Hood River Real Estate and Columbia Gorge Real Estate

Sales took a total nosedive in the second half of November around here, seems like there was a “cooling off” period around the uncertainty of the home buyer tax credit expiration. Now that it has been re-instated, it seems like business has picked up again, though it is just so tough to get through underwriting! My advice? Manage your life to your credit score for the next couple of years, and learn how to assemble a running financial statement (which is actually kind of fun, and certainly helpful) and try to automate and simplify your purchasing. (read: ONE CREDIT CARD) It certainly helps when it comes time to present a picture of your financial situation to someone else………..
Last week I got a look at the “T2” option arm reset chart, which was sent to me by about four people, but surprisingly, no Canadians (Rick, are you on vacation?) While looking eerily similar to the Alt-A reset chart, I also noticed that the scale was smaller. I’d bet that if you put the sub-prime, alt-A and option arm charts on the same graph, the Option arm resets would be dwarfed by sub-prime, and similar to alt –A. Just guessing…..(OK I looked… The Peak is higher on Option Arms, but the volume is less……)

I think these are going to be dealt with by recasting, or placing them somewhere else on the balance sheet (That is not distressed) so they can let them through at a trickle, and try to limit the damage…..I cant tell you how many people are technically in default on loans around here and their bank is doing basically nothing. If you are in financial trouble in this market, I’d bet you could effectively “homebrew” your own restructuring yourself, before the banks even get around to processing your foreclosure.

This month also marks the annual remodeler’s report . I used to follow this report (but stopped for a number of years, while “remodeling” was passe), which is used to help people decide how much money a remodel will add to their properties value. Since the Last time I looked at it, it’s gone quite high tech! The Link to it is located at Copperwest.com here. It breaks stuff out by City, region and project, including trend indicators….total timesink, be careful!

2010 is looking to be a recovery year. Still brutal, I’m sure, but hopefully we’ll get better as the year continues on, and actually be posting news about decent markets and volumes……That would be a long time coming!

Happy New Year!