want to have a life. I didn't have any religion in mind.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

The buck will break, this called 'break the back of the buck', its never happened before it will happened this time.

Yeah, I don't write about the Super-Macro much... but this whole housing thing has a very ominous feeling to it. It has the capacity to make this country "2nd World".

Not overnight or anything... but overreaching imperialism combined with a massive loss of domestic wealth... well, we could be the next Britain.

Not a total pile of shit mind you... but wayyyyy less important than we are today. I give it 50 years.

Anonymous said...

In order to do say embedded systems, you need to understand the HW to program, but if you knowledge of the world is the fucking bible then you have a fucking BULLSHIT model.

*

Good god....

Sober up, get a shrink, and stick to Real Estate here please. No need to incite religious wars on this blog.

Anonymous said...

It has the capacity to make this country "2nd World".

*

Back in the day when I was in special forces, they used to teach us that the USA was just a 3rd world country with nukes. Are you you laying a fucking paradigm shift on my drunk arse?

Anonymous said...

I'm an atheist. When I say "family-oriented," I mean I actually want to have a life. I didn't have any religion in mind.

*

Thanks for the clarification, I thought you had bought a one-way ticket to Sisters for the camp & AR-15 package.

Anonymous said...

The buck will break, this called 'break the back of the buck', its never happened before it will happen this time.

*

Just in case there are those that don't eat, shit, and sleep this crap.

The money market is fixed NAV ( net asset value ) to the dollar, you get say 3%, but you put a buck in ( 1.00 ) you get a buck out ( 1.00 ) when the buck break's you'll be lucky to get back 0.80 on the dollar, this is what is meant by 'breaking the back of the buck'.

Sorry, but I think its very important to keep things simple.

Anonymous said...

Sober up, get a shrink, and stick to Real Estate here please. No need to incite religious wars on this blog.

*

That's great, there you go Homer the topic for next sunday, ...

Would Jeezus buy this home? Would jeezus live in this Home? Would Jeezus fire an AR-15 at the Sisters bible camp, or would he prefer a full-auto M-16?

Anonymous said...

Not overnight or anything... but overreaching imperialism combined with a massive loss of domestic wealth... well, we could be the next Britain.


*

It's so slow a process, it took Rome 500 years to go down the toilet, the past 20 UK has been 15 years ahead of the USA.

Today if you look closely at the UK, they're actually doing better, having stayed out the EU, has saved them money.

I suspect that the USA is terminal, did all see the move 'V' for vendetta, where the USA is the worlds leper colony? It could very well turn that way.

The USA has a lot groups, and its take a lot of money to keep all the groups in the ghetto @ home. That money is now being spent killin folks in the middle-east,

The USA could still put out, its like duncan percentage racket, theres a 20% chance the USA can control the worlds oil for the rest of the century, but an 80% chance the USA will become the largest gated prison-colony on earth, when the rest of the world indicts it for war crimes.

Anonymous said...

The SHIT hitting the fan? This morning's BULLETIN has a story about the CITY and KURATEK's relationship being ON THR ROCKS! LMAO!
Any surprise? As the bubble unwinds the shit starts to stink badly.

Anonymous said...

Ok, somebody wanted to know about the INFAMOUS Brooks-Auction of craptacular condo's by the has-been Deschutes River.

Here are the specifics.

www.rmnw-auctions.com

A Idaho company that puts out a beautiful 100 page color-glossy catalogue quarterly.

The auction is at the portland, oregon sheraton intl airport hotel Nov 3, 2007.

There are 73 property's in the catalog, 57 are sealed bids, about six are non-reserve.

90% are raw land in bum-fuck parts of NO-CAL and Idaho. The fact that Brooks got their three condos from MT-B-Village in this catalog is a complete joke. Normally the way it works is the house get 10% for handling a deal, there's usually a charge for getting in the catalog to cover printing cost.

The LLC false-front of Brooks selling the condos is "River Wild", they're calling it a close-out, min bids to start "$200k below 2005 high ASK". As you all know these condos have a MIN bid of $200k under the all time high ASK.

Developer-closeout, special 18-mon financing included, two mt-b ski passes included, golf package, bend athletic club package, and health club membership, all included with condo's. Monthly HOA dues are currenly $248 ( so they say )

Bids below the MIN, will NO be considered. Bid submission drop dead is Nov 2, 10AM. 5% cash must be enclosed with bid, and delivered to PDX office RM/NAIO 522 SW Fifth, ste1250,pdx,97204.

In summary, this WAS NOT FUCKING NEW, the fact that BROOKS put these condos in this rag is just another marketing promotion deal, they don't give a FUCK, they got realtors trying to sell this shit at Brooks Realty. ( one of 10,000 Brooks LLCs in Oregon )

The REAL bullshit on this, is why did the BULL make this a page one business news story "Brooks Auctions Condo's". The MIN-BID price is still $350/sq-ft HARDLY fucking deal for a fucking condo. Min Bid $700k for a 2bd fucking condo, big story in the BULL.

If they sell for nickel over MIN the BULL will make a big deal, if they don't sell at all, who cares, ... I'll not go to the this auction, I have to be in Bend that weekend. Perhaps someone will be there and give a report if the ORAL even comes up, the way the contract is written, if they get a min-bid PRIOR to ORAL/VERBAL auction, then the condo's will be sold. Again, its all just PR/MARKETING.

If the condos make it to ORAL, and there is NO min-bid, then they'll not be sold.

END OF STORY.

Anonymous said...

Normally the way it works is the house get 10% for handling a deal, there's usually a charge for getting in the catalog to cover printing cost.

*

The point here is that Brooks would walk with $630k, on a min-bid $700k, if it sold, thats still more than Brooks could get if they sold it themselves.

What's it worth? Note JUMBO is fucked in Bend, and thus most likely there is NO way hell someone would pay over $420k. Even then it would be $210/sq-ft, still too much fucking money for a condo with a max life of fifteen years.

Anonymous said...

Todays WSJ.

Cancellation rate on Building is now 70%, think about that 70% of the people signing to have a home built are bailing.

The majority of homeowners are NOW under-water, closing costs exceed walk away cash, it actually now costs money to MOVE-UP into a bigger mcMansion! Holy Shit.

Summary, a tough housing market, just got tougher.

It gets better, country-wide is now seeing a 40% increase in foreclosures on post arm increases. There you go right there, Bend has five years of ARM resets to work through, and already Country-Wide has seen this kind of an increase in foreclosure, after they have increased the monthly rate from initial 'teazer' to ARMED-RESET.

Here's the current HARD-NUMBER.
2009-2011 $229 BILLION in increases.

Play with these number's this is folks that bought 2004 and later, figure the number of people and divide that into this increase on average.

I don't even want to get into the SIV, its gotten far worse.

Anonymous said...

The SHIT hitting the fan? This morning's BULLETIN has a story about the CITY and KURATEK's relationship being ON THR ROCKS! LMAO!
*

Thanks can someone PLEEZE anonymously post this, and be sure to include the copyright(c) for BROOKS/BULL so that we can all honor the dead and dying.

Anonymous said...

Given that ANDERSON ( bend city manager ) got his ass fired, and he's the cunt that negotiated the easy-money deals, my guess is that Kuratek has lost his fucking patron.

Note that Clinton, Abernethy are dead meat.

Clinton is a pathological fuck-head, on the other hand Abernethy has never had a real fucking job in his life, if he doesn't clean up the fucking BEND MESS quickly, this CUNT is going to spend the rest of of poly-sci/master-in-admin life @ fucking WalMart as a greeter.

I SAY easy-money, this is what I mean, the bend-bull was about easy-money, but ALL these cunts like Hollern & KURATEK, their deals were about taxpayer money being easy.

Kuratek just fucking ate at the fucking trough. Hollern got to pay $12k/house for infrastructure, when the actual cost was $60k/house, Hollern built 1,000's of home in Bend alone, and there's at least $48 Million dollars that Hollern got from the city of Bend.

Easy fucking money,

Yes, the shit has HIT the FAN.

Anonymous said...

Even more RE "shit his the fan" news!

Existing Sep. homes sales DOWN 8%

Down 19% from last SEP!

20 yr inventory high

10 yr low on singles family home sales rate

Anyone ready to buy yet? F no!

Anonymous said...

Lot's of fucking blogger-fodder today, will someone please post the Kuratek gets an MOU shoved up his arse story. Please
........................
Oct. 24, 2007

Demand for existing homes slid 8% to a 5.04 million annual rate in September, the lowest sales pace in nearly 10 years, amid continued problems in the mortgage market. Inventories of homes rose 0.4% at the end of September to 4.40 million available for sale. The median home price was $211,700 in September, down 4.2% from $220,900 in September 2006, the National Association of Realtors said.

Anonymous said...

I believe I saw that the Aug to Sep median price drop was the biggest since records kept - this is a "national number". I will be very interested to see the western numbers, and the local ones when available!

Anonymous said...

The median home price was $211,700 in September, down 4.2% from $220,900 in September 2006, the National Association of Realtors said.

*

Fucking NAR, I thought RE only goes up? Remember a year ago, NAR said that RE has never gone down in history?

A 4% loss in medians that don't mean shit! A vast percentage of post 2004 buyers paid nothing down, as sellers put in the 6% average closing costs, and you have a 10% loss to move up, down, or side-ways. New home, flipping, ... Is fucking shutdown.

This is just the beginning, people will look back and just wish they only lost 10%.

The story is that the cash is gone, the 401k is gone, the credit-cards are max'd out, and now the banks are going to implode, and the money markets. Which means of course, your out of a fucking job.

Duncan, I'm not suggesting any of this is a disaster. My folks raised me on the premise that the depression was America's finest hour.

Anonymous said...

I encourage everyone to read the linked article on where the U.S. stands financially and in the world. I do not believe it is at all far fetched and is far too close to home for comfort.

Here's the link..

http://www.321gold.com/editorials/buckler/buckler102407.html

Anonymous said...

Juniper's developer is at odds with Bend

-BULL

...

Who in the fuck is Bend?

Like I said yesterday, what is Bend?

Where is Bend going? What do we want of Bend?

What is Bend to become?

Anonymous said...

So I am already womdering how the BULL is going to sugarcoat today's RE numbers? I am LMAO just thinking about it.

Maybe back page? small print? more quotes on how this is THE BOTTOM and you have to buy now?

In the fullness of time...

Anonymous said...

http://www.321gold.com/editorials/buckler/buckler102407.html

*

This is about as reliable as BendBust telling Bendbb that he will not cum in his mouth, or that he's wearing a condom.

Goldbugs are continually saying the world is falling apart, always have and always will. So have the LaRouchie's.

Sadly, for every economic malady, tens of thousands of get-rich-quick gold fraudsters appear.

There's always going to be partial truth, its the solution to the problem, and the solution is NOT to buy Gold Certificates from a guy in Zimbabwe.

Anonymous said...

Gold-Bug read the following, this is the truth.

The overall market is getting nutso. India dropped an amazing 10% in one day and it's time to hunker down. The gold cheerleaders are howling at their most shrill and when they do, it's time for a correction. There are far too many gold bulls for me.

Look for another giant swoon in the overall market and gold heavies to do a 10-15% drop. The next move up in gold is going to be wonderful but it isn't going to be tomorrow. It's time for a minor setback in advance of a major move higher in the juniors.

The "subprime" crisis hasn't even started and this time there will be blood in the streets. Some giant financial companies are going to get hurt big time. When a problem is caused by loose money, it cannot be solved by loose money.

Bob Moriarty
President: 321gol

tim said...

Your request is my command...

From Forbes..."By region of the country sales were down 10 percent in the Northeast, 9.9 percent in the West, 7 percent in the Midwest and 6 percent in the South."

CNBC said that it's California and Florida killing the west and south. That's no good for Bend.

We'll probably see California's Realtors numbers this week.

As for how the Bulletin will cover it. They'll do a big story somewhere on the Business page, emphasizing how bad other ares are, then one local Realtor will say "I'm so glad that Bend isn't seeing this kind of problem." And another local Realtor will say, "Boy that sucked, but that's as low as it can go and I'm sure glad we're starting to see some buyers again."

Our buddy David Fisher is the most predictable real estate writer in the business.

tim said...

As for gold, listen to Jim Rogers. Don't buy gold--buy a basket of all commodities. Whenever gov'ts decide gold is peaking, they'll start selling from their incredible reserves. Other commodities don't have that problem.

tim said...

Note that the drop was from a "downward revised" August. So this is even worse news than it first seems. How much you want to bet that September ends up revised as well?

Anonymous said...

Juniper's developer is at odds with Bend

-BULL

*

Does anyone here give the BULL all that money? Can someone post this??

Anonymous said...

Cancellations at 70%, but the marketing keeps coming, note that the government is still paying editors to visit Brooks Resorts.

Kiss of death, 'Community' of the year is an Oregon Ghost Village.


Brasada Ranch Named Community of the Year in Builder Magazine

Central Oregon Development Cited for Sustainable Building, Preserving Open Space



POWELL BUTTE, Ore.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Brasada Ranch, a luxurious golf and outdoor recreation community nestled in the scenic high desert of Central Oregon, is proving that green building can be simply gorgeous.

For the ingenuity of salvaging wood from an old lumber mill and the foresight to set aside half of its land as open space, Brasada Ranch has won major national recognition. The development was named Community of the Year by Builder, the magazine of the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB), in the October issue.

Brasada Ranch is no stranger to national honors. It is the first destination resort in Oregon and the fourth nationally to receive a gold rating from the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED). This prestigious LEED certification was given to Brasada Ranch’s centerpiece structure, the 8,300-square-foot Discovery Center, as well as four other core community buildings also designed to LEED silver and gold standards.

“The Discovery Center is just one example of sustainable development at Brasada Ranch,” said Ken Cates, vice president of sales and marketing for JELD-WEN Communities. “Our core value of treading lightly on the land guided all our decisions, from diverting 75 percent of our construction site waste away from landfills to selecting 100-percent recycled roof shingles.”

Brasada Ranch’s Discovery Center was built from 300,000 board feet of reclaimed wood from the nearby Ochoco lumber mill, which was purchased and carefully cataloged by the ranch’s parent company, JELD-WEN Communities. Artifacts from the 75-year-old mill are integrated into the center’s decor, along with lava rock and native material featured in the stonework. In addition, the entrance to Brasada Ranch is framed by a refurbished trestle bridge that once served as an irrigation flume.

“From a design standpoint, these materials provided an instant patina that contrasts nicely with contemporary features such as skylights and board form concrete,” project architect Richard Carr told Builder. Carr is the principal of Cottle Carr Yaw (CCY) Architects of Boulder, Colo.

Some of the sustainable building features are literally hidden beneath the surface. The core community buildings are heated and cooled by a high-tech ground-source lake loop system tied to the pond on the ranch’s private, championship golf course. The system achieves up to 60 percent efficiency when compared with traditional gas-fired heating. Residents have the opportunity to select cutting-edge technology that will make their homes and cabins highly efficient.

tim said...

“Lawrence Yun, NAR senior economist, said the decline is understandable. ‘Mortgage problems were peaking back in August when many of the September closings were being negotiated, and that slowed sales notably in higher priced areas that rely more on jumbo loans,’ he said.”

I don't even know what to say to that. These are the guys that predict that your refrigerator will get colder when the power goes out.

Anonymous said...

Anderson was rendered "ineffective because he was muzzled by the council." - Yeh, Anderson was the fall guy, Bend City Council is imploding. The good news is the fucking secrecy of Juniper-Ridge, is now coming back to haunt them. ODOT has put the entire project on HOLD. JR is fucked, and now the State of Oregon has finally got off its ass, and started enforcing the open meeting laws.

It's going to be really interesting when Anderson starts talking.

Traffic woes delay Bend's Juniper Ridge deal

Oct 23, 2007 08:41 PM
Bend says ODOT won't allow development at Juniper Ridge until traffic fix, funding is identified
Bend says ODOT won't allow development at Juniper Ridge until traffic fix, funding is identified

City blames ODOT; ODOT says city hadn't shared details of deal

By Barney Lerten, KTVZ.COM

To the pleasure but not surprise of its critics, the city of Bend announced Tuesday a delay of at least a few months in the controversial development agreement for the city's 1,500-acre Juniper Ridge mixed-use development.

Ron Garzini, special project manager, said the delay until "early 2008" is due to an Oregon Department of Transportation letter. The letter indicated that any building beyond the new Les Schwab headquarters won't be allowed until a fix is identified for the traffic-clogged intersection at Highway 97 and Cooley Road - and a funding strategy is in place.

The city (www.ci.bend.or.us) has hired an engineering team that includes CH2MHill to come up with solutions for the intersection and its surroundings, which also have delayed Wal-Mart's efforts to build a Bend Supercenter near the intersection (much to the joy of its opponents).

An early estimate of the cost of that intersection's long-term fix: $15 million to $30 million.

"Until estimates and engineering are firm and funds are identified, and an agreement is approved by ODOT, it would be premature to go further with a Juniper Ridge development agreement," Garzini said.

"Once the planning for the intersection is complete, work plans are complete, risk assessments are complete and funds are identified, a development plan will be brought forward which matches those documents," said Garzini, a former assistant and interim city manager called in by now-fired City Manager Andy Anderson to help the project through some rough waters.

But ODOT spokesman Peter Murphy said it's not accurate to say the project is stalled due to the state's concerns.

"We didn't say ‘No,'" Murphy said. "What we said are, ‘Those are the steps that we need to take.'"

In the letter, dated last Thursday, ODOT Region 4 Manager Bob Bryant pointed to language in the current draft "memorandum of understanding" (MOU) between the city and state agency.

The draft language says ODOT won't support rezoning any more land at Juniper Ridge within the current urban growth boundary, or to rezone any additional Juniper Ridge acreage brought into the UGB without a "mid-term improvement project with funding obligation by the city" and "a long-term transportation improvement plan and funding agreement."

"It's not like we haven't been working on this for some time now," Bryant told KTVZ.COM. "We've had a lot of sessions." At the request of councilors, Bryant said, "I wrote a very brief summary that sets out the basic premises that underlies all of the work we've done."

"Our concern (was) they were moving forward with a development agreement that we had not had an opportunity to review," Bryant said. "I had no idea what language was in there regarding transportation."

"I clearly understand the city's goals and interest in wanting to bring more area into zoning that would be available for development," the ODOT official said.

"At the same time, with the traffic impacts we're talking about, at an intersection that's already a challenge, we just felt it was important that we are able to provide the council with good information to make informed decisions," Bryant said. "We're still putting information together, on what some of those answers will look like."

The delay in the deal with Juniper Ridge Partners came just hours before the kickoff meeting of the city's new "97/Cooley Steering Committee," which will try to come up with an acceptable path forward with at least some short-term solutions for the intersection.

The city's decision pleased, but came as no surprise to Oran Teater, one of several former mayors involved in an effort to slow down and shift the Juniper Ridge plans back toward an emphasis on industrial land (www.dojuniperridgeright.com).

"They needed to do that, to bring things back to reality," Teater told KTVZ.COM.

That (ODOT letter) shouldn't be a surprise to anybody," Teater said. "It's surprising to me they would have thought they could get a development agreement put together without ODOT's sign-off - that's crazy."

"The reality is, the council has put the city at risk, and if you'd gone forward with this, you'd have put yourself in a huge financial bind," said Teater, whose group turned in petitions with hundreds of signatures from citizens seeking a slower, phased approach.

"The way this thing should have come down is with a master plan first and the city have the master plan approved just like any other developer," he said. "Get the CC&Rs in place, the design reviews in place - then if you need a master planner, go get one. The city did this sort of bass-ackwards."

Those views were echoed by Tim Knopp, a former state legislator and executive vice president of the Central Oregon Builders Association.

"We've heard that (ODOT message) was coming for six months," Knopp said.

"We just want (the city) to get on the right track, supported by the community," he said.

"I think the city council needs to think long and hard about funding these transportation improvements," Knopp added.

"We want to see Juniper Ridge developed and industrial land become available, as well as mixed use," he said. "We just want it to be done right."

Teater also said he did not believe the Juniper Ridge controversy played much of a role in last week's council decision to fire Anderson.

"These guys have so micromanaged this thing, between (Bill) Friedman, (Jim) Clinton and Mark Capell this year, I don't think Andy's had a chance to say boo on this," Teater said, adding that Anderson was rendered "ineffective because he was muzzled by the council."

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

listen to Jim Rogers.

Whenever I think of the poor macro case for the US, I remember that Rogers is (has?) moving to China. THAT'S conviction.

Anonymous said...

All development plans are on hold until Juniper-Ridge can find funding for I-97 improvements. ( Never going to happen ). Does this mean that Kuratek doesn't get $60k/mo anymore?

*

Garzini said, “Until estimates and engineering are firm and funds are identified, and an agreement is approved by ODOT, it would be premature to go further with a Juniper Ridge development agreement.”

Garzini went on to say, “Once the planning for the intersection is complete, work plans are complete, risk assessments are complete, and funds are identified, a development plan will be brought forward which matches those documents.”

Anonymous said...

Whenever I think of the poor macro case for the US, I remember that Rogers is (has?) moving to China. THAT'S conviction.

*

China is hot, I started going there frequently in 1985 forward. What blew me away is the wild-west capitalism. Irish Pubs, Blues-Bars 24/7,

There was NO tax, no business permit, capitalism in its MOST pure form. Anybody that wasn't getting rich, just didn't care to.

At the time I contrasted it with the USA, old school socialism, .e.g. National Socialism, aka NAZISM. Government & Industry joined at the hip.

Yes, China is the place if you want un-restricted business opportunity, just don't piss off the government, but that can be said here just as well. Look what happened to Korish at the Branch Davidian Church.

The USA likes to portray China as commie, but the fact is USA is FAR MORE commie than China.

Anonymous said...

said...

listen to Jim Rogers.

Whenever I think of the poor macro case for the US, I remember that Rogers is (has?) moving to China. THAT'S conviction.

*

It's not that big of a deal, these days Shanghai is a far newer and more beautiful safer city than any place in the USA. You can commute by train to Suzhou which is the Venice of China, just a burb of Shanghai.

When Marco Polo visited China in 12th century he noted that Suzhou alone had MORE BRIDGES than all of Europe at that time.

Great place to invest in RE, its only going to go up for the next few generations. Over a billion people and most without electricity, which means the greatest high-tech boom in human history hasn't even begun.

Thinking about Tesla Power Distribution or far out energy source, or ... anything that provides energy cheap and remote. Then China is the place to be.

The USA, is going to be race riots, prisons, and general malaise.

Everybody that could buy did buy, now they have to pay the bill.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

The USA, is going to be race riots, prisons, and general malaise.

I think if you want to see what the bleeding edge of hyper-maxed out credit will do to us, look at Great Britain. The US at least has some sliver of equity & a decent globalized industrial base. GB owes more per capita than any 1st World country, their unsecured debt ratios are unbelievable, and they have zero equity.

GB will be the first domino to fall... we'll be right there after them.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

"I'm so glad that Bend isn't seeing this kind of problem."

Yeah... our 14.3 months of inventory looks wonderful next to the nationwide AVG of just over 10 months...

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

China is hot, I started going there frequently in 1985 forward. What blew me away is the wild-west capitalism. Irish Pubs, Blues-Bars 24/7,

Right... when I really think hard about leaving Bend, there's a little sliver of my brain that thinks about going to China, or somewhere in the Far East. If I had no kids, I'd have probably done it.

Anonymous said...

I used to think that, but I visit there at least once a year, it used to be fifteen years ahead of us. There has been a spill over with Ireland doing well, and EU spending all the money.

Also if you stay out of the big city's, the countryside of UK is still very traditional. They do things back us from the grand ol design, all the white trash are kept in the city's, and the gentry lives in the country.

Given there are now a million cameras watching everyone in London, that pretty creepy, but that shit is coming to the USA.

Its a hard call now on which place will go down first, the way things are heading the USA could very well go down first, with +$2Trillion spent on Iraq, you don't see GB doing that shit.

We're wiping out our USA treasure and quick.

Anonymous said...

Getting back to China, I really wish someone would post the BULL story today about Juniper Ridge.

China is the future, GB & USA are the past. Besides nearly 90% of chinese are natural entrepreneurs, the USA has specifically bred sheep for so long that nothing is going get people off their ass, except a real nice depression.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

The city (www.ci.bend.or.us) has hired an engineering team that includes CH2MHill to come up with solutions for the intersection and its surroundings, which also have delayed Wal-Mart's efforts to build a Bend Supercenter near the intersection (much to the joy of its opponents).

An early estimate of the cost of that intersection's long-term fix: $15 million to $30 million.


Note the cost of the traffic fix in proportion to what it is estimated that JR is worth in it's current raw form; $65MM.

Just to get the traffic flow right will cost almost HALF of what the land is worth. Something to think about next time BendBilboBust talks about $13K SDC's being too low & the real cost is closer to $60K...

Anonymous said...

An early estimate of the cost of that intersection's long-term fix: $15 million to $30 million.

Note the cost of the traffic fix in proportion to what it is estimated that JR is worth in it's current raw form; $65MM.

*

Thats the WHOLE POINT, we the FUCKING taxpayer, pays KURATEK directly forever, without our $30M in the intersection, HIS land is still worth ONE-DOLLAR.

The thing is the fucking $30M is JUST ONE INTERSECTION, it will cost 100's of MILLIONS to build the infrastructure out there in BUMFUCK BADLANDS aka Juniper-Ridge.

This is the same game Brooks plays, ALL his development is paid by the greater population, for HIS single enrichment.

To date Les Schwab doesn't PAY A FUCKING DIME, we're literally paying them TO LEAVE Prineville.

Who Profits ?? LS & KURATEK, who pays ? The taxpayers of Bend. Do they profit? NO

What's in it for the taxpayers? Longer commute time heading north.

Anonymous said...

Ray Kuratek Retirement Fund

BilBlowBagAShit doesn't have to take credit for this issue the mighty find folks ... @

http://www.bendinfrastructurefirst.com/

WELCOME TO THE BEND INFRASTRUCTURE FIRST WEBSITE
This Site is for Citizens Wishing to Fix Bend, Oregon's Infrastructure Mess
If this isn't you, at least send money!

http://www.bendinfrastructurefirst.com/

Anonymous said...

Bend is a fascinating shit-hole, everybody got rich during the boom years because they refused to pay the true cost of infrastructure, now in a few years all our mega-millionaires are going to be stranded in shitting houses downhill from the non-existent sewage treatment plant, stuck in their car under overpasses without storm pumps,... while their fucking kids go to schools with 100 in a classroom.

Hey it was worth NOT paying the actual cost.

Here is the fascinating thing, HAD BEND charged the actual, e.g. $60k/home, then the building boom would MOST likely has been about 1/3, and thus Bend would have never even been on the bubble-radar.

The WHOLE reason randy sebastian came, and Mike Hollern built is that they knew that in effect Bend is-was the most profitable town in Oregon, had they built in Wilsonville, where Sebastian came from he would be still paying $90k/home infrastructure.

Bend is a city of fucking morons top to bottom.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

CACB -- lost 25% of market value top to bottom in the last 14 trading days...

Anonymous said...

Bend is a fascinating shit-hole, everybody got rich during the boom years because they refused to pay the true cost of infrastructure, now in a few years all our mega-millionaires are going to be stranded in shitting houses downhill from the non-existent sewage treatment plant, stuck in their car under overpasses without storm pumps,... while their fucking kids go to schools with 100 in a classroom.

Hey it was worth NOT paying the actual cost.

Here is the fascinating thing, HAD BEND charged the actual, e.g. $60k/home, then the building boom would MOST likely has been about 1/3, and thus Bend would have never even been on the bubble-radar.

The WHOLE reason randy sebastian came, and Mike Hollern built is that they knew that in effect Bend is-was the most profitable town in Oregon, had they built in Wilsonville, where Sebastian came from he would be still paying $90k/home infrastructure.

Bend is a city of fucking morons top to bottom.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Something to think about next time BendBilboBust talks about $13K SDC's being too low & the real cost is closer to $60K...

It's pretty ironic that the Edge-case, over-the-top Hyper Bears, are actually are starting to have their outlandish predictions & Sirens of Doom validated.

If $13K SDC's were in proportion to JR TRAFFIC ONLY charges... home lots would be about $25,000 in Bend. Add in all the other infrastructure charges, and SDC's would probably cost more than the lots themselves.

I've been out around the -4 STD's for a few years, and now the "Real Nuts" out at -5 STD's are starting to look like they are the ones that are getting the true magnitude of catastrophe right....

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Sisters Realtor dies suddenly

The Sisters community was stunned on Monday by the word that Dick "Rhino" Reinertson had died suddenly on Sunday morning. Reinertson, 69, suffered a heart attack while vacationing at Yachats on the Oregon coast.

Reinertson was a prominent Realtor in Sisters, having established Rhino Ranch & Realty in 1993. He was also well known for his sponsorship support of the Sisters Sparrow Clubs.

His family noted that Reinertson overcame a very difficult childhood in which he helped raise his siblings in straitened circumstances ("you'd call it poverty," his wife Cheryl said). Despite, or perhaps because of hard times growing up, Reinertson maintained a constantly optimistic outlook.

"He sure had an unquenchable spirit," said his son-in-law Chad Hicks, who worked with Rhino and experienced the ups and downs of real estate.

"He was an eternal optimist. He was unflappable. It almost annoyed me," he said with a laugh.

Reinertson moved with his wife and daughter from the Bay Area in 1988. He had a successful printing business, but he wanted a change, wanted to raise his daughter Chera in a less materialistic environment.

The family visited friends in Central Oregon in 1987 and they stopped in Sisters.

"We were all cone lickers that Sunday afternoon," Cheryl said. "And of course, like he always did, he said, 'I want to look at property.' That one cone-licking Sunday led to house hunting."

The family uprooted from the Bay Area and moved to a five-acre llama ranch in Sisters. Reinertson, who always had an interest in real estate, got his license and started working for Cardale Mountain Realty in 1990. He hung out his own shingle three years later.

As a Realtor, Reinertson had a reputation for genuine interest in his clients and a willingness to bend to make things work.

"Relationships were more important to him than his pocketbook success," Chad said.

"He really did want every situation to be a win-win," Cheryl said. "If he was going to be the only one winning, he didn't want it."

Reinertson was widely known for his Sparrow Club sponsorship. Sparrow Clubs are student organizations that help local children in medical crisis. Sponsors provide funds and the club members do community service to earn those funds, which are donated to the family in need.

Reinertson was a primary sponsor for the Sisters clubs.

"I think he just really had a heart for kids," said his daughter Chera.

He liked the idea of kids learning to work to serve others and put others' needs ahead of their own.

Chera said he also tried to help out in an informal way.

"If he heard there were kids without winter coats, he'd just randomly drop off a check (with the school district) and say, 'Do what you need to do,'" Chera said.

That outlook was a reflection of Reinertson's home life, which was devoted to family, especially his young grandchildren. He spent every Thursday with them.

"He was such an awesome grandpa," Chad said. "His only (failing) was he let a few diapers get awfully droopy."

His family and business associates and the Sparrow Club families whom he helped remember Reinertson as a thoughtful man, concerned about others before himself and a generous spirit.

Services are being planned for early November and will be announced in The Nugget.

Anonymous said...

've been out around the -4 STD's for a few years, and now the "Real Nuts" out at -5 STD's are starting to look like they are the ones that are getting the true magnitude of catastrophe right....

*

A lot of the building here is having to blast molten lava, that shit costs $1,000's per foot.

Sure land is cheap in Central Oregon, [ 1500 acre for a $1 = 0.06 cents/acre ], thus your acre's minimal infrastructure costs $480k. Assuming 8 homes [ 5k-sqft-lots ].

It may be cheap to buy land in Bend, and WHOLE FUCKING GAME, the WHOLE fucking game was making the general taxpayer pay the actual cost of making that land usable and resell-able.

Anonymous said...

As a Realtor, Reinertson had a reputation for genuine interest in his clients and a willingness to bend to make things work.

...

What does the above really mean?

So the BB2 has now become an obituary service like the BULL?

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

he helped raise his siblings in straitened circumstances...


???

Nugget News = Amateur Hour

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

BEM... we can kiss the "psychologically important $20" level on CACB goodbye...

Just cracked below $18.

Anonymous said...

Merrill Lynch's O'Neal Takes the Hit
The financial giant's CEO took full responsibility for the 94% revenue loss last quarter. Heavy exposure to subprime mortgages was a big problem

Anonymous said...

BEM... we can kiss the "psychologically important $20" level on CACB goodbye...

Just cracked below $18.

*

This is the MAIN barometer of Bend, this is what the REIT's watch.

Expect to see new commercial starts in Bend to halt.

In a few more weeks almost all mutuals will be out of CACB, conservative growth funds got out last summer. Once the fund is only owned by speculators, it should be real interesting to watch the price change on low volume.

Anonymous said...

HBM ( mini-me editor @ SORE ) has a good tribute to Duncan on the film fest flim-flam, and there's a good comment by BEM as well.

Looks like the use of city money for private partys of goldens is going to be shutdown, given that the SORE has turned the light on.

Anonymous said...

The following is a very good comment referred to by the SORE, note the subject at hand was the use of a Million Dollars of city taxpayer money a year marketing Bend. BEM makes a very good point that we have long passed the diminishing point of return on the ROI.

***

Bend Economy Man said...

So many people have come to Bend over the years and thought "with the right marketing, this place can make us some money."

The visitor board, EDCO and the city council still think that a marketing solution is what the local economy needs.

My take is that we are reaching diminishing returns on marketing. At a certain point people are like, "I know about Bend. It [does / does not] interest me."

tim said...

The Wizard just posted this at bendbb:

"Just heard through the grapevine that Randy Sebastian, owner of Portland based Renaissance Homes is filing chapter 11...stay tuned"

Judging from previous post, The Wizard is a real estate insider.

Anyone hear anything about this? Let's see how fast we can go from "rumor" to "news."

Anonymous said...

Pretty big builder of late, came over from POR to make big bucks and might go under - a tough one if true. But probably only the beginning.

Anonymous said...

Well its official my number has been wrong the DUBYA-WAR is not $2T, its $2.4 Trillion. That be $8,000 for every man,woman, child on the face of the earth. Better start saving for DUBYA.
*
Wars May Cost $2.4 Trillion Over Decade


Wednesday October 24, 2007 8:01 PM

By ANNE FLAHERTY

Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan could cost as much as $2.4 trillion through the next decade, according to a new analysis Wednesday that the White House brushed off as ``speculation.''

Anonymous said...

Well its official my number has been wrong the DUBYA-WAR is not $2T, its $2.4 Trillion.
--------------

Keep your silly little Bush bashing out of here. Don't you know that this is for Bend real estate bashing?

Go away with your BDS stuff.

Anonymous said...

"Keep your silly little Bush bashing out of here. Don't you know that this is for Bend real estate bashing?

Go away with your BDS stuff."


Too funny, so many things to bash and so little space and time...LOL

Anonymous said...

The real effect of Hollern-Ville has begun. In my humble opinion the following story will be come all to common in Bend.

***

Oct 24,2007
Elderly Prineville couple’s suicide may be linked to mortgage foreclosure
by Cheryl McDermott
small font medium font large font

Deputies believe that failing attempts to save their home following the receipt of a mortgage foreclosure notice may have led to the suicide of an elderly Prineville couple, discovered dead yesterday afternoon from suspected carbon monoxide poisoning.

Crook County Sheriff’s deputies responded to 4800 NE Mill Creek Road about 1 p.m. in response to a welfare check request made by neighbors when the couple failed to answer the door and several of their dogs hadn’t been seen, Sgt. Travis Jurgens reported.

When deputies arrived on scene, they found someone had used a dozer to move a steel fifth-wheel frame to block the driveway, located about 200 yards from the home. They also found a 1981 Cadillac running inside the locked garage, the sergeant said. Deputies broke inside and discovered the inside door to the tri-level residence had been propped open with a rock.

The bodies of 71-year old Raymond Donaca and his wife Deanna, 69, along with their four deceased golden retrievers were found inside.

“At this time it is believed that the Donaca’s committed suicide after attempts to save their home following a foreclosure notice left them believing they had few options,” Sgt. Jurgens said.

Although deputies and fire personnel took precautions to alleviate the presence of deadly fumes by turning off the vehicle, opening the garage doors, and using a large fan and breathing apparatuses, two sergeants and one deputy suffered ill effects and were treated and later released from Pioneer Memorial Hospital.
21 times read

Anonymous said...

Well its official my number has been wrong the DUBYA-WAR is not $2T, its $2.4 Trillion.

*

I hate to tell you this, but this little hunk of pocket change is going to effect Bend very, very much. The silly thing is Bend gets the bill, but got very little of the pork.

p.s. DUBYA and his Bend Supporters are BENDBB butt-fuckers.

tim said...

I guess those damned dogs weren't pulling their weight on the room and board.

Anonymous said...

I have never heard of BDS, probably because I don't listen to radio or watch TV, that said ... The fact that Bush is the greatest threat to world health in the world is an accepted fact outside of the Fourth Reich.

President Bush—for example, a description of President Bush as the greatest current threat to American lives—are of emotional origins rather than based on facts or logic


Bush Derangement Syndrome


The term BDS refers to a purported tendency by some American liberals to blame President George W. Bush for virtually every ill in the world.[9][10] It also purportedly refers to opposing a position advocated by the President just because he supports it, regardless of the position's merits.[11]

Krauthammer, a former psychiatrist who earned his M.D. from Harvard Medical School, defined BDS as "the acute onset of paranoia in otherwise normal people in reaction to the policies, the presidency—nay—the very existence of George W. Bush".[2][12] While Krauthammer's column was somewhat tongue-in-cheek (eg., "What is worrying epidemiologists about the Dean incident, however, is that heretofore no case had been reported in Vermont, or any other dairy state"), the term reflects a belief by conservatives that some criticisms of President Bush—for example, a description of President Bush as the greatest current threat to American lives—are of emotional origins rather than based on facts or logic.[13]

Anonymous said...

Well, we can't all be deranged if we are correct, right?

For example:
Bush caused the stolen election of 2000 via mind control of 5 supreme court justices
Bush caused Katrina
Bush caused Global Warming
Bush caused the attacts on 9-11
Bush caused the Afgahn war
Bush caused the Iraq war

and locally,
Bush caused the B&B Complex fire
Bush caused NW Crossing
Bush caused the Bend Bubble
Bush caused the firing of City Mgr Anderson
Bush caused all things evil

Anonymous said...

I'm not too surprised. When Don Morrisette is having to sell his Bend vacation home, you know the big builders are hurting. How much do you want to bet he drops it another $100K before the end of November?

*

Smart people always get out of bubble's early, and its still early. You haven't seen anything yet.

Anonymous said...

Bush caused the stolen election of 2000 via mind control of 5 supreme court justices [ yes ]

Bush caused Katrina [ 10% god, 90 % bush ]

Bush caused Global Warming [ bush is oil economy, so yes ]

Bush caused the attacts on 9-11
[ bush, is al-queda, which means 'the base' in persian, which was HIS fathers cia base to fight the rusky's, bin-laden was a bush supporter during the russian-afgan proxy war, so YES ]

Bush caused the Afgahn war
[ yes ]
Bush caused the Iraq war

[ yes ]

and locally,
Bush caused the B&B Complex fire
[ no proof at this point ]

Bush caused NW Crossing
[ yes, mike hollern are siamese twins, joined at hip, share common asshole ]

Bush caused the Bend Bubble
[ yes, mike hollern are siamese twins, joined at hip, share common asshole ]

Bush caused the firing of City Mgr Anderson
[ complex, anderson was phased out by the right-wing team-bush pardners of city-council, he was the fall guy, so yes ]

Bush caused all things evil

[ bush is the devil, aka el-diablo ]

Anonymous said...

If Bush did all of those things, how come he is best known for being a dunce? You know, Smirky McChimp?

What about Karl Rove? I thought Karl was the mastermind?

What about Dick Cheney? I thought Darth Vader caused most of the above?

I think you be the perfect example of BDS.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Anyone hear anything about this? Let's see how fast we can go from "rumor" to "news."

If there is a God, this will be dead true.

PLEASE! NO ONE DESERVES IT MORE!

Anonymous said...

The bubble in Bend must be good just got around to opening my property taxes for my home. They raised the real market value from $295k to $395k year to date.

All the comps in the hood have been selling for far less than $300k all this year.

The interesting thing is the actual taxes 'due' only went up five bucks. I guess they just jumped the RMV so they could take longer next year to come back down. Somebody explain how I can have a 25% increase in RMV, but less than 1% increase in actual tax bill? Taxes went from $1901 to $1906.

I know your all renters. I just find this amusing, and the only rational I can see is that the County was in a BIG hurry to get the RMV real high, so it would take a long time to come down. FYI the comps in 1998 were $120k, and in 1970's $15k.

Anonymous said...

If there is a God, this will be dead true.

PLEASE! NO ONE DESERVES IT MORE!

*

Why is this?

Because he's not as sophisticated with the lawyers as Hollern?

Because he's not as suave as Kuratek?

There are 100's of builder/developers that descended on Bend post 2001, that are in the same situation. If you didn't sell out by last fall. Your fucked.

Anonymous said...

What about Karl Rove? I thought Karl was the mastermind?

[ Brains are cheap. ]

What about Dick Cheney? I thought Darth Vader caused most of the above?

[ We have secret weapon for your Cheney, we have our Cheney in Drag, aka Hillary Clinton. Hilly-Poo will have us bombing all of Iran, Pakistan, ... We'll look back at DUBYA and think he was a chicken-hawk. Hillary is Attila the Hun. Cheney in Drag, but Hilly knows how to her own fighting, doesn't have someone else fight for her. ]

Anonymous said...

If Bush did all of those things, how come he is best known for being a dunce? You know, Smirky McChimp?
*

You ask, I'll answer. Its all on act. Actually DUBYA had about a 20pt higher IQ than Kerry going back to Military Records. That why they taught Dubya to fly jets, and they taught Kerry to hump dirt.

I don't know nothing about no Smirky McChirp, but if you remember Clinton he was portrayed as a sack of shit on his large frame. Nothing new here, raygun was known for playing second to a chimp in his most famous movie, but better known for doing porn during the depression.

Everything is framed, America being a nation of illiterate sluts [ which is why special forces refers to USA as a third world country with nukes ], the ignorant sluts need to believe that their prez is stupider than they are, just a good ol boy, seems to worked. All you true bush believers seem to believe in your boy.

Note on the dark side [ WRT YOU ] they call you folks 'BUSH ENABLERS' foul creatures.

Anonymous said...

There are 100's of builder/developers that descended on Bend post 2001, that are in the same situation. If you didn't sell out by last fall. Your fucked.

*

I feel for Sebastian, like what Homer said a while ago about Kuratek, it would have been someone else. The city loved this stuff.

The city ENABLED Sebastian, they let him destroy the river corridor, the city loved Building Permit Fee's, they were going to pay for every pet project to the end of time.

Sebastian came, the city subsidized his SDC [ $12k instead of $90k back in Wilsonville ], they approved all of his environmentally wacko projects, that destroyed elk migration paths. Like Sebastian said, he didn't like gates or fences, but does cali implant second home 'investors' demanded it to protect themselves from the natives, aka RED-NECKS.

Sebastian is just one of many long term Oregon builders that did really good through the years, then made the tragic mistake of getting involved in Bend Oregon, a place much like a 'black hole' where all cash, resources, ... are sucked in, and gone forever, where the folks eventually leave with ragged clothes on their back.

I don't blame Sebastian, City Hall enabled every single thing he did. Sort of like blaming a dog for eating a bone, after you gave it to him. He's a builder builders build, the city didn't have to approve or subsidize.

tim said...

>>The interesting thing is the actual taxes 'due' only went up five bucks. I guess they just jumped the RMV so they could take longer next year to come back down. Somebody explain how I can have a 25% increase in RMV, but less than 1% increase in actual tax bill? Taxes went from $1901 to $1906.

Well, even a a dolt renter like me knows the answer to that. In Oregon, property taxes are capped. No matter how high your house goes up in value, taxes can only go up so much. The funny thing is, prices can just keep falling in Bend, and those taxes will just keep going up inexorably.

If you want to know the details, it was Measure 47 in 1996. I think I was modeled on California's tax revolt.

Sad thing about these tax caps is I think they just made houses more unaffordable in price when they became more affordable tax-wise. Helped retirees with payed-off houses and hurt anyone buying a house.

From Wikipedia: "Measure 47 required that property taxes be no higher than 10% less than those imposed in the 1994-1995 tax year, or those imposed in the 1995-1996 tax year. Thereafter, property taxes increases were to be capped at 3% per year."

tim said...

I'm guessing it was Sebastian's icky persona that was off-putting to Paul.

He didn't DO anything worse than the others. But he had that George Reeve as Superman pose in front of his deelux rustic modern houses. So fuckin' smug.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

I think I was modeled on California's tax revolt.

Dude, I only find you mildly revolting. There's lots of people worse than you...

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

they approved all of his environmentally wacko projects, that destroyed elk migration paths.

He's just a smarmy cock-sucking prick hypocrite bigot motherfucker. Aside from that, I like him.

tim said...

Crap. I think I'm getting more revolting all the time.

I think IT was modeled on California's tax revolt.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...


I think IT was modeled on California's tax revolt.


Aren't you in IT? You know PHP, so you're at least close.

tim said...

I'm oldskool. To me, the IT dept consists of a bunch of guys who can never manage to install software properly on your computer, so you can to sneak into their offices and grab the disks so you can start over and do it right.

tim said...

"so you can to"

OK. I give up. I'm going to go drink beer. Hopefully I can at least get THAT right.

Anonymous said...

My blood boils when I think of what's happened to that place. Bend's original inhabitants, very nice and real people, have been squeezed out by astronomical property taxes due to hyper-escalated property values driven by Californians, who are generally an uncouth lot. If you want trees and acreage you will pay a premium for that - otherwise, the houses have no real yards to speak of and since it's a high desert climate - cold and dry in the winter (although heavy snows are possible and frequent) and hot and dry in the summer - not much grows there without great effort; sub-freezing temps are possible any month of the year. The joke in Bend was "you can't grow tomatoes here." The summer humidity can be in the single digits which may sound nice but is actually quite tiresome in the long term. Also, recent zoning changes, ostensibly to promote "infill" was really just to placate developers who want to jam an overpriced condo onto every square inch of available land, damn the aesthetics. You could easily end up with a two-story, $2m "mother-in-law cottage" staring down at you from the neighbor's backyard. The forest around Bend is a monoculture of Ponderosa Pine and to the east juniper. Forest fires are common in summer and contribute to the summer air pollution that the tourist brochures don't mention. Because of all the RV tourists and unceasing development with its attendant heavy machinery, diesel pollution is widespread and exacerbated by the mountain inversion factor that keeps pollutants trapped in the city, including the "moon dust" of pulverized volcanic soil inherant to the natural geology that coats everything so much that even the arrogant steroid-gorged elite mountain bikers don't go out in it for three months. Because so many new people have moved to Bend recently there is no real sense of community, demonstrated by the gutting of the downtown of locally owned businesses, replaced with boutique chain stores carrying overpriced crap which is probably fun for the wealthy botoxed visitors with money but living there day in day out gets old quick and you'll soon grow tired of fighting the traffic and general shallowness of the mindless Californicators who have moved there. So why are so many people moving there? Well, it keeps getting written about in Outside magazine (the recent issue shows a jerk wake-surfing on Cultis Lake, completely at odds with the surroundings).

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

EVERYONE! Special Announcement! The Oregon Association of Real Estate Investment Professionals is HERE!

Regardless of your present financial status - what matters most is your desire to succeed! By following my proven strategies and techniques, you will be able to find and purchase income producing properties with little or no money down.

I just visited the site, and one word comes to mind:

LEGITIMATE

There's more!

Are you ready to start earning BIG money fast?

Sign up for Don's CREATING WEALTH Newsletter
and receive 2 FREE gifts!


Here's their disclaimer. ONE WORD:

TRUSTWORTHY!

OAPREI does not exist to render or give legal, tax, economic or investment advice and disclaim all liability for actions or inactions take or not taken as a result of communication from or to its officers, directors and members.If legal advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional should be sought.

Seriously, if you're looking for a LEGTIMATE way to INCREASE WEALTH, WITHOUT WORKING & ZERO EFFORT, you should give this a try. Remember the old adage:

IF IT'S TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE, THEY'RE SELLING THE LIVIN' SHIT OUT OF IT IN BEND OREGON!

Anonymous said...

City Council is Now saying that Hummel & Anderson had to go because they didn't go along with Les Schwab plan.

*

Asked whether the Juniper Ridge controversy had influenced his vote to fire Anderson, Councilor Jim Clinton replied: “Basically that was a very minimal consideration, because as much as a year ago, when [Councilor] Mark [Capell] and I got involved in working on the DDA, Andy was not directly involved anyway. We kind of decided that since the council ultimately had to approve it [the DDA], it was logical to have a couple of councilors have a go at it.”

Although he and then-Councilor John Hummel were the fiercest critics of a controversial closed-door deal with Les Schwab to sell the giant tire company land in Juniper Ridge for its new corporate headquarters, Clinton also denied that was a factor in deciding to remove Anderson.

“I’ve softened up my position on that quite a bit, because Andy was caught in a very bad position because Les Schwab was insisting on a very high level of secrecy,” he said. “Since that came down we got to know the Les Schwab people better and understand they were kind of in a tight spot themselves. That basically did not play any role in the decision to terminate Andy’s contract – at least not for me.”

Anonymous said...

After Anderson: Firing of city manager isn't likely to end Bend's controversies

The firing of Bend City Manager Harold “Andy” Anderson last week is sure to mean some changes around City Hall, but it doesn’t seem likely to end the controversies besieging the city.

Anderson, who got the job in 2004, was fired by a unanimous vote of the city council last Wednesday. Bend is now looking to hire its fourth city manager in seven years – fifth, if you count Ron Garzini, who served two stints as interim manager following the firing of Larry Patterson in 2000 and David Hales in 2003.

Anderson will stay on for another 30 days, after which Assistant City Manager Eric King will become acting city manager, with Garzini serving as an advisor.

City councilors were vague about their reasons for firing Anderson, saying only it was the result of a difference in management philosophy. During Anderson’s tenure – especially in the last year or so – the city has been racked by controversies, but councilors wouldn’t finger any one of them as a factor in their decision to remove him.

In particular, they denied that the growing debate over Juniper Ridge – the city’s ambitious mixed-use development project on the northeastern edge of town – played a significant role.

Under pressure from a group calling itself the Better Bend Coalition, which has gathered almost a thousand signatures on a petition urging the city to go back to the drawing board, the council recently gave Garzini the title of “manager of special projects” with oversight for Juniper Ridge. Garzini is working on a “Disposition and Development Agreement” (DDA) with the Juniper Ridge master developer and has drafted a “policy summary” for the process that the city council approved at a work session last Monday. (A downloadable copy of the summary is available on the city’s website.)

Asked whether the Juniper Ridge controversy had influenced his vote to fire Anderson, Councilor Jim Clinton replied: “Basically that was a very minimal consideration, because as much as a year ago, when [Councilor] Mark [Capell] and I got involved in working on the DDA, Andy was not directly involved anyway. We kind of decided that since the council ultimately had to approve it [the DDA], it was logical to have a couple of councilors have a go at it.”

Although he and then-Councilor John Hummel were the fiercest critics of a controversial closed-door deal with Les Schwab to sell the giant tire company land in Juniper Ridge for its new corporate headquarters, Clinton also denied that was a factor in deciding to remove Anderson.

“I’ve softened up my position on that quite a bit, because Andy was caught in a very bad position because Les Schwab was insisting on a very high level of secrecy,” he said. “Since that came down we got to know the Les Schwab people better and understand they were kind of in a tight spot themselves. That basically did not play any role in the decision to terminate Andy’s contract – at least not for me.”

And Clinton said the city’s decision to buy eight second-hand buses for Bend Area Transit that turned out to be lemons also wasn’t a significant factor.

“For me it was a very minimal factor – minimal to very low,” he said. “I consider it a mistake, but that sort of thing happens in a big organization. I think Andy did what he could to set in place some new procedures so that kind of thing wouldn’t happen again.”

Clinton, fellow Councilor Peter Gramlich and Mayor Bruce Abernethy also said they don’t believe Anderson’s departure will make much, if any, difference in how the Juniper Ridge saga plays out.

Abernethy said he doesn’t think Anderson’s firing will make “one iota of difference” for Juniper Ridge. Asked how great a role the Juniper Ridge controversy played in the Anderson firing, he answered: “I think the city has clearly faced a number of challenges, certainly over the last nine to 12 months, and that was certainly one of them. I don’t necessarily think I’ve done the best job in some areas. I think there’s plenty of responsibility to go around.”

“I don’t see any effect whatsoever on Juniper Ridge” from Anderson’s departure, Clinton said.

“I don’t think so,” said Gramlich when asked whether removing Anderson will make any difference. “Obviously a city manager plays some role, but my first reaction is no.”

The departure of Anderson doesn’t look likely to silence the Juniper Ridge critics either.

“I’m not so sure that it changes it a lot, because Garzini has taken the bull by the horns,” said Oran Teater, a former Bend mayor and one of the leading critics. “I also think this council has been micromanaging for the last few years, so I don’t think Andy has had the latitude to make many decisions. That’s just my personal opinion.”

Under Garzini’s direction the council has scaled back the size of the Juniper Ridge project from more than 1,300 acres to 900 and plans to bring less Juniper Ridge acreage within the expanded Urban Growth Boundary (UGB). But Teater is concerned that the project still includes too much residential development not enough land for industrial use.

“This really puts more residential in the proposal than it had in the first place,” Teater said, noting that the current plan calls for 275 acres of residential development and 275 acres of industrial. ““Have we violated [state] rules by not having a 20-year supply [of industrial land within the UGB]?” he asked.

If the war over Juniper Ridge is really – as Juniper Ridge supporters have sometimes maintained – a clash between Bend’s old guard and a city council that wants to try new approaches to development, no change of managers is likely to bring about a truce.

“The controversy over Juniper Ridge, if you asked [the critics], they’d say Andy had nothing to do with it,” Gramlich said. “They’d rather tee off on the council members.”

Anonymous said...

http://dreammakerking.blogspot.com/

*

Your boy DON Legitimate, hasn't updated his fucking blog since aug 07, he's obviously too busy putting out fire.

It's a good laugh to read his boiler-plate shit. I wonder who he stole it all from?

Anonymous said...

http://dreammakerking.blogspot.com/

*

In todays market you must go out and BUY ALL the BEND-RE you can on lease-option, as there is no conventional financing. So say's legitimate don.

I wonder if he's a buy on lease-option, and hold kind of guy, or he's just trying to get some fools to keep the commissions churning in the new paradigm.

don change your name to ...
www.suicidemakerking.com

Anonymous said...

I wonder how long until Palisch goes tits up. They bought up a ton of land and are still building like crazy. A buddy of mine is a sub for palisch and figures he'll be out of a job by feb. They can't sell any more houses, sooner or later it is lights out,although they must have some deep pockets to be sitting on all these unsold houses and still have the balls (or stupidity) to keep on building. By the way, fuck Randy Sebastian. Thanks Paul for letting us say fuck on your blog, so again I heartily say.... fuck Randy Sebastian, I hope that arrogant prick packs up and gets the hell out of here.

Anonymous said...

March 2003, wasn't that long ago, when Pahlisch headed over to Bend, to join the gold rush, he paid top prices, and basically hit the peak.

* Friday, March 7, 2003
Homebuilder leaves valley for Bend area
Portland Business Journal - by Heidi J. Stout Business Journal

Ask Dennis Pahlisch why he moved his home, his family and his business from the Willamette Valley to Central Oregon.

Then have a seat. His answer might take a while.

After building more than 1,200 homes in the Sunset Corridor and West Linn, and spending most of the last three years building nearly 300 homes in Corvallis, Pahlisch decided to move his 22-year-old building business to Bend.

He has a million reasons for making the move, including the beauty and climate of Oregon's high desert, easy access to hunting and sports, and the desire to unite three generations in one place.

"Bend has a pioneering spirit that I like," Pahlisch said. After his longtime business partner Mark Nielsen died in an avalanche in 2000, "I thought, 'Either I'm in a rut or I'm on the right path.' I thought, 'If we can, let's live where we want to live.' "

So Pahlisch launched a new era for his company, joined by his three sons and their growing families. In Pahlisch Homes' new Bend office, which opened for business Jan. 3, four Pahlisches are currently working—Dennis, two sons and a daughter-in-law—and her baby Pahlisch is on the way. Pahlisch's third son will join the company full time after college.

"Economics would say to stay in the valley—we could have been more profitable there," said Pahlisch, whose surname is pronounced "polish."

"Personal choice led us to Bend, but now that we're here, business really keeps us in Bend."

Pahlisch believes his company policy of offering extensive warranties and strong homeowners' associations will get him through tough times. He's also banking on continued low interest rates, which has prompted first-time home buyers to flock to the market, fueling sales in the $140,000 to $200,000 price range.

As a new company in Bend, Pahlisch Homes is building $140,000 to $250,000 homes, often mixed in the same neighborhood. This price point is significantly lower than Pahlisch's Willamette Valley projects, where it sold custom and production-built homes for as much as $500,000.

Anonymous said...

"Bend has a pioneering spirit that I like," Pahlisch said.

*

Yeh, bend is fucking cool, stupid hicks don't even make you pay real SDC's, just enough to fund the pig trough, hell sunset corridor can kill you, those places make you pay for infrastructure, but Bend, its gold-rush, build today, and fix it all tomorrow.

Very pioneering, building permit works for the builder, just like it should be. Bend made it easy for the builders, and they came, and they built, and the city used taxpayer money to market the town.

Eventually the house of cards collapsed.

Anonymous said...

I wonder how long until Palisch goes tits up

*

I really don't think that Palish and Sebastian are that different, just guys that showed up late to be part of the boom of endless building, and easy second home finance.

The city created all the incentives, the city treated the builder as the vehicle to deliver an infinite growth to Bend, and thus make everyone rich.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

I don't have near the contempt & loathing for Pahlisch, or any builder really, that I have for Sebastian. What a cocky, lying ass bitch. That whole GREEN bullshit means NOT ONE FUCKIN' THING TO HIM. He has NO COMPUNCTION to block an elk migration path, that was already narrowed beyond use, just to build one more unsalable piece of shit house.

Green? Fuckin' douche bag.

Anyone remember Renaissances' initial TV 'marketing' in Bend? It was these weird-ass mini-castles that looked like they were designed by some Texas millionaire dumbass in the min 80's. It was soooo wrong for this area. But you know us dumbshit Bendites... we be mesmerized by big shiny castles, and fairies, magic frogs and princes. What a dumbass. That fucknut could not have gotten it more wrong.

And that smug, folded arm smarmy ass grin. Fuck you. We specialize in bankrupting cocky pricks like you.

Now pack up YOU SHIT, and see if you can find some motherfuckin' AFFORDABLE HOUSING. Maybe you'll find an affordable mobile home park that hasn't been razed by a greedy, smug, smarmy ass DEVELOPER!

Anonymous said...

Tell us how you really feel IHTBYB! LOL!

Anonymous said...

Tell us how you really feel IHTBYB! LOL!

*

A wealthy builder of thirty years goes BK. I'll tell you how it ends boyz.

There was guy during the early 80's in PDX just like young Sebastian, he went chapter-11, many little people lost their homes, as he had sold them on Lease-Option, but was pocketing the rent and NOT paying the loan.

In the end the BK man walked a rich man, and with 2-3 years was rich builder againk and 100's of people lost their home.

Nobody for a second think that Pahlisch or Sebastian are OUT. They're just re-structuring and saying 'FUCK-YOU' to creditors, suppliers, ... Homeowners.

Besides BK is essential in Bend, ALL these fucking crap-shacks are going to cost a fortune to maintain, they're were all built to be burnt down with five years. Thus BK also prevents homeowner lawsuits, ... its ENDLESS don't you think there is a reason that bitch hogg hollern has LLC on his 100's of central-oregon developments.

Anonymous said...

If you know your long term history of Oregon, then all these same names, you see over and over. They all go back to the 70's, and they all have gone BK before, and they all come back.

Life goes on, people re-invent themselves, probably single reason #3, other than easy-money and public subsidy ( small SDC's ) that valley builders came to Bend, e.g. most of these valley builders had a long history of screwing suppliers.

Look at Hollern ( Brooks Resources ) too many LLC's, and too many lawyers on his payroll. BK is just part of doing business. When one of Hollerns 100's of shell's implodes they'll not even mention his name, nor will you ever hear or recognize the name of the shell that filed ch-11.

Anonymous said...

That fucknut could not have gotten it more wrong.


*

Not to support the guy, but if you listened to everything he said, he clearly stated that everything he built was demanded by the inbound cali second home feeder-market.

Sebastian knew Bend was 'Green' in talk, but pure bullshit, he delivered. He knew that inbound cali's wanted JR Dallas mcMansions, he delivered. He knew inbound's white-flight cali's wanted gated communitys to isolate themselves from Bend's non-existant black-men, he delivered.

Anonymous said...

http://www.bendbulletin.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071025/BIZ0102/710250376/1008&nav_category=

Typical BULL, they're NOT coming, but not a fucking assertion to prove the headline.

In Bend 'flat' is 'up', and down is 'up'. The people that arrive to Bend on vacation will not be deterred. We call these statements: BULL-SPEAK.

****

Economic concerns won’t deter travelers
COVA predicts increased room-tax revenue
By Jeff McDonald / The Bulletin
Published: October 25. 2007 5:00AM PST

The prospect of a slowing economy has shortened the booking window at Mt. Bachelor Village Resort near Bend, which has seen fewer advance reservations this year for 2008 than it did a year ago for 2007, said Diane Wilcox, general manager.

“Absolutely, we’re seeing more hesitation in booking,” Wilcox said. “It started in the summer when people were booking with a lot shorter notice. I attribute it to more availability of lodging in Bend. People know that they don’t have to book as far out as they used to.”

Wilcox projected “flat growth” for 2008 with shorter stays and less spending than in 2007.

Anonymous said...

Chapter 11 - Bankruptcy Basics
The chapter 11 bankruptcy case of a corporation (corporation as debtor) does not put the personal assets of the stockholders at risk other than the value of ...

***

Thus Ch-11 is just an 'exit-path' of the bend-bubble boom. Sebastian will walk away just fine.

Anonymous said...

Paisley shows BEND how its DONE!

****

Oct 25, 4:26 AM EDT

Tiny town recalls council members who favored growth
Advertisement

PAISLEY, Ore. (AP) -- Voters in this Lake County town, Pop. about 250, have recalled three city council members who dared to even to think about growth.

Rose Bagley, Ken Hamlington and Larry Duckworth were trounced in an election Tuesday with an 82 percent turnout.

"I was going to be shocked either way," Mayor Dale Roberts said of the voting.

Councilman Bob Davis was among those signing recall petitions.

Recall leaders were upset because the three were discussing ideas aimed at adding businesses--and people.

Until the closure of the Paisley mill about 10 years ago, the city had 350 residents. It's even smaller now and voters apparently like it that way. People are plainspoken and tell it like it is.

A few summers back a visitor entered the town restaurant and mentioned the withering heat. "Honey," the waitress said, "There ain't nothin' here but a screen door between you and hell."

It wouldn't have happened in Portland. But size brings other concerns.

"I do want growth. We need growth," Roberts said.

Hamlington and Bagley were appointed in January after there was only one candidate for three open seats.

Hamlington said they ran on the idea of adding another 150 people in Paisley and another 40 students. "Everybody knew that."

Growth is necessary, he said, to preserve the school, which has 77 students, including 13 international exchange students, from kindergarten through high school.

He the school may have to close and bus students to Lakeview or Christmas Valley, each more than 60 miles away, and that that would cause more people to leave.

Recall proponents objected to support by the three for the city taking ownership of the county-owned airport and for a nuisance/health and safety ordinance most people seem to oppose.

Duckworth also said he thought people wanted limited growth.

"They spoke out. They don't want any growth," he said.

The three council members had discussed growth possibilities such as an assisted living facility, a skate park, a casino, an equestrian center, mini-mall, an RV park and an industrial park.

But it didn't play in Paisley.

"We got recalled for ideas, not for some action we took," said Duckworth. "We were recalled for thinking, not for doing."

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

he had sold them on Lease-Option

Woodhill Homes is doing the 'lease-option' bit to move inventory...

Anonymous said...

But it didn't play in Paisley.

"We got recalled for ideas, not for some action we took," said Duckworth. "We were recalled for thinking, not for doing."

*

In Bend they don't do anything either than spend. But they'll still get recalled, and indicted.

«Oldest ‹Older   1 – 200 of 326   Newer› Newest»