This Time, There Is No Place To Hide
The Bozeman Daily Chronicle reports from Montana. “So far this year, 101 single-family homes in the Bozeman area have sold, compared to 502 in all of 2008 and a peak of 816 in 2005, according to the Gallatin Association of Realtors’ MLS. The median price of a home here fell 18 percent, from a peak of $341,851 in 2006 to $280,000. It’s frustrating for sellers to discover that their home is no longer worth what they paid for it, or even what it was worth a couple years ago.”
“Jake Lucas and his fiancee, for example, are trying to sell their west Bozeman home before they move to Florida. They put their 2,000-square-foot home on the market for $319,000 about a month ago. They haven’t gotten any offers, Lucas said. So they are weighing their options. If they can’t get their asking price, they are considering renting it out until the market improves.”
“‘We kind of don’t have to sell,’ said Lucas, 30. ‘Personally, I’m not willing to lose $20,000 or $30,000 so that I can not worry about it. Renting it out for a year or two until the market gets better, that’s worth it.’”
“As of mid-May, the Gallatin County Clerk and Recorder’s Office had received 231 foreclosure notices, compared to 100 in 2008. lerk and Recorder’s Office had received 231 foreclosure notices, compared to 100 in 2008. Those numbers don’t include the 75 homeowners this year and 33 last year who made good on their missed payments or settled their foreclosures by other means. One way to prevent a foreclosure is a short sale. ‘There are a lot of short sales going on right now,’ said Paul Dueringer, real estate broker in Bozeman. ‘There’s a lot more than we’ve seen in a long, long time.’”
“As for land, just 13 lots have sold around Bozeman this year, compared to 127 in 2008. None have sold in the Manhattan and Three Forks areas. ‘Lots are real slow,’ Dueringer said. ‘Lots that maybe cost $120,000 before are down to $75,000. … We have a glut of lots on the market right now.’”
From USA Today. “A year ago, the folks in Billings, Mont., thought their housing market was recession-proof. It had been sheltered from the past two economic recessions. ‘They just blew right over us,’ says Twyla Best, president of the Billings Association of Realtors.”
“But in July, economic woes hit Billings, the largest city in the Big Sky State. ‘This time, there is no place to hide,’ says Patrick Barkey, director of the University of Montana Bureau of Business and Economic Research. ‘The recession is here, and it’s not over.’”
The Idaho Statesman. “The median assessed value for residential real estate in Ada County as of Jan. 1, 2009, was $187,500 - down 12 percent from $212,800 a year ago, according to the assessor’s report. Countywide assessments have fallen the past two years. ‘They (home values) are tanking, aren’t they?’ said Assessor Bob McQuade.”
“McQuade said people who purchased their homes in 2005 and 2006 were able to take advantage of skyrocketing home values during the housing boom. Those who purchased in 2007 or 2008 have seen their equity drop and now may owe more than the house is worth, which means they can’t refinance or sell the home without taking a loss, he said.”
“‘They’re trapped,’ he said.”
Idaho News Now. “Many local homeowners are trying the short sale option as a means of steering clear of the more credit damaging foreclosure. But as many real estate agents told us - that system is not working.”
“Lisa Funkhouser is a veteran Treasure Valley realtor who came out of a short sale scenario that had her on the verge of doing what so many agents have done since the housing bubble burst – getting out of the business. One client of Funkhouser, a Nampa homeowner, had to leave the state and asked Lisa to manage a short sale on their one time home. That home was originally valued at $500,000.”
“For 18 months, Funkhouser tried to sell the house. She even mowed the lawn, did landscaping, and made repairs. The work finally paid off: she received an offer for $345,000. But the bank had to give their OK on the offer – and they took months to respond. The bank said the property was worth $365,000. Comparable properties in the area were selling for much less. ‘They wanted more money,’ Funkhouser said.”
“With no agreement in place: the bank brought the foreclosure hammer down. Three weeks later, Wells Fargo Home Mortgage put the home on the auction block. Opening bid? $310,250 – just $250 more than Funkhouser had negotiated in the short sale. ‘And my heart sunk,’ Funkhouser said.”
“Wells Fargo didn’t get any takers in the auction – so the home went back on the market. But Funkhouser was no longer in the loop. ‘I felt very bad for her. It was totally unfair,’ buyer Wendy Crownover said. ‘She spent a year and a half taking care of the property. She got absolutely nothing - she was in tears.’”
“Funkhouser said, despite her bad experience, she isn’t going to stop working on short sales. ‘Nope that’s where the market is,’ she said. ‘With probably close to 70 percent of the market being short sales right now - if you don’t do ‘em you’re out of the business.’”
The Oregonian. “The spring buying season has started, and the numbers - surprise - don’t reveal many sunny story lines. The Portland-area median home price in April was $249,900, down 17 percent from the bubble-era peak. The number of closed sales through April was down 30 percent from a year ago. Anyone who bought after January 2006 has seen his home lose value.”
“The trouble is most acute among downtown condo towers and luxury homes. Sales of homes above $1 million are off nearly two-thirds from last year. It doesn’t look as if things will get better soon. In the Portland area, foreclosures and short sales accounted for nearly one in five of the 14,300 listings in the regional listing service last week.”
“Former Trail Blazer Rasheed Wallace has been trying to sell his 9,900-square-foot mansion in the exclusive Dunthorpe area since February 2006. He first listed it for $5.5 million and has since dropped it to $4.9 million. There are 55 homes on the market in Dunthorpe, enough inventory to last 3 1/2 years. Steve Kaer, Wallace’s real estate broker, said he has had one accepted offer that fell through. ‘People right now are being cautious,’ Kaer said.”
“The condo trouble is most clear among the downtown Portland towers that rose in the boom time. ‘The condos are still as dead as a doorknob,’ said Jerry Johnson, a Portland housing consultant to homebuilders and cities.”
“Demand was high for the futuristic John Ross tower when sales opened in 2005. A fifth-floor condo sold for $233,700 when the building was finished two years later. The buyer tried to flip the condo for a quick $25,000 profit less then two months later. The 638-square-foot studio sat on the market. And sat. And sat. Now, it’s in a short sale for $170,000 - a $63,000 loss.”
Oregon Public Broadcasting. “Bend and central Oregon real estate brokers and developers have already dealt with a double whammy: a collapsed housing market and a slowdown in new home construction. Housing prices are back where they were a decade ago. And the city of Bend says permits to build just 8 new homes were filed in April. That number was above 800 in August of 2006.”
“Darren Powderly is a broker at Compass Commercial. He says everyone’s been talking about the slowdown in commercial real estate as ‘the next shoe to drop.’”
‘Darren Powderly: ‘Along with ‘another shoe to drop’, another cliché is ‘the bigger the party the bigger the hangover.’ Central Oregon was one of the best real estate success stories in the country, and in some respects this is uncharted waters. But real estate is a cyclical business, so this will work itself out.’”
The Kitsap Sun in Washington. “Contractor Jerry Becker of Bremerton is $1.5 million in debt and close to ruin. He blames Westsound Bank for much of his misery. Over the years, he borrowed money to construct homes, develop land and build his business. But when the bank began its dive, and with suspicious regulators closely watching its every move, it stopped giving Becker draws on his loans.”
“Suddenly, he couldn’t pay his subcontractors or complete his projects. His livelihood screeched to a halt. His loans fells in arrears. He said he tried repeatedly to work with Westsound — he felt they could work it out as they always had — but the spigot was shut tight. ‘They didn’t care. They didn’t want to talk with me,’ Becker said. ‘I have no option but to go bankrupt.’”
“With home-appreciation rates rising 20 percent year after year, there seemed no end to the party. Westsound became a go-to bank for many local contractors like Becker. Many were overextended, but they were confident the economy would continue strong. ‘They would loan money to anybody,’ Becker said.”
“Becker’s son-in-law, Matt Templeton, said he was able to get $1.3 million in loans from Westsound when he was only making $35,000 a year.”
“And then there are the investors who lost their money. Westsound investor Rod Rodriguez of Chico lost several thousand dollars. He feels betrayed. Investment promoters led him to believe there was little risk, he said. He believed them, and admits he didn’t watch the falling stock price as closely as he might have.”
“‘It’s not investing anymore; it’s gambling,’ he said.”
The Calgary Herald in Canada. “Residents of a north Edmonton condominium learned last week it will cost $8 million to repair mould and rot in their six-year-old building. Patricia Lo, who sits on the board of the 200-unit condo, said residents don’t know how they will be able to pay their share of the repairs. Lo said she doesn’t know where she will find $45,000 to pay for her share. She was one of the last people to move into the complex, purchasing a $150,000 condo in January 2004.”
“‘We just feel so ripped off,’ she said. ‘We bought this condo. It was supposed to be built properly and it wasn’t. We just feel really helpless.’”
“Sandi Cooper, a spokeswoman for the Edmonton branch of the Canadian Condominium Institute, said people sitting on condo boards are struggling to deal with having to raise funds through special assessments to pay for repairs to new buildings. ‘It will be very prevalent for the next little while because during the building boom phase, qualified contract people were hard to find,’ she said.”
“Journeyman carpenter Ian Parker said he just went shopping for a new home and spotted deficiencies in many of the homes he saw, even the one he decided to buy. ‘They don’t even come close to building code, which is the minimum,’ he said. ‘There are a lot of fellows claiming to be carpenters who are ripping off the general public.’”
The Vancouver Sun. “A real-estate developer is suing 24 would-be buyers for a total of $1.9-million after they backed out of a Leduc condominium development, which has lost value since it was first sold to buyers during the housing boom two years ago. Urbia Homes Ltd. is suing buyers who walked away from sales for the diminished value of the units and other costs, claiming $75,000 in damages in most of the lawsuits.”
“Edmonton real-estate lawyers say they are seeing such cases with increasing frequency, two years after the housing market was sizzling and buyers were sometimes paying more than the listed price for homes that hadn’t yet been built.”
“Don Kramer, a lawyer who represents condo corporations, said this type of lawsuit is fallout from a housing bubble 18 months ago. ‘I think that companies are saying, ‘I wouldn’t have built this if you weren’t prepared to buy it. You said you’d buy it. I built it. Here it is. Please pay me,’ Kramer said.”
“‘Maybe I walked into this a little too fast, but they should have been looking after me,’ said one buyer. ‘I’m still interested in the place, but I want a fair deal.’”
“‘We kind of don’t have to sell,’ said Lucas, 30. ‘Personally, I’m not willing to lose $20,000 or $30,000 so that I can not worry about it. Renting it out for a year or two until the market gets better, that’s worth it.’”
Maybe they don’t have electricity or internets in Boseman yet. This poor schmuck has ZERO clue what’s gonna hit him.
Makes me feel a little bad for my cousin Nancy in Wyoming. She has two houses, one to live in and one to rent out. She says prices in her area are “still going up.” I like her and she’s not an idiot, but I don’t know her well enough to tell her to dump the rental house. I did tell her about my HBB tee-shirt and did not get an enthusiastic response.
AZ,
If it makes your cousin feel better, I could send her a shirt…
I wish that would change anything but you’d be out a shirt, Ben, and she’d still be a FB.
SIGH
People in Wyoming are still feeling like they’re depression-proof. Wyoming has no economy. They see green shoots. It’s going to get real ugly in the cowboy state.
Au Contraer. Go into Lily’s in W.Yellowstone and buy a doz golden stoneflys for the Madison. Haven’t seen the prices drop, yet!
Wyoming has huge amounts of oil and natural gas being exploited. My brother lives there and there’s some kind of state tax rebate thing just like there is for people living in Alaska. But if you aren’t into oil, gas, or ranching there’s not much else there.
Where does your cousin live in Wyoming? I live in Cheyenne and prices were not near as bubbly here as they were in other places. Wyoming is protected in somes ways that other states are not because the government here does not have unfunded pension obligations and we are not running a deficit. In additon as pointed out, there is a steady economy with oil, gas and coal that supports the state. The only place the real estate bubble really got going was around the park and other tournist areas (Jackson and Cody, and to a lesser extent Sheridan and Buffalo and those places will be hard hit as there are a lot of high end homes up there. The rest of Wyoming not so much, although your cousin Nancy wil have trouble getting a good rate for her rental as many people who can’t sell are putting their houses up for rent and driving down the market. Isabel
There are so few people in WY that there might be only one landlady Nancy in her town! …it would be rude on my part to identify her individually.
Poor cousin Nancy in Wyoming bought the little rental house for $137,000 in November 2007, it appraised for $155,000 at the time, I put $25,000 into renovations,someone recently offered me $180,000 for it and a real-estate agent told me the other day that she’d list it for $220,000. Meanwhile, I’ve lost 20% in the stock/bond market. You do the math…….
Even with all that has happened, FB’s still see this as a short term correction….after a year or two of renting out the house, the market will be better and they’ll recoup their “investment.”
Here’s a question for my fellow HBBers….what has to happen for the masses to realize bubble prices are gone and they’re not coming back?
I know all the gov’t intervention isn’t helping, as it makes folks believe an artificial floor can be put under home prices and that anyone who needs help with their mortgage will get it if they can hold out for the next housing program.
The only cure for a hangover is time.
As someone here said (sorry, can’t remember who): Duration, Duration, Duration. What will last longer, these investors, or the coming “normal” house prices? I know where I would place my bets.
I think Keynes said something like “volatility in the market will always outlast an investor’s liquidity.”
“‘We kind of don’t have to sell,’ said Lucas, 30.”
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA! I love those kind of comments, because they’re so obviously BS.
People kind of don’t have to buy, either, Lucas, 30.”
An employee of mine has two rentals in the Bozeman area. They were cash flow positive until this year. Both units were vacant this year so he had to slash his rents by 25%.
This Einstein will soon discover that he might be able to rent out his $300k house in West Bozeman (known locally as BozAngles) for $1000/month.
I soooo agree. I constantly argue with friends who say things like “I see things getting better by next year. ” Then I say, “Based on WHAT!?!?” They never have an answer.
The only “poor schmuck” in this scenario would be any renter dumb enough to play this greedhead’s game. Who wants an amateur landlord who by his own admission plans to sell the house out from under you “when the market turns around”? Granted, that won’t happen anytime soon, but it tells you something about the caliber of the landlord. And of course he’ll expect the renter to cover his mortgage as well. It would serve him right if he got a deadbeat renter or better yet, a meth lab.
Or a renter that demands he honor his lease and he loses the sale because he cant bear to actually PAY the tenant to break the lease.
A lease works BOTH ways.
Nah, he’ll get no renter and wonder why.
And add to the above tale the joys of being a landlord/lady.
During the nearly 13 years that I rented from her, my former landlady regaled me with tales of tenants trashing her houses, skipping out on rent, bringing in pets when their rental agreement forbade them, and I could go on and on, but I’ll give y’all a break.
Former landlady’s tales worked wonders on me. They completely removed my desire to be in the rental business.
Right now I am a tenant in a building that consists of five residential apartments and a restaurant. The restaurant will continue to do all right, as it is the cheapest place in town to get full meals. Two of the five apartments are vacant, one of them for multiple months now. The other vacant one has a fine view of the ocean, so where is the tenant? Answer: too many shorefront houses going begging. Landlady has had the whole building on and off the mkt for a number of years, at a price that wouldn’t be sufficiently supported even if the vacancy rate was zero. Never mind, I wish her no ill, as she is very good about maintaining my place. Wants to keep her two “good” tenants. The third current tenant is a very young person, inoffensive, but just has some temporary subsistence-type internship with the local arts organization.
Fortunately, “everyone wants to live in Bozeman” and the lord aint making any more land - just ask the Montanans. I hear the 2nd line all the time from my farmer friend as grain prices continue to be depressed.
‘Personally, I’m not willing to lose $20,000 or $30,000 so that I can not worry about it. Renting it out for a year or two until the market gets better, that’s worth it.’”
‘Personally, I’m not willing to lose $20,000 or $30,000 so that I can not worry about it. Renting it out for a year or two until
the market gets better,I can lose $60,000 or $70,000, that’s worth it.’”For the troll fans, here are some comments from a Calgary Herald article:
‘It’s why people should never listen to economists, they’re always wrong. In ‘05 I told my best friend to buy a house because CMHC predicted housing prices would go up by 6% (he eventually couldn’t because he had to clean up his credit). Prices proceeded to go up by 60%. No one has a crystal ball, certainly not the chicken littles here, many of whom often appear to be disgruntled tenants and/or people that for whatever reason are unable to build up a downpayment or qualify for a mortgage. I for one am praying for some stability, not a crash.’
Another:
‘As a hopeful soon to be homeowner I also find the news confusing. No one seems to agree. I take it all with a grain of salt. My concern is the lack of new listings in the $400 000 range for resale single family homes. Even if the prices keep dropping, anyone who is any kind of specific about what they want will have a hard time finding it. The market has shown it has stabilized if you look at the statistics. My only hope is someone with some decent property will list so that I can have the privilege of overpaying.’
Well, Ben, them’s better’n nothing, and I thank you for your thoughtfulness in presenting them to us for our pleasure on this lovely Sunday.
But where’s the really good trolls we used to have? You know the ones; with the mind-boggling hubris, the overbearing pomposity, the boldly-displayed greed, the craven retreat to personal insults when caught out with their crappy data or even just when lightly questioned by your or some smarty-pants HBBer?
Where’d they go, man?
(That was rhetorical. I know where they went, to their MIL’s basement, and to work as a barista, if they can even get hired, etc.)
Sigh. How I miss those good ol’ trolls…
You know what, we should have cryogenically preserved a few. Captured and frozed-up good a few choice troll specimens and now we could thaw them out judiciously and hand them a keyboard. Think of our joy, everyone!
Let’s remember to do this for the next bubble. Everyone make a note of it.
Sigh. I miss the trolls, too. Not them, per se, but the sheer fun of dog-piling them and seeing them reeling away from the HBB with their dignity and credibility in tatters. We should all agree: the next time a troll stumbles in here, we’ll sort of bat ‘em for awhile around like a cat with a mouse, rather than going for the juglar straightaway like we always used to.
LMAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It seems that some of them are real estate people here in southern Oregon. Several months
ago the local rag had a front page article about
several agents and brokers who were buying up a lot of the foreclosures saying that they were going
to make a fortune when things turned around.
At last weeks city council meeting, a friend unrolled a forty foot long list of NOD’s that he’d
taped together, two weeks worth. The city council looked like they’d all been hit by the same train.
Sitting in the back row, I had a hard time not
laughing.
Speaking of days gone by and memories of the bubbly formation, do you recall “Sitting Pretty Financially?”, that cozy pair of lesbians from the great NorthWest (or was it Clownifornya?).
Do you recall their website? They had discovered the way to riches in America was to flip houses, and in their genius, discovered they were “sittingprettyfinancially”. I think that was the website.
And another favorite of mine was the 2 doofus “professors” from USCLA or Berkeley who had discovered that housing prices, based on their metrics were at fair value and slated to head higher indefinitely. They overpaid and were proud to give a dissertation on the benefits they were deriving from their intellectual prowess…….namely, determing the long-term cost-benefit of buying over renting. Most certainly, they are still employed and probably promoted. Hopefully, they got a big paycut from Ahhnold.
“Wells Fargo didn’t get any takers in the auction – so the home went back on the market. But Funkhouser was no longer in the loop. ‘I felt very bad for her. It was totally unfair,’ buyer Wendy Crownover said. ‘She spent a year and a half taking care of the property. She got absolutely nothing - she was in tears.’”
This is the absolute limit of human endurance. She mowed the lawn for 18 long months and did NOT receive a $30,000 commission? This ought to soften the hearts of even our toughest bears.
Lisa F should’ve asked for her lawn-mowing wage up front from the owner.
According to an acquaintance who is a real estate agent, the only agents that take those kind of deals are the ones that are really desperate. What article didn’t say, is that according to my acquaintance, the agent most likely had the electricity and water turned on in her name and did bill back the institution for the mowing.
I thought it was an interesting article, as it shows exactly how the system works. For whatever reason, the vast majority of REOs go to a handful of UHS. But beside that, WF turned down a deal and got the same amount months later. (If I was reading it right, from the same couple!)
“…the vast majority of REOs go to a handful of UHS.”
It’s true. I was talking to a REALTOR I know (nice older woman BTW, and as honest as they come), and she was frustrated because one woman in her Remax office was getting all of the REO’s. The woman is making over $500k per year off them in Kitsap County, WA.
Another thing that’s odd about this story…..Nampa is the closest thing to a barrio in the greater Boise area. Think Salinas for those of you living in the SF bay area. What the heck is a “previously valued at $500K” house doing in most parts of Nampa? Perhaps it’s in the country south of Nampa where there are some pretty nice places on small 10 acre estates.
Is it just me, or is “Funkhouser” a great name for a UHS?
Not as great as the Realtor that just planted her sign next door…….. Karen Greathouse. I just can’t help wondering if she had her named changed when she became a UHS.
Yeah, Lisa wasn’t mowing the lawn out of altruism and a civic spirit. She wanted a payday out of the deal and made the mistake of believing her own NAR crap. Now she’s wiser and maybe the bank is too. That’s a good thing in my book.
Funny you should include WF in a post, Ben. I was at a meeting last week in which a lady mentioned that her elderly neighbor’s house had been foreclosed upon by none other than…
…Wells Fargo.
By way of history, elderly lady had taken out a reverse mortgage, and, sorry to say, she was no longer of sound mind when she did so. Lady went on a truly baffling spending spree. We’re talking about things like singing up for a coffee bean of the month club, which included a fancy-dancy grinder. Only trouble was, this old lady didn’t drink coffee!
She fell and broke a leg in the house a couple of years back, and it was a bad break. So bad that she was no longer able to live in the house.
The family had it fixed up and it was listed through a local UHS for eight months. Obviously, no offers.
The lady at the meeting suggested to the other attendees that they call Wells Fargo and make an offer on the house. “Good luck with that,” was my thought.
“And the city of Bend says permits to build just 8 new homes were filed in April. That number was above 800 in August of 2006.”
For those who like percentages (like me), that amounts to exactly a 99 percent drop in home building permits in the city of Bend for April 2009 relative to the level in August 2006.
P.S. That portends to a temporary near 100 percent shutdown to home construction in Bend.
And those construction jobs are not going to be coming back any soon.
When you look at the rampant shoddiness that characterizes practically every residential structure built between 2002 and 2008, I can’t say I’m too grieved to see so many half-assed builders and construction workers forced to either learn and practice real building skills and quality workmanship, or seek another line of work.
Having just survived the Battles of the Toilet Tank and the Leaky Shower, I can attest to the fact that real building (or repair) skills take time to develop.
It took Slim, who is turning into a serious amateur plumber, almost two weeks to get the toilet leak-free. (Ultimate solution was to custom-make my own toilet tank washers.)
Leaky shower may still need some store-bought parts, but I know where to find ‘em. That would be at Bonnets and Stems, home of Jan, the meanest lady in the plumbing parts business. But, boy, does she know her way around plumbing. I’ve learned a lot from her. Including how to custom-make washers that stop toilet tank leaks.
Around Boise there is a local chain of hardware stores called “Grover” where they dispense knowledge along with electrical and plumbing parts. Anyone in SW Idaho should learn about them. http://www.groverelectric.com/index.htm
Following Bend was always a lot of fun. Remember when the Bulletin fired that reporter for not being pro-REIC enough? I wonder whatever happened to him. Oh well, at least they’ve got 3 breweries.
I have no idea how Bend is going to survive. Is there any industry aside from tourism and your basic services? It is so isolated, that it seems as if it might just die. Is anybody living in Bend who can share what they see on the ground?
My step brother-in-law is the chef and owner of a high end restaurant in Bend, and bought a bunch of lots back in 2006. His business is toast, but his wealthy brother is helping out and they are both still hoping for a turnaround on their lots.
I think that is why places like Bend and Bozeman are taking so long to throw in the towel, as long as there is still hope people will keep pumping in money, liquidate retirement accounts, borrow from friends, etc… UNTIL “things turn around.” There were some powerful narratives in those places, the “everyone wants to live here” mantra was amplified to extremes by the mountain views.
This will all end very badly. As people used to say as they exited Bozeman: you can’t eat the scenery.
You can’t eat the scenery? Dang! I always wanted to sample a mountain or a pine tree.
Long-time lurker, first time poster,
Love the Pacific Northwest news - Thank you.
“Ever eat a pine tree? Many parts are edible.” - Ewell Gibbons.
LOL, Arizona Slim, your remark made me recall that ancient TV commercial. Was it for Grape-Nuts cereal?
Showing my age here. Please move along
“I have no idea how Bend is going to survive.”
FWIW, I’m drinking their Deschutes Brewery’s Black Butte Porter as often as is possible!
Oh well, at least they’ve got 3 breweries.
Yar! And that fact oughtta comfort all the equity-stripped locals. The easy ability to drown their sorrows…
*snicker *
Hey, a good beer is a good beer, and a thing of beauty in good times and bad.
The Best Dive Bar in the Universe, conveniently located in downtown Olympia, always has Mirror Pond, Black Butte, and a nice seasonal Deschutes brewery product on tap.
Why, I gots a 6-pack of Bend-produced IPA all nice and chilly in my fridge this very minute! You know, I believe I’ll go pop one open and drink it while I read the rest, as that will be pleasingly ironic or congruent or somthing or other.
Speaking of dive bars. I was in one called the “Brotherhood” in Olympia recently, and boy was that an experience. Some blonde, fluffy haired gal was tearing the roof off the place.
Oly, if you ever make it to Tucson, I’ll spring for a Nimbus Old Monkeyshine. That offer stands for other HBB-ers too.
Then there’s the Tablerock Brewery in Boise, who makes the uber-hopped lager called “Hopzilla”. http://tablerockbrewpub.com/
Cessna just announced the closing of its Bend manufacturing facility eliminating 1,600 good paying jobs…
“For those who like percentages (like me), that amounts to exactly a 99 percent drop in home building permits in the city of Bend for April 2009 relative to the level in August 2006.”
That begs the question: Is the glass 99% empty, or 1% full?
The glass is 99% too big, of course.
They built a glass with a far bigger capacity than the town could fill.
Another way of calculating it is, the glass is 9900% too big. (That is to say, the capacity exceeds the likely contents by a factor of 99, not just 1.99)
Bend always astonishes me. It is 3 hours from the nearest city and 100 miles from the nearest freeway. I grew up in Oregon in the pre-bubble 70s and 80s. Bend was a sleeply little Central Oregon town of nondescript ranch houses.
Must have been a whole lot of Californians buying into what they thought was going to be the next Aspen. I didn’t get it. what were they all going to do for work?
what were they all going to do for work?
They were gonna sell houses to each other! And everyone would be rich! And there would be ponies, and candy, and rainbows and stuff for alllllll!
HAHAHAHAHA!
But, Freddie Couples and John Daly said that the golf courses were world class !
I’m pretty sure Daly was talking about the beer cart, not the fairway.
Locusts don’t have brains. Well, perhaps just wee ones.
There’s an interesting angle in that Idaho Statesman article.
Many people have argued that the expensive parts of town are less at risk of falling values. Around Boise, it appears to be the opposite.
Garden City is only down 4%. Garden City is the Boise area equivalent of “East Palo Alto” - a created red-light district. When Boise outlawed casino gambling, the casino owners helped found a new city - Garden City - on county land just outside Boise. Garden City has a reputation for cheap bars and honky-tonk, plus lots of trailer parks and auto junkyards.
Eagle prides itself as being the “Saratoga” of the Boise area. The same house in Eagle once cost considerably more than one in Boise. But prices in Eagle have dropped 12%.
An outlier is Star. Star is a tiny town which RE boosters claimed “will become the next Eagle”. Dozens of subdivisions were platted, but very few homes built. IIUC there are considerably more prepped vacant lots in Star than all the houses ever built there. The builders have all just walked away, leaving Star with a headache. Prices down 20% yoy in Star.
In other news stories, there’s a real hazard for kids in all of the gaping holes in the ground in many of those abandoned subdivisions. Having no funds to deal with the problem, the mayor of Star took his pickup down to Home Despot and bought sheets of plywood. He then covered as many holes as he could.
Boy am I glad I didn’t get myself talked into buying a place in Star.
Just two days after your post, there was this story about a man that died in Detroit after saving a boy that fell into a construction site hole.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iTQ4ASz19tg0yD_wlkCseUWIVbBQD98DGKCO0
“Wells Fargo didn’t get any takers in the auction – so the home went back on the market. But Funkhouser was no longer in the loop. ‘I felt very bad for her. It was totally unfair,’ buyer Wendy Crownover said. ‘She spent a year and a half taking care of the property. She got absolutely nothing - she was in tears.’”
And she even didn’t get to live in it (mortgage free) for 18 months…
Good lord, maybe because I’m from upstate NY, but seriously, $300k+ for 2,000 sq. ft. in Montana! Is Bozeman really that cool?
This guy’s house is in what is known as “Boz Angles”. Ugly tract homes gobbling up the flat wheat fields in the middle of the valley. Bozeman is cool, but sans construction/real estate there is only one employer in town and that is a university that (1) offers pathetically low salaries; and (2) is now in a belt tightening phase like most universities around the country.
A lot of people visit Bozeman for the first time on summer vacation (to/from JellyStone). They fall in love, pack up their things and move to Bozeman. After a few years, 9 months of winter and a minimum wage job dampen that romance. The VAST MAJORITY of people who move to Bozeman permanently end up leaving again within 5 years.
Next to Mississippi, MT has the lowest wages in the entire US. It’d be hard to find a state where house prices are further detached from what local incomes afford. MT is dead.
Few things are sadder than seeing prime agricultural land gobbled up by tract housing and soulless cookie-cutter planned communities.
Testify! TEST.I.FY.
I’d volunteer to, for free, take a loaner tank through those places and level every single home built in order to return the land to it’s productive state. Those sh!tboxes should be torn down, and the local community development folks, and the developers, tarred and feathered and run out of town.
Locusts thought so.
Funny how it all works…sell your property at a ridiculously high price (because, hey you can and that makes you a genius), and buy into a cheaper market with a view.
Strip the new area clean of vegetation, ruin the local economics, and then whine about the outcome.
Locusts aren’t very bright. Now that demographics is no longer on their side, they find they’re not nearly as brilliant as they once thought.
I’m still looking forward to the day when it’s not “different here” in Ontario.
Check my dc next week for an Ontario FB.
“Ontario FB.”
*Droolz
Blue, it’s that time of year where I go nuts again. My upstate buds are all grillin’ out, hitting the lakes, hiking… I looked at prices again today for the greater Rochester area and I am still in disbelief.
Just watching Flashpoint (filmed in Toronto) makes me all mushy. Ottawa, Niagara on the Lake, Montreal, etc.
Hi Muggy,
I’m on Seneca Lake right now, grillin on my boat. Pork tenderloin and fresh garden asparagus with ice cold Lebatts. The lake is still pretty cool, but it’s beautiful.
My neighbor with the $350K underwater albatros just sold for $190K. Part of his pension will be going to the bank for a long long time. The memo hasn’t hit land yet.
“I’m on Seneca Lake right now, grillin on my boat. Pork tenderloin and fresh garden asparagus with ice cold Lebatts. The lake is still pretty cool, but it’s beautiful.”
LALALALALA I can’t hear you! LALALALA
Can someone help me? It sounded like Blue said: Seneca Lake has run out of water, his beer is warm, and the women are man-like, with lots of facial hair.
LALALALALALALA
Afraid the 8-ball was wrong this time Muggy. Taking an eight week cruise in a few weeks over to Champlain. The first mate told me today that she only needs an overnight bag of clothes, in case we go to town for some reason. I can’t imagine why we would do that.
God, it’s good to be a renter.
LOL Muggy
“As for land, just 13 lots have sold around Bozeman this year, compared to 127 in 2008. None have sold in the Manhattan and Three Forks areas. ‘Lots are real slow,’ Dueringer said. ‘Lots that maybe cost $120,000 before are down to $75,000. … We have a glut of lots on the market right now.’”
Here is some perspective, BEFORE things slowed down, back in the summer of 2007 a local banker estimated that the Gallatin Valley had a 10 year supply of developed lots and 20 year supply if planned and approved developments were taken into account. The word “glut” doesn’t do justice to the real estate situation in Bozeman.
Where is the part of Montana where all the oil is HBBers? Sierra Club retards file suit to protect some bird. Screw you drivers with higher gas prices.
Far Eastern Montana, almost to North Dakota. Basically Richland County (Sidney) MT. Refineries in Billings get most their oil from Canada.
Eastern Montana also has the coal and coal-bed methane (which has also been the target of extensive litigation due to the nasty water pumped out to extract the methane).
Of course, the Butte area is home to massive open-pit mining and ultra-acidic tailing piles the size of mountains (be careful of wind direction!). Libby has the asbestos problem. Nothing like unspoiled nature in Montana!
“Screw you drivers with higher gas prices.”
Yeah. Those exloding fuel prices are just screwing people left and right huh brainsurgeon…
Leaving aside the current price of gas being $2 less than it was last summer, there are NO untapped oilfields in the United States large enough to impact the world supply of oil and hence reduce gas prices. None. Zero.
Turn Rush off for a few minutes, genius.
Yep, I know a guy that bought one of said lots in Three Forks. He “got an inside deal” from a broker “before it even got on the MLS”.
From what I hear he had to move out of the area to get another job.
Westsound Bank “has been operating under tight state and federal supervision since March 2008, when it agreed to bolster its capital levels, tighten its lending practices, clean up its balance sheet and strengthen management and board oversight.” (Seattle Times)
It wasn’t exactly a close kept secret that they were in deep doo-doo for the past year.
“‘Maybe I walked into this a little too fast, but they should have been looking after me,’ said one buyer. ‘I’m still interested in the place, but I want a fair deal.’”
“They should have been looking after me?” What kind of national sickness is this, anyway? Since Roman times caveat emptor has been the operative rule of commerce. Now the Nanny State and our culture of pathological victimization has reached the point where this clown thinks he’s entitled to have the people trying to sell him something protect him from his own greed and stupidity. I hope the condo corporation nails his sorry a$$ to the wall and sticks him with court costs besides.
I interpreted this as coming from someone who was used to being able to take a pair of capri pants back to the store and ask for a refund between the price she paid and the one she saw in some sunday paper ad.
Either that, or it’s someone who has just figured out that they signed up for a deal that instantly puts them 50K or so underwater and is looking for something, anything, to say other than ‘ooops’.
Best quote in the post, imo.
“The current downturn is not really a recession at all; it’s more like a self-inflicted wound perpetrated by avaricious speculators who put a gun to the economy’s head and blew its brains out. The banks and Wall Street have created a capital hole so vast that the entire economy is being sucked into the abyss. And it all could have been avoided.”
-Mike Whitney May 2009
New twist. The Vancouver condo developer is suing buyers for walking away from their contracts. Here in Las Vegas it’s the buyers who are suing the developer for various things; misrepresentation, failure to return deposits, project way behind schedule etc. All the fun stuff.
Drove to Costa Mesa, Ca in the OC this afternoon to look for open houses. After searching our favorite neighborhoods for half an hour we saw 2 for sale, out of flyers, and ZERO open houses.
Lazy realtors because of the holiday or an indication of regional timing?? -
Could be both. In reality, open houses are the single worst way to find buyers, but realtors are forced to hold them because homeowners have an almost mystical belief in their ability to lure cash-toting perfect-credit dupes who are slavering to fork over their hard-earned luchre for the owners’ beloved crapbox.
But: Sadly, no. And no matter how many times the realtors tell them this, the homeowners don’t want to hear it — just like they dont’ want to hear their home is overpriced and they’ll never get what they think they “deserve” for it. (And if you think it’s bad with realtors, it’s even worse with FSBOs, who overprice themselves to ludicrous degrees. At one time industry estimates had FSBO overpricing at 20 percent, but that was during the height of the bubble.)