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The tax credit is just slowing the fall, but we are still going to get to where we are really going - truly affordable housing.   Slowing the fall means it will take longer to get to the bottom, which means it will be longer before a real recovery can happen. 

When the credit goes away we will see home prices decline more - especially in Bend.  I will wait to buy until then.

posted 3 years, 7 months ago
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We talk about implementation costs for cars, but what about for gas station owners? How much will it cost to upgrade the pumps? Will stations in rural areas like Burns be able to afford to upgrade their pumps? When gas prices were over $4/gallon this summer many stations with older pumps couldn't handle it. The owners said they couldn't update their pumps because it would cost too much. If a gas station owner in Burns can't afford to update their pump to this system, will they go out of business? If we give them the ability to opt out and not tax this way, will we have double taxation if we fill up there?

posted 4 years, 4 months ago
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Maybe you trust your own work, but what about the work of the Yahoo you just bought your house from? My last house had some shady work obviously done without permit. This is setting up having unsafe structures for generations.

posted 4 years, 6 months ago
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As we enter the oil-expensive future, destination resorts will make less and less sense. The price of gas will make the tourism slow down, and employees won't be able to afford to drive to them. Economically they will not work in the future. In the future much of this land will have to revert to farming.

As far as "affordable housing" in Bend.... we are getting there quickly without intervention. Medians are dropping quickly and in a year or two we will see house prices that ARE affordable.

posted 4 years, 7 months ago
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Bend is in a recession and we are going further into it. Housing sales have come almost to a standstill. Only around 50 houses will close in January, which is about 20% of our boom years, and only 40% of last year. There are over 1800 single family homes listed in the MLS. With the average sales for the last three months we have about 25 months inventory. Housing prices are 30 to 35% above levels that would have been predicted based on fairly standard 6% price increases from 1998-2005. Many houses listed in the $400k range should be $300k. If you bought a house in Bend after the beginning of 2005 your house is worth less than what you paid. Many of the these houses were bought with 100% financing, and other people took out a HELOC on their homes in 2005 and 2006. It's not good here and we are teetering on the edge of a big crash.

posted 5 years, 3 months ago
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