A report from the Idaho Statesman. "With 2007 mercifully in the books, Treasure Valley housing industry insiders are hoping for a rebound in 2008. Their optimism is based on Intermountain MLS statistics indicating that show the housing inventory in Ada County is down by 1,000 homes since July and by 425 in Canyon County since August. That still leaves 6,470 Treasure Valley homes on the market."

"'I think the next 90 days are going to be critical. If we can shave another 16 percent off the inventory, that's going to be huge. It might bring the market back in balance, if not swinging it back to a seller's market,' said associate broker Shaun Tracy."

"Idaho chief economist Mike Ferguson said the MLS numbers don't indicate whether the reduction in the housing inventory resulted from sales or frustrated owners who have taken their homes off the market.'

' "According to the MLS, 10,027 homes changed hands in 2007, or 35 percent fewer than the 15,470 transactions the previous year. The total was well below the 13,515 sales in 2004, the year industry members say is a typical sales year in the Treasure Valley."

"For all the bad news last year, 2007 was still the fifth-best sales year on record, said Jere Webb of Jere Webb Publishing, which charts industry activity in the Treasure Valley. 'So if it was the fifth-best year on record, why did it feel so lousy?' Webb asked."

"His theory is that many real-estate agents who made $300,000 in 2005 saw their income cut to $200,000 in '07. 'I don't know of anybody that can take a $100,000 pay cut and be happy about it,' Webb said."

"MLS Director Greg Manship said the Realtors association here has lost 600 agents since July 2006, when the market went into a swoon."

"Broker Don McFarland said the agents who have left the business were mostly newcomers to housing sales and had never gone through a downturn. 'It's a matter of experience,' McFarland said. 'You have to be able to tell the seller what the (pricing) reality is and that they have to make price adjustments. But some of these (younger) agents were just as much in denial as the sellers.'"

"Meanwhile, the foreclosure problem in Idaho continues to get worse, with more and more filings piling up each month."

"According to IdahoDataProviders.com, which tracks foreclosures daily, there were 85 filings in Ada County during January 2007. In December there were 190 filings, an increase of 137 percent. In Canyon County, the 59 filings in January grew to 121 in December, an increase of 51 percent."

'"I probably agree that things are not as bad out there as it seems. But it's sure not good,' said founder Charlie Nate."

"The ill-fated Boise Tower/Boise Place project, whose developer filed for bankruptcy last summer, now faces possible foreclosure."

"The trustee's filing is the latest development in a long-running story that has left Boise with an open hole at the northwest corner of 8th and Main streets Downtown."

"In 2006, Boise's urban renewal agency named developer, Gary D. Rogers, of McCall, as the new developer of the site, ending developer Rick Peterson's decade-long struggle to build his 25-story Boise Tower."

"As originally envisioned by Peterson, the Boise Tower would have been a $62 million, 25-story mixed-use condominium project and Idaho's tallest building. When Rogers took control, he renamed the project Boise Place and announced plans for an even bigger tower that would be Idaho's tallest."

"But Rogers' company, Charterhouse Boise Downtown Properties LLC, quickly faced a struggle of its own. Last April, Charterhouse defaulted on a $2.57 million loan from an investor groupe. Charterhouse had taken out the loan to make a down payment on the site."

"Ironically, the list of Charterhouse's creditors includes Peterson. Charterhouse owes Peterson $7.6 million."

The Olympian from Washington. "South Sound home builders rushed to meet the demand of a strong housing market in 2006, but in 2007 they generally took a more cautious approach, year-end building permit data show."

"Year-end data show that the number of single-family building permits issued in 2007 dropped significantly compared to 2006. In Olympia, permits fell 62.9 percent to 85 from 229. In Lacey, permits fell 24.7 percent to 807 from 1,072. In the county, permits fell 19.3 percent to 815 from 1,010."

"Also adding to the higher inventory levels were new homes put up for sale by investors who suddenly couldn't 'flip' their homes as quickly as they once could, custom home builder Daimon Doyle of Olympia said."

"The Northwest has fared much better than other housing markets nationally and the National Association of Home Builders expects a turnaround in housing in the second or third quarter of this year, he said. 'Things will be picking up before we see any major slowdown here,' Doyle said."

"TransNorthwest Construction of Olympia also is carefully studying the housing market before it takes its next step, community relations contact Julie Brannberg said. Once TransNorthwest wraps up five more more single-level townhomes at Horizon Pointe in Lacey, the home builder won't rush into its next job, she said."

"'We are cautious in moving forward in buying new lots,' Brannberg said. 'We will build out what we have but be smart about our next move.'"

"South Sound building professionals acknowledged that a cooler housing market has had an effect on the pace of residential construction. After two strong years of home building in 2005 and 2006, inventory levels surpassed 2,000 units in 2007, according to Northwest MLS."

"With more homes to choose from, home buyers increasingly took time to shop for a house. As a result, year-over-year home sales dropped 14 percent in 2007."

The Gazette Times from Oregon. "Builders of new homes are finding Corvallis buyers reluctant to jump into an uncertain market, causing construction on new houses to all but grind to a halt. Housing starts in Corvallis for 2007 were down nearly 60 percent. Sales of new homes around the mid-valley also declined by 15 percent when compared to 2006."

"All told, the total number of houses reported sold in the mid-valley in 2007 was 14 percent behind 2006 totals. According to Willamette Valley MLS, 3,697 houses were sold in 2007, compared to 4,305 houses the previous year."

"At the end of December, there were a total of 1,855 homes listed for sale in the mid-valley. At the same time a year ago, there were 1,690 homes for sale, a difference of 9 percent."

"North Albany saw the highest median-prices for houses in Benton County in 2007, at $314,975 for the 12-month period ending in December. That market also saw the widest fluctuations as well, with a low of $251,000 in March and a high of $396,000 in September."

"'We’re seeing more buyers on the sidelines,' said Mike Goodrich, VP of operations for Legend Homes in Corvallis. 'We’ve not been building spec or inventory homes in the past couple of months.'"

The Oregonian. "Oregon carpenters, painters and plumbers, in high demand last summer, are having trouble finding and keeping work. Unions and staffing agencies report that this winter's construction slowdown is worse than normal, especially for residential work as the housing market slows."

"On Monday, officials confirmed their accounts, saying the state's construction sector cut 5,100 jobs in December, twice the normal loss for the month."

"'We have a lot of folks out of work,' said Randy Shelton, Portland recruiting manager at a staffing company. 'I'm not optimistic that it's going to improve much,' when construction normally picks up with better weather in March."

"Construction job cuts could have been deeper if not for the severe storms that hit northwest Oregon in December, spurring demand for repair work, said said David Cooke, an Employment Department economist."

"Randy Pozdena, a member of the Governor's Council of Economic Advisors, noted that he and other economists predicted in October that the state would see four quarters of construction job losses."

"Nationally, said Pozdena, 'You've got not just the bankers drawing in their horns, but you have consumers wary of taking a position in a new home. People keep talking about further declines in the prices of homes, and that's not a recipe for encouraging demand.'"

The Sandy Post from Oregon. "Buena Vista Custom Homes sold 141 homes during the builder’s Dec. 15-16 auction at the Oregon Convention Center, including 28 homes from Sandy’s Cascadia Village and Hamilton Ridge subdivisions."

"The homebuilder’s entire unsold inventory from across Oregon and southwest Washington, 240 homes, was up for grabs at the auction."

"The lowest-priced house sold at the auction was a three-bedroom, 2.5-bath house in Sandy’s Cascadia Village neighborhood, which went for $195,000. The most expensive house was a 5,073-square-foot home in the Shadow Ridge subdivision in Happy Valley, which sold for $510,000."

"Buena Vista spokesman Mike Higgins said the Sandy homes sold 'pretty consistently' 10 to 15 percent below the unpublished reserve prices. 'Those homes in Sandy were bid on real aggressively and were very popular in the sale,' Higgins said. 'We were real pleased.'"

"Virtually all areas were strong sellers with two exceptions – the 29 homes that were offered in Bend and Buena Vista’s portfolio of rental homes. None of the homes in Bend sold, and few of the rentals found buyers. Four of the unsold homes were in the Hamilton Ridge subdivision."

"Buena Vista set 'reserve' prices prior to the auction to reflect the homebuilder’s costs. The company announced after the auction that 96 percent of the 141 sold homes were sold below the reserve price."

"'We came to the auction to sell, and we did just that,' Buena Vista owner Roger Pollock said in a written statement."

"Sandy resident and home seeker Luke Lyons attended the auction in hopes that he might walk away with a deal in the Hamilton Ridge subdivision. Lyons, who stayed only for the auctioning of the first six Sandy houses, said he quickly realized that he wasn’t going to buy a home Dec. 15."

"'It was just amazing how rapidly the bids went up,' Lyons said, noting that homes quickly blew past his predetermined price range and didn’t stay on the block longer than two minutes. 'I don’t think anybody saved any money,' Lyons said."

"Worse than that, he said some people probably overpaid."

"Lyons said he has been interested in the Hamilton Ridge subdivision for a couple years, 'before they built any houses there,' he said – and always had picked up fliers from the homes for sale."

"He said he watched prices start at around $259,000 and top out at around $300,000. The cooling real estate market saw prices drop most recently to $279,000, just before the auction, he said."

"But once the auction was announced, all the fliers were taken away, and Buena Vista announced that the homes were valued at about $350,000."

"Indeed, a four-bedroom, 2.1-bath, 2,261-square-foot home in Hamilton Ridge was advertised with a 'list price' of $348,950, while a nearly identical home down the street sold in October for $267,950. Another comparable Hamilton Ridge house that had slightly less square footage sold for $262,651, according to real estate records."

"Yet another house down the street sold for almost $221,000. Lyons thinks Buena Vista raised the list price before the auction to drive bids higher."

"'It seems to me like that was put there so that if people started doing research on Hamilton Ridge for the auction, they’d think they were worth a lot more,' Lyons said. 'I think they did it to make people think they were getting a bargain when they were paying $275,000 or $250,000.'"

"'I had done my research and seen that they had accepted offers at $220,000,' Lyons said. 'The price shot past that (at the auction) in under 10 seconds. These people thought they probably saved some money, but they didn’t.'"

"'If I had known people were going to be this crazy, I would have made an offer beforehand,' Lyons continued, 'and saved myself a lot of trouble. I just didn’t expect people to be that careless or carefree with such a serious matter.'"

"Higgins said that because of the 1-percent deposits that will be due soon for auction winners, it’s likely that a few of the deals will fall through. And when they do, he said the houses will be back on the market."

"'And then I’ll walk down and offer $220,000,' Lyons said."