Bend, the Bubble-and-Bust Capital of America, is about to get some really big-time recognition: The Eye has it on excellent authority that the New York Times is working on a story about our current economic calamity.
Stories about the meteoric rise and spectacular crash-and-burn of Bend have become a staple of publications all over the country, of course – most recently in Business Week. But having it printed in the pages of America’s Newspaper of Record would kind of make it official.
It’s sobering to remember that less than three and a half years ago the Times ran a nice fluffy piece extolling the delights of Bend living. “When you own a home in the sixth-fastest-growing region in the country, you worry about letting the cat out at night because of the coyotes howling in the forest,” it began. “You scribe fresh powder turns down 9,000-foot-high bowls and muscle bicycles through high-desert hills.”
It went on to tell the story of a developer named Albert Angelo Jr., who “bought in Bend for its 300 annual days of sunshine” – the Times should be embarrassed to have swallowed that shameless old lie – “and the 4.3 million acres of public land just beyond his floor-to-ceiling windows. He plans to divide his time between his houses in Vancouver, Wash., and Palm Desert, Calif., and his new $3 million, 5,100-square-foot single-story house in Pronghorn, a resort on the outskirts of town.
“‘When I look out my Pronghorn house facing north, I see a covered patio with a 10-foot-diameter barbecue pit, a pop-up plasma TV and a view of the golf course — but of a putting green, so my house won’t get hit by golf balls,’ Mr. Angelo, 59, said. ‘You have a good lifestyle down there.'”
We wonder how Mr. Angelo feels about his lifestyle – and his $3 million real estate investment – now. He apparently still lives in Pronghorn (he’s in the phone book) but he hasn’t returned our call yet. Maybe he’s down in Palm Desert – we would be too if we could.
The 2005 Times story also mentioned that development was underway in the Old Mill District “for 37 luxury townhouses of 1,800 to 2,200 square feet, for $700,000 to $1.6 million,” and that “about 300 people are on a waiting list to purchase another dozen town houses at the Bluffs at the Old Mill.” We have a hunch that waiting list is a lot shorter now.
It’s pretty ironic that post-bubble Bend has garnered more negative publicity as the national icon of wretched speculative excess than it ever was able to generate on the positive side with all its marketing and promotion efforts.
But we’re sure the local boosters and boomers will find some way to put a positive spin on this. Hey, it’ll let people all over the country know that this is the best buyer’s market in 20 years!
This article appears in May 14-20, 2009.
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Many will argue, “Bend was over hyped”
Personally, I think we got greedy and stupid. We forgot, the real purpose of a house is a place to live not something to speculate with. What can we do now? If you are lucky enough to have a job or income, count your pleasings, buy local and hire out to do those projects that need doing. If you are unemployed, volunteer with the many nonprofits that are in dire need. There will always be some of us that are lucky enough to call Bend Home.
Totally sucks. Gosh!!!
Not to be a total jerk, but no one saw this coming?
Wow. I missed the huge piece of grossness in the NYTimes back when. A couple of months previously, I actually walked through one of them “luxury townhouses” and it absolutely confirmed what I’d been suspecting for awhile: The boom was a zombie, and lotsa folks were gonna lose their sunshine shorts.
Wes44: Many did see it coming and said so, and many others saw it coming and didn’t say so. This is a go-along-to-get-along kind of town, and anybody who had dared to challenge the Doctrine of Bend Exceptionalism back in 2005 or even 2006 would have been ostracized by the “business community.” It was like a vast tacit conspiracy of denial.
I believe Oran Teater when he says “we knew it [the bubble] could not sustain.” (See earlier Eye post.) He’s not an idiot, and anybody with an IQ above single digits could have seen that a speculative bubble was in progress. But he didn’t dare say so and neither did anybody else in a position of influence, so we went on living in a fool’s paradise until it all blew up in our faces.
Olde-Tymer: So it was your basic $500,000 slammer, eh?
And I bet Mr. Angelo of Pronghorn never “scribe[d] fresh powder turns down 9,000-foot-high bowls and muscle[d] bicycles through high-desert hills” either. Probably just golfed and watched his pop-up plasma TV when he was here.
That’s one of the problems with selling Bend on its “fabulous outdoor lifestyle”: Very few hard-core ski bums, mountain bike bums, rock-climbing bums, trout bums and other similar bums have the money to buy million-dollar, or even half-million-dollar, houses. Bend and Central Oregon home prices were driven to astronomical levels by pure speculation, not (as the official spiel had it) by the supposedly unique desirability of the place.
We ALL are aware that the “bubble has burst”. What are we as Bend citizens going to do about it? How about lowering the prices on the MANY, MANY over priced homes so the “local folks” can afford them. These aren’t 2nd or 3rd homes for us. This is where we live year round and raise our families.
It really doesn’t matter if anyone saw this coming, what would those people do to prevent what has happened. NOTHING! What is important is that the economy will come back and when it does so will Bend. Lesson here; Bend is still a “one trick pony”. Real question is how long must we wait. Small towns like Bend always boom to bust at lightning speeds.
Well SJB, it is very simple, if we really want to sell more houses, let’s reduce the price or increase local income. I agree with Jazzman, the economy will come back. Having lived in many wonderful places, “Bend is still “one trick pony”.
“Bend is still a “one trick pony”.
Yep. So isn’t it time to learn a new trick or two?
“Small towns like Bend always boom to bust at lightning speeds.”
Do we have to just passively accept this, or can we do something about it? Do we have to forever swing between frantic growth and total collapse, or can we develop a more stable and sustainable economic model? I think we can, if we have the will to do it. The current bust gives us an opportunity to re-examine how we approach growth — but I’m betting we won’t take that opportunity, since realtors, builders and developers virtually own the city government.
HBM asks: “So it was your basic $500,000 slammer, eh?”
You got it.
To be fair, the steel-framed brick townhomes were/are gorgeous, solidly constructed, etc., but they were asking a million bucks for a boring location and a style that’s highly attractive in densely populated areas but isn’t especially marketable for the long term in Portland (if you think our dreamsellers have it bad, take a walk in the Pearl), much less Bend.
On reflection, one can admire and appreciate the stuff of Hammacher-Schlemmer (sp?) catalogs, while recognizing that the markup exceeds the core value. Same with the townhomes and/or the “eco” houses next to Newport Market. Nice to gaze at, but even at the height few were buying.
Bend can be an exciting place to live if you are in the 20-30 outdoorsy age range, but for those of us reaching retirement the 6.5 month winters are miserable. We yearn for the boring Southern CA year round weather again. Bend had a deteriorationg infrastructure with only property owners to be hit (too hard and often) to pay for all the tax levies. Now, to sell the house that’s lost it’s appreciated value from the boom… kind of like losing your tail in the stock market.
Bend has been through five busts and four booms since I came home from the Army in 1974. I’m not sure the bust in ’74 applies, as the mills and the woods were still up and running and people could find affordable employment around here, and the boom was more of “internal” than nationwide. Starting with the Reagan years, though, and the collapse of The Timber Industry Nobody Bailed Out [thanks B] it’s been the boom to glut ride out a few bad years business model that I’ve watched crash three times previous.
Like the banks, newspapers and insurance companies, it failed because it’s a crappy business model. And IT WILL HAPPEN AGAIN if we don’t learn it this time.
“Bend can be an exciting place to live if you are in the 20-30 outdoorsy age range, but for those of us reaching retirement the 6.5 month winters are miserable.”
You speak truth, Mr. Truth. Only the winters are 7.5 months long, not 6.5 (this weekend’s weather to the contrary notwithstanding).
I would love to know what percentage of Bend residents actually do participate to a significant extent in our glorious “outdoor lifestyle.” How many ski, bike, rock-climb, hike, fish, and/or hunt on a frequent (more than weekly) basis? I suspect an awful lot of them are either too old or out of shape or busy earning a living to do it.