A Look Back on our 2008 hero's: Hollern, Smith, Denton and Osama.

Wow.

I can't believe this crazy-ass blog has survived over 2 years! My first post was Dec 17, 2006:

And to explictly state what this blog is about: Bend Oregon Real Estate, whether it is or has been in a bubble or not, whether this bubble is/has burst, implications for residents, businesses and others, and just about any topic relevant to the Bend Oregon economy and the surrounding region, and housing in general. With unmoderated discussion, I suppose anything goes though. Hopefully, people will realize the value of staying on topic, and will minimize personal "flame-wars".

I was so much younger then. And naive. In fact here is a picture of me eating breakfast right after that first post:

"Hey, give that to me. I eat anything."

And the greatest harbinger of things to come were the fanatastic 2 comments I received:

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Both almost bought a tear to my eye, especially the blog-spam one. Oh right, they were both blog spam. Here's a picture of me crying, I'm so overwhelmed:

IHTBYB crying his eyes out. (I am directly behind Britney in this pic, and only partially visible)

My next post, the very next day, had precisely zero comments. I think I finished out the year with a post of such gut-wrenching emotion and tenderness that one commenter was moved to pen these touching words:

Anonymous said...

this post is so dull that, after reading it, i wanted to claw my eyes out.

That's when I knew I had found my true calling: Inflicting pain on strangers via real estate blogging. Judging from the number of gouged out eyes I've seen in Bend, I would have to say: Mission Accomplished:

I love Bend Bubble 2 and Osama!

So there were humble beginnings. And most of the initial postings & comments were of a "defensive" nature: Even the idea that Bend was in a Bubble was widely derided as Insane. And there were some people who even denied (Bubble deniers) that a nationwide Bubble existed. Remember that?

Cuz, if you really remember that time, and contrast it with today, and what has transpired since, it just seems unbelievable. Bend was still caught in just an endless euphoria about the future. Bend is Immune was the mantra.

• deep, now closed, hadn't even opened way back then.
• Sally Heatherton had not yet been "born".
• Forum Meadows owner turned down ALL auction "offers" for his sacred Bend homes, before going broke.
• Brooks resources blew out their River Wild condos at Mt Bach Village.
• Yarrow & Ironhorse hadn't begun sales.
• The collapse of the home builders stock prices was as bad as anyone thought it'd get.
• No Bend developers had committed suicide.
• At the time Columbia Aircraft was alive & well.
• No layoffs at Brightwood.
• Seaswirl still alive.
• No firings at City Hall.
• Fannie & Freddie in the in the $70's.
• The DJIA had yet to hit 14,000, and fall to the 7,000's.
  
• CACB hit $32 in the last week on 2006. Now $6 and change.
• The Shire was still the proud brainchild of The Hatchery.
• Becky Breeze still owned The Plaza.
• Residential sales in Bend were in the hundreds per month.
• Medians hit $396,250 in May 2007.
• BendBB had not yet stricken any of my comments.
• Buster had not called any of us Stincking Smelly Cunts.
• I had not yet uttered, "It will get worse than you can possibly imagine."
• People actually Raised their asking prices back then. Really!
• That Olive & Nut store had yet to open & close.
• I had not yet voted Dunc for Mayor.
• We barely knew what SubPrime is, and no one knew what Alt-A was.
• Citicorp was still the largest financial org the World had ever seen.
• No bailouts of banks, automakers, or anyone else.
• Lehamn was still alive & kicking. Smith Barney too.
• No Cessna layoff's locally yet. The buyout was a "huge success".
• Unemployment was below 4% in Bend.
• Not a one Single Family Home was below $100/sf in Bend. No a single one.
• I had not yet lost my bet to BendBB that medians would go below $300K.
• Renaissance Homes was still smitten with Randy Sebastians flesh-eating AIDS.
• Holtz-Tek had not yet blackmailed our fair city out of Millions for JR "Master Plan".
• BEM had not yet penned his "cure" for Broken Bend.
• I had yet to post my first Picto-Plummet.
• I had yet to introduce into our lexicon the terms "Cali-Banger", "STD's" or "Flipper Bait".
• The Oregonian had yet to run "Death and Specualtion in Bend".
• Pronghorn & Brasada were still above the fray, and "selling out" on Day 1.
• Volo was still a glimmer in Bledsoe's donkey-cum-encrusted eye.
• The WSJ had yet to expose man-birthing or clothesline propoganda to the World.
• The ferris wheel blackmail of Broken Top had yet to occur.
• Bend was still in the grips of Tuscan mania.
• The Redmond water park would save us all from Central Oregons terrible seasonality with high-paying lifeguard jobs.
• We did not yet know that NOW is "The best time to buy in 20 years".
• Bend was still the most overvalued city in the country.
• Baby Jeebus had not yet smited us.
• I had not yet declared Bend the Best 3rd World City ever.
• Trono's Mercato had it's Australian financing All Lined Up.
• Norma DuBois had sold out Franklin Crossing for the 18th time.
• Measure 37 made every hillbilly Oregonian farmer a land baron.
• Tiny Ashwood OR took the prize for most ambitious housing development: 5,500 homes in a town of 120 people.
• NAR economist David Lereah still encouraged the financial merits of home ownership.
• Crook County had not yet approved resort properties that would saddle the area with 75 years of inventory.
• We didn't have a fleet of busted BAT buses.
• The city hadn't lost multi-million dollar lawsuits regarding water systems and whatnot.
• The August 2006 inventory top was still "temporary".
• We still hadn't been shown how to get rich losing millions by Don Bauhofer (aka Bauhumper).
• The Incredible Hulce continued to pander to RE developers in her completely discredited rag.
• We were yet to be introduced to the merits of Capstone Turbine Buttplugs.
• We were yet to receive a lesson in thermodynamics by a dude who dragged a tire behind his car to power his car, a guy who turned water into gas, and a company that turned trash into fuel.
• I had yet to recommend Rent & Invest The Difference as The Only Investment Plan you could be sure of in a place like Bend.
• There were many, Many businesses, largely invisible, that were still open, that have vanished in the meantime. Most mortgage brokers are in this category.
• Re/Max was still open. So was Sunriver Realty.
• COBA, COVA & the rest hadn't BOUGHT our City Councilors election for pennies on the dollar.
• My prediction of a collapse in California RE was still widely ridiculed: "California is Immune."
• 1031, Merenda, deep and other accessories of wealth for Bend's elite still held their glistening facade.
• NOD's were not measured in the THOUSANDS here.
• We had yet to have our first 1,000+ comment week.
• The City was not perilously close to bankruptcy.
• Black dudes were known for beatin' they wives, smokin the cracker, fuckin, and shootin whitey, not being President.
  

And there is probably more. Much more. The point?

It's been a hell of an eventful couple of years. Most of the real crazy shit has happened in the last 6 months. I mean The Giants of The Financial Universe have been hobbled.

Cathy Bates administer Good Olde Fashioned Hobbling. Feels so good.

I guess my main point is this: Having seen how far we've come, how people like Jody Denton's business eyes were too big for their stomach, you might want to exercise some restraint. Because this thing is, AT MOST, about half over.

We have gone from $396K medians to $239K, that's down 40% from top to bottom. Another 40% down is Very, Very Easily possible, which would take us down to $143K.

Folks, when we hit medians in the $140's, and it will happen, Bend is not going to be a place that about 70-75% of the population even recognizes. The old codgers will, but it will be the 4 Bees that rule the roost: Butter, Beans, Bullets, and Bullion.

This place will be like a hyper-magnified version of much of the US. We aren't going to sink back into the Stone Age, like some have posted here (IMO), but we will NEVER return to the hyper-consumption-fueled prosperity of the past 3 decades. That time is over.

But you'd do well to read into Denton's comments about What He Is Doing Now.

He's Leaving Bend, and He's Leaving Oregon.

“I had a very long and prosperous career before I came to Bend,” he said, “and I’ll do what’s best for me and my family. It will definitely be outside of the state of Oregon.”

He's telling us something.

When all is said and done, Bend, In The Best Of Times, left this very talented & decent person, completely broken. Broken financially yes, but worse, just broken from the experience.

“Getting to this point has been stressful and difficult,” the chef said. “For my wife and myself, there was a sense of relief once the decision was made.”

Once you make the decision, once you realize that you can stop fighting the impossible battle, there is a Huge Sense Of Relief. Denton is a talented guy, a guy with resources, a guy with a plan & the ability to execute: And this place broke him.

And I have to give him credit for one of The Best Lines Ever from a Bend Businessman quoted in The Bulletin:

“But the question became: How wise is it to keep feeding this thing when all it does is eat?”

I will leave it at that.

I hope no one notice I stuffed that motherfucking BendBubble2 blog in my humungous smelly twat! The coast looks clear! I gonna make a run for it! Happy New Year you fuckers! I hope you suffocate & die in my smelly cunt!