Bend Economy Bulletin Board

There is an interesting trend that continues to be a hallmark of the shadow inventory. It has barely moved since January of 2009. While overall visible MLS housing inventory peaked in 2007 it has been continuously falling since that time. Yet the shadow inventory remains inflated in spite of 3,000,000+ distressed properties being sold since January of 2009. Now why is that? This is something that we will get into later in the article. A handful of states, six to be exact, make up half of the current shadow inventory. Since current sales are dominated by lower priced homes you are seeing most of the housing action occurring in the distressed side of the inventory equation. However as the housing market flails forward, there is a backroom acknowledgment that until the shadow inventory clears out, there will be no healthy housing market.

...Shadow inventory will continue to be a big drag on the market deep into 2012. And what were the six big states for shadow inventory?

-California

-Florida

-Illinois

-New York

-Texas

-New Jersey

This shouldn’t come as a big surprise. Don’t be fooled by what is being displayed on the surface. Things are still fragile for our economy and 2012 is likely to prove a circus of a year in politics. In other words the soil is fertile for pandering, boneheaded economic policies, and promising the world nicely gift wrapped.

If California as one of the 6 states included below, continues to be a feeder market for Bend then the article paints a gloomy picture for a recovery in RE here.

jlemay wrote:

No doubt, this will have an impact here. Something like 95% of all sales in Bend from out of state are from CA.

Guest wrote:

jlemay wrote:

No doubt, this will have an impact here. Something like 95% of all sales in Bend from out of state are from CA.

Any idea what percentage of sales in Bend are from out of state?