1) As I live & fucking breath, it is snowing outside this morning.
April 28, and it's snowing.
OK, I don't want to hear this 300 Days Of Bullshit anymore. Central Oregon has some of the weirdest fucking weather in the World.
When I first got here, I remember getting snowed on near the end of May, on a sunny (but pretty cold) day.
300 days of sunshine a year, is 100% Grade AAA Bullshit.
2) 17% Unemployment.
OK, this motherfucker is taking on a Kevin Bacon ONE degree of separation. Everyone KNOWS someone who is unemployed.
UNEMPLOYED and In The Shit. I know people. I know almost as many who are "employed" but making NOTHING. Not nearly enough to meet their daily expenses.
We have 17% unemployment. And probably 25-30% EXTREME UNDER-EMPLOYMENT.
You can read about how unemployment is hitting home values at the Portland Housing Blog.
3) Yarrow down 75%.
In today's Bully you can see there is a piece titled, "Yarrow now offers ‘twice the land, half the price’".
Follow the link, and you'll see that Yarrow is essentially succumbing to the desert. And since they are MORE THAN cutting price in half, and doubling lots sizes, this approaches something like 80% OFF.
But you will see, this will only move a little property. To Madras locals. And a couple of prison guards new to the area.
No one moves to a place with 20% unemployment, no matter how cheap the housing. It's called "The Burns Manifesto".
4) Case Schiller is out today.
The big 10 & 20 city composites are off about 19% YoY.
I'm starting to think that my Dead Ass Hit Rock Bottom Date estimate of July 2010 might be early. This thing might go to 2011... or 2012.
Which means Bend will stretch out to 2014 till we crater at the nadir.
At sub $100K medians? It is looking more and more possible.
5) High End Homes Crashing in Bend.
My favorite "If I Had a Million Dollars" Bend neighborhoods is Deschutes River Ranch. Very nice, big fancy, schmancy homes overlooking a hay operation. Provincial and snooty as hell.
But click the above link, and go to bendeconomy.informe.com (ANON PROXY ONLY!), and you'll see that DRR has utterly imploded.
The above home haas crashed from $2.4MM to $1.15MM, or just over $200/sf.
DRR was holding the line at around $500/sf all through the implosion, and seemed pretty much immune. I saw Tetherow collapse, and still DRR held.
No more.
6) RE "Economist" gets ass kicked by Oregonian.
In this town of Kool-Aid Fueled "news" reporting, once in awhile it's nice to see a paper call out BULLSHIT on some dumbfuck Pie-In-The-iSky RE tout, who has YET AGAIN, called for the RE bottom:
Real estate life spotty for many in Oregon
by Colin Miner, Special to the Oregonian Friday April 24, 2009, 6:03 AM
At the association's December conference on the market outlook for 2009, Jerry Johnson, a real estate market and regional economic development consultant, predicted that "we have found the bottom" and that the "fundamentals are not likely to get worse."
The next month, things did get worse. According to the Regional Multiple Listing Service, January 2009 saw a 32.5 percent drop in closed sales from the year before. Pending sales dropped 26.1 percent, and the average sale price fell 13.3 percent.
Good one Oregonian. Take a page, Bully.
OK, I gotta go to work. I'll try to MAN UP and do an actual post this Sunday.
"I'm so lonely for a Real Newpaper to tell me about Bend RE!"
