Not so good an end for Portland Metro real estate.  As Ron Ares has pointed out, December was miserable.

Closed sales as of this morning, 802, down nearly 50% from a year ago - it will revise to around 40%. Pending sales @ 826,  down 40%,  foretelling a tough January.  Median price:  $250k, down 17% from peak and 9.6% YoY.

But, since it’s been my primary area of interest, here are some stats that really stick out:

Lake Oswego/West Linn:

Number of homes listed over $1 million: 187
Percent of those homes that are new construction:  ~45%, many 6000 sf homes on 5000 sf lots.

Closed sales, $1 million +, December:  1.
Pending sales, $1 million +:  2

My sense is there’s going to have to be some serious price adjustment…

YIKES!! What time is it?

…

There’s something inherently cleansing about endings and beginnings, even if superficial. Yesterday was certainly Wednesday, today Thursday just like any other week; yesterday it rained, today…it rained; yesterday the malls were open to capture the diminishing remnants of consumer confidence, today the malls are open … you get the idea.

But yesterday was 2008, a year real estate would love to forget and - one would hope - learn from. ‘2009′ just has a nice, new ring to it, and for a few weeks at least we can engage in the planning to mold it into what we want. Unexpected events - did anyone predict $1.59 gas or 5% mortgages six months ago? - will alter that, of course, and encourage us in other directions, the new worn off, but for now: wallow.

Like many I tabled my license several months ago; many more will follow by failing to pay year end PMAR/OAR/NAR dues. The agent purge is emphatically happening, something many thought was good and necessary, but in this case I’m not so sure. Some of the best agents I know had very tough years; some of the sleaziest - yes, they exist - remain. In an industry that needs a nearly complete makeover the status quo has been reinforced: In tough times sellers naturally gravitate to known quantities. In spite of its often nutty projections and predictably sterile (and costly) “This is the Best Time EVER to Buy a Home!” marketing plan the NAR is more entrenched than ever, the UAW of real estate.

But I still love the business and, given the housing market is so strongly tied to everything else going on in the economy, will go back to writing under the RE rubric. It’s difficult to predict where we’re going in 2009 without knowing how we got here in the first place. So:

Spend twenty five minutes. The following is as good an explanation as you’re likely to get:

Trying to convince an infatuated Obama supporter to vote for McCain is like trying to convince a twelve year old she isn’t really in love. So this is for depressed conservatives and the many undecided:

Vote.

Not long ago the headlines were all about four dollar gas. A lot can happen in the next two plus weeks; voters are every bit as volatile this election as the current DOW. Yes, the media are deeply in the tank for Obama, but very few are getting their information solely from The Oregonian or NBC. Fact on Obama’s highly troubling – and legitimately discussed – associations with Jeremiah Wright, William Ayers, Tony Rezko, ACORN and the Chicago Machine is easily internet available. Even talented spinners can’t create achievements where none exist. Obama is incapable of keeping his messianic ego or “spread the wealth” tendencies in check, both decided negatives to normal people.

Vote. This election is far, far from over.

Obama can’t help himself. I’m sure his handlers have advised him to keep his socialism under wraps until after the election - people won’t vote socialist even if it’s smooth talking socialist - but I’m sure he thinks his brand of socialism, wherein he gets to decide whose wealth is distributed to whom, is palatable. It’s not, it’s still socialism.

As for me, I’m voting for Joe the Plumber:

UPDATE: And, as noted, Obama can’t keep his suffering condescension in check:

And passed it was:  $850 billion of nebulous pork, paid for, of course, by the taxpayer.  Last night McCain proposed $300 billion to bail out mortgage holders; whether that’s in addition or not is unclear, but it’s still a monstrous wealth transfer.

As I type the DOW is at 9275, down 1100 points and 10.5% from the point the bailout was supposed to stop.  The spin is investors are - are you ready for this? - afraid we didn’t do enough; the truth is investors are by definition capitalists, and are bailing themselves in the face of the government’s financial grab.

Remember this axiom:  When a self-appointed expert defines for you, in Chicken Little terms, a crisis; then proposes the ability to solve that crisis if you’ll just open your wallet…

…RUN.  Fast.

I still think we’ll need to get to ~ $250k to see an uptick in sales.

As always: click on the graph for a two page PDF.

So, for now, I’m sending my license back to Salem.  I’ve turned my clients over to my brother John - he’s just closed one, another is in escrow - and will come back only when I can do it right.  In the meantime, though I can’t by law actively practice real estate, I can certainly write about it.  And will.  I love the business.

Incidentally, even though the hysterical will tell you there’s no money to loan, that housing is collapsing, people are still buying homes.  Besides the two I mentioned, John has three others in escrow, two representing sellers, one buyer.  Portland Metro sales are still down 20% from a year ago - I’ll post the numbers soon - but there were still nearly 1600 homes closed in September. 

In spite of the congressional hand wringing, the money is there and available to anyone with good credit and a healthy down payment…

But…damn.  There are the every day inconsequentials wherein, for instance, a friend - gay and pathologically liberal - tells me with a straight face and passionate conviction that he’s sure Sarah Palin wore her hair down in the debate - She never has it down!  Never! - in order to hide an earpiece.  Apparently that’s the answer as to why she so thoroughly scrubbed the Biden clock.

Much more importantly:  $83 billion for AIG.  $200 billion for Fannie and Freddie.  $25 billion for the auto industry.  Now, $850 billion in bank bailouts and assorted pork to - what?  Save the capitalist economy with socialist fixes?  Are people vacuous enough to believe the taxpayer may make money by selling the crap securities we’re now obliged to buy when we go to resell them?  Does it occur to anyone that if there was money to be made investors would already be buying them?

And the alleged pros and experts - those who, not incidentally, stand to gain most from this deal - are telling us variations of what NAR’s Richard Gaylord said in an email this morning:  “We know it’s not perfect, but…”  What the hell?  If it’s not perfect, don’t do it! 

And what, exactly, did the markets this was supposed to temper think of the deal?  After having been up nearly three hundred points for most of the day, after the signing the investors sold.  Down over 150.

This isn’t a fix for anyone but those who got us into this mess:  Barney Frank.  Chris Dodd.  Franklin Raines.  And we’re footing the bill.

Is that all?  Of course not.  Precedent set, we already have Arnold, hat in hand, asking for a measly $7 billion.  How many to follow?

Absolutely insane.

UPDATE, Monday morning:  The US markets have been open an hour.  Asia and Europe have tanked overnight.  Dow has now broken through the 10,000 barrier for the first time in four years, down well over 400 points.  I suspect we need another government fix!

When members of congress wonder why 90% of the American public holds them in contempt: see above.

“None.”

Which, when you think about it, is the resulting logical slope of the warm and fuzzy Community Reinvestment Act.

===

Born under Jimmy Carter in 1977, [Wikipedia here]< the intent was to end the practice of redlining, in which banks allegedly were not lending in certain neighborhoods. It was revised in 1995 under Bill Clinton, with provisions added that would force banks to meet certain goals of low-income lending. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were required to meet goals of their own in buying the high risk paper – less of a risk to the executives of those companies since their bonus was predicated on the profit that high risk brings - while the burden of any loss would be borne by the: taxpayer.

In 2004/2005 Republicans in the Congress saw red flags, and tried to apply stricter oversight to both Fannie and Freddie. Democrats objected, and nothing was ever done.

So when you hear Barney Frank and Chris Dodd; Barack Obama and Joe Biden; Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid whine that it’s all the Republican’s fault, remember this video:

UPDATE: If there are still doubts: Wall Street Journal follow up.

I laughed because it’s so patently silly - at the very least Palin’s a better shot - but said “Hah!  I love that woman!  You may be looking at the first woman president of the United States!”

And the mood palpably changed.

It’s tough to adequately describe visceral hatred, but it was there in the eyes, in the Satanic squint, in the pursed lips, in the reply: “If that awful woman were ever president…” this was spit more than said “…I’d move to another country.  I mean it.  Move to another country.  I can’t stand her.”  When I laughed again he stomped away.  I never had the chance to offer my services as a realtor.

I honestly don’t get it.  Granted, the left’s default mode is anger - it was nearly this bad with Reagan and we’ve had eight years of Bush derangement - but this level of vacant rage is beyond anything I’ve experienced.  I had no use for Bill Clinton and think Obama would make perhaps an even worse president than Jimmy Carter, but…hate?  No.  Nor would I even consider leaving the country if Obama were elected; I’d stay and fight the policies.  That’s the nature of a democracy.

Perhaps my friend feels presidential entitlement slipping away; didn’t the left, after all, really win in 2000?  And aren’t the elite on the left de facto meant to rule the rubes?  How is it a rube is in the position to lead the left?  When the answer turns out to be “other rubes”, maybe I’d be mad, too.  Damned democracy.  So unfair.

Or: Perhaps the fact that she carried baby Trig to term.  That’s not the correct choice according to the Bosses of Choice, and the picture of Trig in her arms makes the bosses seem a bit, well, callous.  Not nice.

She also hunts and fishes.  Ever listened to a PETAfile?  Yep.  Plenty angry.

Unfortunately, it’s going to get worse, especially with the legacy media fully participating in the antipathy.  A hacker breaks into Palin’s private email, posts on the web - and calls - her daughter’s cell phone number, and all the AP can say is “The disclosure Wednesday raises new questions about the propriety of the Palin administration’s use of nongovernment e-mail accounts to conduct state business.”, then refuses cooperation with the Secret Service in the investigation.

So what are McCain and Palin going to do?  Smile.  Wave.

And win.