Hood River Real Estate and Columbia Gorge Real Estate

Happy almost May!

Our weather here is still stuck in spring mode. I’m hoping it will get warmer soon, but who knows. My Web cam is still screwy. Time for a new computer, says my wife. A Mac!

What I do know about is how busy things have been. People are clued (or have clued, as this is the last day, wait, is that even a word?) into the tax credit, and Sellers and Buyers have sharpened their programs to get stuff moved. In fact, lots and lots of stuff has moved, though if you thought you were going to offer on a short sale and make it under the timeline, you woefully misjudged.
Last month, all eyes were on the quality of the inventory, and I have to say, there were some very, very nice properties that came (and went) to and from the market. We have written a number of deals that will qualify, and some of them have been very good bargains.

Lending and underwriting has also improved, and we are back around 30 days for a deal, perhaps a touch longer. Buyers have returned, however gingerly, to a position of “risk-taking” given they are well compensated, which is an improvement from a few months ago, where a buyer asked for such a discount as to make the purchase almost failsafe.

This STILL doesn’t mean prices are going up anytime soon. All the short sales that have gone under contract will only lead to a fresh set of underwater houses to come on the market. I suspect we’ll have a version of this for about the next year. I would have said two, but I’ve been really surprised at the speed that last batch cleared the market. They will have a dampening effect on the market however, especially in sieverkropp and the Westside addition near fox hollow.

The majority of the action is well under the $400,000 range, but some of the Summer buyers are coming up early to get a jump on things. I’ve gone from showing piles and piles of property under $300,000 to a bunch over $400,000 in just the last week. That’s a decent sign.

I’ve been noticing that as the market re-forms, there are different players this time around. I’m also noticing, that while conditions improve for some, hurt, and duration, and general stress abound…..There seems to be a lot of it in transactions these days…..

So, short term outlook? Weak until memorial day weekend, given the tax credit hangover and the upward pressure on interest rates. Probably a little firming through the summer, with what appears to be decent amounts of inventory clearing, and softness in the fall, firmed up in late October by the bargain shoppers, depending on interest rates, which could be the big, big uncertainty….
I’m always amazed by people who dare to wait until the last moment…..nerves of steel those people…..

….My Lovely video camera now seems to have a conflict with my Windows 7, thus I am flummoxed. No video this month. Cut my hair and all! I might still get it posted in time….so scroll down.

This month on the view sees a slight increase in activity, primarily around qualifying tax credit buyers. There certainly are a few of them out there.

Inventory on select properties is beginning to look thin, and (gasp!) do I sense a price uptick? Nah, not really, but there do seem to be some gaps in some areas. Unfortunately, that used to mean people would turn to properties with “flaws” and then make offers, but these days, the buyers are still waiting around…..

Many Sellers who don’t have to sell, still aren’t. That will certainly cause “select” inventory to be tight. This tightness even leads to multiple offers, which will perhaps lead to….(Gasp!) Price uptick?!…….

Nah, headfake again.

It’s a bit funny, we have Buyers, we have Sellers. Select Seller’s properties aren’t fitting Buyers filters, so we have lots of inventory that is just sitting…………Buyer thinks they should “get a deal” and wait for the best property, select Seller thinks, “I don’t really have to/want to sell” and sits on their pricing. Some Sellers, however, need to sell their property……..and eventually get there, but in the process, turn off the select Seller even more……Not sure where that ultimately leads……………Tight select inventory, soft prices. Hmmmmm.

I suspect the Tax Credit will again be extended until the end of the year, there’s just too much weakness out there still. It’s made it’s way into the HR market, but the damage is still contained…. I still have my concerns about the Balance sheets of many banks and their foreclosures, but that’s finally been picked up in the national news, so I’ll lay off that topic for awhile.

Unless there’s a giant flush of inventory on the market starting in April (an event that commonly occurs) we are going to start seeing some choppy issues in pricing with a bias towards strength. It probably wont lead to anything (see above) and there’s a school of thought that says that will be the “market action” for the entire year. I’m not that much of a doomsayer, but I’m certainly ready for it. A double dip recession is still a very real possibility………

The Reformed Good Faith Estimate forms are apparently, not open to revision for the next year. Ouch. That’s going to confuse a lot of people. Get ready for it. It will probably create a whole new way of doing business for the mortgage brokers. Currently, a few of them have attempted a run at a 30 day close…but so far, I don’t think anyone has made it…..Still, expect 40-45 days for just about any close except the most vanilla….(20% down, newer property with good comps and the inspector waiting to do the inspection the day you ink the deal….and I think 30 days is doable)

Summer looks to be reasonable for us, and for Hood River. Early season warm days have brought everyone out of hibernation, and it’s good to see the snowbirds returning….Nice to get out in our garden too! See you next month when we’ll have a good idea of the Summer inventory levels. If they are low, prices will stiffen. If they are high………..look out below! (Select Inventory depending…..)

First off, sorry for being so tardy. I wanted to show you the very cool new mapping system (It allows you to create feeds, e-mail alerts, take notes on properties, and work with my brokers online. Very, very, very cool.) and we finally turned it live!  Go check it out. You will be very impressed. If you had an old account, and you didn’t get the e-mail telling you what the password reset was, shoot me an e-mail and I’ll get it working. This mapping system tracks searches for you, it follows specific properties for you, it allows us to make suggestions for you, and for you to take notes. Great product. Easily the best search engine in the Hood River Market!

And so, on to the market…..Well, we received the monthly sales report form January, and it was sort of……well basically nothing. Trendless…….Volume was up, but we knew that. All segments fired, so that’s cool, but nothing really giving indication that there’s anything but people finally deciding to move forward…..no hot neighborhoods, no hot pricing segments…….Awash in vanilla!

I follow a blog called The Portland Housing Blog, and this week they tipped me off to a recent report from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco About bankruptcies (residential and commercial) and it’s broken out by state, and region. Great stuff! I posted the link on my facebook feed…. It has past and future heat maps for both commercial and residential, and it says, among other things….this. “Be glad you are not Deschutes county Oregon, or Clark County Washington” Seriously……it basically does.

Outlook for March? Pretty busy, still a fair bit of uncertainty, and Boy, when your closing timelines suddenly jump from 30 days to 60 days, that sure can put a crimp in your cash flow! Even with the activity, I couldn’t tell you where the hot sector is going to be. Could be back in the under 300 range again, as a push of young buyers looks to make their move. Most of the young buyers though are still just trying to keep their jobs…..There’s a few people who are losing their homes (walking away? Gasp!) in this market. It’s still contained, but I think the duration is finally taking it’s toll. These are not speculators; they are hard working people who have lost jobs….and that’s just plainly unfortunate.

I think we will see a decent push of new families (yaay! Houses over $400!) around the spring break, and I continue to get the “Dude, I’m punching out” e-mails and phone calls. There’s a lot of ex financial types who are looking to create a new life out in the west……….

But still, there’s that uncertainty out there.  And how. Some of it is media bloviating, but I swear, I’ve got that “other shoe” feeling that I just can’t shake. Maybe it’s commercial…Dunno. (I should comment that the feeling has waned in the last few days…)

See you next month, and we are really looking forward to April and May, as we gear up to post some good numbers….how could they be bad?! Been down so long, looks like up, to me…..Go Big Red!