The guy at the mortgage desk is waiting for your call. Business is still in the slow lane, but busier than a couple months ago. Rates are in the low 6% range and we’re all rested up and ready for the onslaught. Do not make the mistake of calling 1-800- getmealoan, or ww.we’llsay anything to get your loan business. Call someone local who will take care of you and your needs. This market reminds me of the way things were back in ’92. The criteria for loan approval is based on reality instead of simply having a heart beat. What a concept! And talk about “values” coming in. Now that’s a real challenge. Here’s a little look-back analysis for you to get an idea of where we’ve come from since the Summer of ’05. In June of ’05 the median home price in Bend was $269k. By May of ’07, it was $396k. That’s a 47% increase in a 24 month period. We were happy with that. OK, we were drunk with irrational exuberance and unrealistic optimism. Buy before it’s too late was my thinking. And to think I lived through the recession of the early ‘80s. Well, by April ’08 the median price was down to $270k. That’s a 32% decrease in a 12 month period, and put us back even with June ’05 practically. What a wonderful world we’re in. So, if you purchased since June ’05, you should hang on to it and ride out this housing slump. How long before our market comes back you may ask. Great question, and here’s my take on it, quoting Warren Buffet. “We don’t try to time anything or predict,” he says. “We just look for where there’s good values and if we find them, we buy them. Nobody knows what the economy is going to look like a year or two years from now.” Current conditions may lead to something more severe, he says, or if we’re lucky, it won’t. “I’ve never made any money on economic forecasting,” says Buffett. “I made money by staying out of trouble.”

and on the real estate front...

We are definitely still in a struggle in the real estate world in Bend, Oregon and all over the country. There are a few specific issues in play but one that is on my mind today is determining the value of a property. Isn’t the definition of the value of a property the amount of money a willing buyer will pay at that specific time? Then how can an appraisal come in under the sales price agreed to on a fully executed earnest money agreement? This subject is really frustrating right now for buyers, seller, and realtors. The seller wants to get a fair price for his home and many have a bottom line they must get for the property because of the underlying debt that must be paid. The buyer doesn’t want to pay too much and in many situations cannot pay over the appraised value. Realtors want to give good advice on where to price the property so people will look at it and make an offer. Then add in the phenomenon of buyers right now feeling like they are in charge and they must offer substantially less than the list price for the property or they are not savvy buyers. I hate the game of pricing a property substantially over the expected sale price but at the same time if that’s the game everyone is playing do you have to play to be in the game? To all that we factor in the short sales and foreclosures and we really have a mess trying to come up with a value or price for a property. I think until all those hundreds of foreclosure notices get resolved we are going to have value problems which means sale and mortgage problems. Darn it!!