A Bounce? Hardly, but it does seem to be trending…..not down…

…..We’ve finally been seeing a fair number of foreclosure units hit the market, and there’s been some real velocity around REO’s this last month. (In the Hood River market) I’d have to say…..I’m feeling pretty positive. The activity has waned, but the Buyer’s lists are pretty full across all our brokers, and everyone is moving about, that’s for sure…..

It’s not like it’s a recovery, but after last years dismal numbers, (in terms of units closed) how could we NOT see something of a volume bounce? We are off to a good start in that direction, however.

Let’s see, interesting things from Hood River this month…..Well, we’ve had one heck of a storm this month, and it pretty much drove all business to a standstill for a week. We are just now uncovering, but there was a substantial amount of damage to trees around town….
The rental market remains tight, and it appears that Insitu is hiring again, because we’ve had a bunch of people call looking for rentals this last few weeks.

Late last month, they announced that they would be staying in the area, and specifically, remaining in Bingen. Great news really, as they have been a strong employer for this region during tough times.

We launched a new website this last week as well. Updated, and using some really cool features, including Chat functionality, and a great set of preset searches that leverage a couple of items from the IDX database, like the ability to see the most recent price reductions by area, and newest properties, by area….It’s a great way to keep casual tabs on the marketplace!

And finally, and I’m now begging you…. go to our Facebook site and like our page! I’ve been posting more and more to that than anyplace else….it’s like having your own personal Real Estate clipper.

Prices seem stable, to slightly upward, same with volume and the Sellers have recovered quickly, hoping to hold out for better dollars closer to summer…

Listings are starting up again, the weather, while terrible, seems to be lightening up, and the days are getting longer…..time to get into spring cleaning mode!

REVENGE OF THE COUNTRYSIDE!

Ok, it isn’t that dramatic…..For awhile now, I’ve been tracking the value of Hood River County against the rest of the market. As a gauge of our county’s pull, and the relative popularity of the “Country Country” vs the “City Country.”

It’s not in any way scientific, just a hash mark in the years numbers. For awhile there was going to be some parity, where Hood River County in total was the same value as the other three counties combined.….

But alas, a good showing by Wasco in 2011, and a resurgent interest in larger pieces of non-urban land have lead to a reversal of that trend this year.

Now, you could tie yourself up in pretzels trying to determine some drivers….shakier economics leads to more rural transactions because of foreclosures? Maybe. Prior buyers in the HR market were actually speculative and have been forced into a hiatus? Prooobably…….

The longer term trend, though, is that Hood River County (HRC) versus the rest of the market (ROTM) has been narrowing. It almost merged last year, then HRC’s volume and sides closed deflected (more about that later) downward, with a truly, truly sizable drop in number of units closed this year. I actually do think that sets us up for a bump in volume if we are to return to the historical trend….

Or not, in which case the new reality in Hood River could be a lean one….but there are just too many indicators that say otherwise…….

Worth noting is the annual number of units closed in this market (Hood River County, vs. Wasco Klickitat and Skamania) take a look.

The Market looks in 2011 to be the same as 2009 in total numbers, but there a shift to the ROTM in 2011, and pretty much the entire drop was in the HR county market. Ouch. I could further parse it by our market areas, but I’m guessing it would show the Westside dropping off a cliff in terms of volume. Maybe I’ll do that next month.

What’s probably most sobering is that 55+ deals went away in 2010 vs. 2011. There’s a bunch of stuff in the pipe, BTW and traditionally there is a push at the very end of the year, but by and large…..well, it was a down year in terms of transactions, period.

So, what’s ahead? I expect a volume rebound in HR in 2012, which in turn will stabilize our total dollar volume, both up about 10-15%, to 2009 volumes. It could take a good decade to return to anything resembling a market volume of over 200 million, but 160-180 stabilized isn’t out of the question. The Real Estate Broker starve out continues, and technology is probably the key. The stuff happening today is incredible. If you aren’t right on the new technology, it seems to just blow past you, leaving you at a real disadvantage. Get ready, the whole model is about to change…..again!

See you next month.  Check out our new website, launching in early 2011. Thank you for your readership, and your patronage this year. We look forward to being of service to you in 2012!

….Been a pretty decent November (mostly setting up December, actually) Many of the decent cash-flow purchases have all been picked up. Deal timelines are slipping as some of the underwriting has become slightly unstable. (or highly volatile, whichever term you’d like to use…)

I continue to be surprised at the high variability in appraisals. Distance to comparable, age of comparable and our market size make things pretty challenging. Mind you, I can appreciate the variability of any pricing model (which is why they call it negotiation, buddy…….) but the qualification margins are so razor thin these days (partly because of our ability to stretch as far as humanly possible, and the ability for the pricing of a home to pace it) that often a slight difference in opinion of value on the appraisal becomes the last straw that unravels a deal.

This last month, besides all the sub-$250,000 properties being sold (most of them, anyway) there were a couple of the last of the downtown properties that moved through, further lowering our inventory in the downtown core. I’m still looking for overall inventory months to get to 10…..mostly as a matter of professional pride, mind you, but I bet that in some areas (362, which is downtown) that number is already below 10 months of inventory…….

In other news, we are seeing more and more offerings with owner financing, which is nice, but continue to have large negotiating gaps, which means a fair bit of wasted paper. Some Sellers wont (or cant) go below a certain range, and some of those “perma-listings” will be with us for a long, long time.

Outlook for 2012? Choppy, uncertain, but the bias is positive. I really think that we can live in this band of volume and deal complexity for a fairly long while, as long as there is the promise of better days ahead….For this month, December, we can certainly live with where we are at, which makes us happy! Next year, 2012, there will most likely be another Realtor contraction, which helps keep those of us who are alive….well, alive.

See you next month! THANK YOU to all of you who have been reading this year, Thank you for using the site, thank you for liking us on FB, and following us on twitter. I’m very grateful to have a few moment of your month to share our story. You’ll really love what we have in store for you next year, as we grow!

…You read it here first. A couple years back I made the prediction that we wouldn’t turn the corner on this market until people started using the words “bulldozer” and “Real Estate” in the same sentence publically. This week, that happened, and it was all over the news. Cities are now condemning abandoned homes and reclaiming them from the banks, then tearing them down, effectively shuttering whole neighborhoods. That’s a big deal, because it tackles the root of the problem on the ground. Too many houses in the wrong place. It’s unfortunate that the people responsible for them didn’t pay, but that’s for another post.
You won’t see any of that around here mind you. Rents officially, this month, crested the cost of owning a house, and, all things considered (tax advantages of home ownership, additional expenses, etc) it is an almost exact wash, with a small forced savings plan tossed in to boot. Interest rate wise, it’s like free money, when you think of it a certain way.
The USDA Rural home loan program is absolutely saving us too. It’s a great program, kind of tricky to get, but if you keep the costs in line, there’s a definite “sweet spot” where you can get into a new, or very nearly new house, for a great price, and low, or no money down, and all your costs covered……It’s not the easiest thing we’ve ever done, but it is certainly a product that can be packaged here.
There are other bright spots in the market too. This last month, we closed the “castle” in Husum, a really amazing property. There have been signs of life across the river as well, with action up Snowden, and in town.
So have we turned the corner? I bet once we see the Inventory months closer to 10, I can say we are ok. There are still pockets of weakness, and our futures are still tied to the larger economic malaise, but if anyone is set up for a stable few years and a reasonable recovery, we are. (which isn’t saying much, really)
That’s it for this month, take care, and let us know if there’s anything we can do for you!

August numbers are in (Copperwest.com, reader’s bottom left hand of the page) and, as expected, we are gaining ground on 2010. (Not that THAT was hard to do, really) As Bill Irving puts it, “timing shift” which is probably accurate. I get so focused on months that I don’t think about quarters.

Inventory months continues its march downward (which as I mentioned last month, is a good thing, but it largely depends on what we end up with in January) and it’s at 13.8 months for August. I’m still betting it goes into the single digits in September or October. When you consider that in August of 2009 it was 17 months of inventory, and in 2010 it was….20………well, that’s a good sign, but not a definitive one. (Healthy market is 7-9, and I remember when we used to lament how “depressed” a 9 month inventory level was….I WISH we could get to a number like that again!)

The late season price pickers came through the market with a vengeance, and, barring a few war stories, pretty much had their way. There are a couple of neighborhood resets, and the distressed inventory seems to be high, but not destructively so. A couple of Realtors have moved into the Foreclosure market, and seem to be moving a decent amount of property. We aren’t cleaning up the place, but I think our foreclosure overhang isn’t as bad as many other places, ultimately, and the rental market is so strong that any workable property can find a buyer. We did seem to experience it in one intense burst (thanks to that banks, who held them all back for one reason or another, then released them, pretty much all at once) If you want to see a good list of what’s what, use the filters at the Copperwest.com search engine, and you can see all the properties that are listed as short sales or bank owned. Cool feature, that one.

September’s early reports are good. Decent number of sales, INSANE interest rates, which is finally, pulling people off the fence. (I never thought I’d see someone shrug off a 4.25% rate, until I realized, a few months later, they were right, as the interest rates dipped below 4.00% last week.) But what is really interesting is how many deals have fallen apart in the last few weeks…..

It’s like that uncertainty thing is creeping back in the market again. We are fighting it back (and 4% is an effective bludgeon) but you can see it return. People say that the threat of a second recession is very real, and I’ve somewhat ignored those comments until I saw it on some people’s faces.

It’s a lot more real to me now, that’s for sure.

Ok, on that cheery note, that’s it for this month! Remember, EVERYONE feels sad about the waning of summer, but once we get through the mud season, it’s Snow time! See you next month.

Got the July numbers (market report, on the website readers lower left corner)…..they look pretty good, no matter what people may say.

Closings are down, but pending sales are up, and it looks like the numbers are tracking last year pretty closely.

Prices are flat to stable, and inventory months are dropping. I expect that they’ll drop into the single digits here in a moment…..which would be the first time in a very.long.time. (October of 2009, to be exact)

As the Summer wanes, it looks like it’s been a pretty great one for Copperwest and crew. We have a fine set of listings, solid buyer lists, and a bunch of improvement projects for the fall….The general economy of Hood River has done well too….. Restaurants are full, the Crop is strong with good pricing (depending, of course. They are farmers after all) and there are not less than a dozen, fairly large projects underway…..Add them all up (including the Hospital project(s)) and I bet you are looking at pretty solid amounts of capital investment in the local economy in 2012, and that then again in 2013, with prospects of more, once the Westside industrial issues untangle themselves.

I bet that by 2013 we will see a bump in building permits, ESPECIALLY given the tight rental market and absurd demand for housing for visitors in the Summer…..(though that has lightened up here in the last week)

Even with that bump in potential building, consider, though, that there’s probably 100+ lots in inventory right now…..so, 6+ years of inventory…..that could take awhile…. And then there’s additional lots approved, but not platted….

So there you go. Pretty reasonable Summer, after all that uncertainty. Some reasons to be positive on the horizon….but still the economy and wild gyrations of the market portend a rough patch ahead…. So I guess that means more uncertainty. It’s pretty clear to me that this is the new normal.

The fall looks to host the return of the late Season price picker, (phones are already ringing) and I bet it’s busy….It will be VERY interesting to see how the inventory reshapes itself in January, as many of the homeowners realize that no, the prices are not going up any time soon. I wonder who will be left, over time, with stagnant pricing? Multi-year modification and short sales?

I guess it depends on interest rates, really……whew! Complicated.