AddingUnderstanding

The Idaho Statesman ran a story yesterday asking suggesting the housing sales numbers might indicate a bottoming out of the market. There are several problems with this sort of story. From start to finish the story bears a strong resemblance to the blogs about Boise real estate which have been trumpeting the return of a healthy market for at least as many months as the market has been in a spiral.

Though it wasn't in blog form I remember being told nearly nine months ago by an agent how prices had "recovered" and sellers were getting asking price and higher for their places. The message then was that we needed to act quickly and buy now. Oddly those same houses, still on the market, are now priced lower than they were last winter. In the last month Boise has been struck by the loss of several hundred jobs. Although some of those jobs will actually be cut over the next few months it is still a blow to confidence in consumer's minds. Yet the article in the paper would have you believe that a 3% decrease in available housing is a significant indicator of a bottom in the market.

Nary a day passes without some prognostication by our local realtor bloggers saying everything has turned around and the market is headed back up. What is most surprising about these is not that there are sales people who believe that they can still sell snake-oil but that there are sales people who haven't taken the time to understand that 2008 is not 2006 or 1989. Consumers are better informed and have access to more information than at any point in the past.

What is most surprising is that some of the very same folks who are trying to high-pressure customers into buying now are doing so online. In the very same environment that gives consumers access to the actual information about what is going on. Real estate sales people can say "the market is turning" till they are blue in their faces but we'll still know that the rate of foreclosures is increasing. We'll still see the new house each week that is bank owned on our streets.

Having looked at houses over the years I've seen some really bad CC&R's. But some go beyond being annoying to being downright harmful to the planet. Take for example this except from the Shamrock West website pointing out the most commonly violated CC&R's:

SECTION 9 – LIGHT POLE “Each home is REQUIRED to have a photo-sensitive pole light installed in the front yard within (10) feet of the property line, designed to switch on automatically at sunset and off at sunrise with a minimum bulb power of 40 watts.”

So not only does this contribute to unnecessary light pollution, but it wastes energy. Living in the next neighborhood over we don't have this silly rule. And the neighborhood is much nicer for it. Sadly most new development CC&R's I've looked at lately have these same clauses requiring residents to waste energy.

Singing Phil Vassar's song Tim McGraw tells us:

I think I'll take a moment, celebrate my age
The ending of an era and the turning of a page
Now it's time to focus in on where I go from here
Lord have mercy on my next thirty years

I'm measuring not in 30-year spans but in a third of life spans. Having just put up the score card on the first third it is time to turn to the second third. My family was very nice and procured some long-desired toys that will help focus my next third on staying in better shape. The Cannondale parking area now has another member. Sadly, it is also the first Cannondale that I have owned which does not bear the "Made in USA" label. The last Cannondales I purchased came with a manual declaring their proud factory and a video telling the company's tale. Granted the video was a VHS tape which I would have to hunt for a way to play now days but it remains a sad marker on the changing of the times and I contributed to it. Cannondale and Trek among others do still make bikes in the USA but they are the higher end bikes.

My unintended and extended hiatus here will soon come to an end. This unintentional break has been brought to you by a series of rather interesting stories that will soon enough be told here. Long story short, never, never do business with a builder who puts falsified sold signs on their properties to try and pump up the market. Yes I should have known better but one always holds out hope that people will just plain be straight shooters even when the evidence suggests otherwise. Now if I could just locate some sane people in the real estate market. As I said more will follow probably next week when I'm back up to speed.