Oh, those pesky derivates and toxic assets. When the real estate bubble burst, derivatives and toxic assets became the problem that wouldn’t go away. These two trouble makers have expanded in numbers and they continue to pose complications that threaten the recovery of the entire global economic system. But what exactly are derivatives and toxic assets and how do we get them under control? Their definitions are easy compared to the second question; how do we get them under control? The answer to this question is at the heart of any successful plan for economic recovery whether we are talking about a recovery in the Grants Pass real estate market, the Southern Oregon real estate market, or the national economy. Continue reading DERIVATIVES, TOXIC ASSETS, AND THE SOUTHERN OREGON REAL ESTATE MARKET, Part I

Fly fishing is nothing more than using an artificial fly for a lure to catch fish. Investment in the Grants Pass real estate market is nothing more than using your money to buy a great bargain. Along the way, both the fisherman and the real estate investor must acquire skill, patience, and perseverance. And with a little luck, a fisherman will find a fly fishing home in Oregon.

One of the first things a fly fisherman looks for is that spot in the river where the fish thrive and feed. For the fisherman, it’s all about finding the right location. The Grants Pass home buyer also looks for the same thing — location, location, location. The fisherman and the home buyer both strive to cast their lines into waters that will bring them a return. For the sportsman, the return is a fish. For the real estate investor, the return is the security of their investment. And so the search for a fly fishing home in Oregon is the perfect combination of sport and habitat. Continue reading Fly Fishing, Zen, and the Grants Pass Real Estate Market

It is my belief that one of the basic fundamental needs of all humans is the need to feel connected, the need to love and be loved, the need to belong. It is the reason we’re nurtured as newborns, the reason we’re elated on our wedding day, and the reason we seek security in the place we call home. As a Socially Conscious Realtor in Grants Pass I understand that need to feel connected. I understand that home owners purchase property in neighborhoods that they connect with in order to form friendships, participate in local schools, and foster a sense of belonging to a community. And so I try to treat every one I encounter in my career as a realtor with a respectful validation of that fundamental need to feel connected.

But sometimes the need to feel connected runs head on into the tough love of separation. Newborns are ultimately weaned from their mothers. Marriages sometimes end in divorce. Families change, grow, and move on to new neighborhoods. And these days, a dramatic number of homeowners have lost their homes to foreclosure. As a socially conscious realtor I recognize the powerful emotions involved in the dramatic events that influence people’s lives. I also recognize the power of tough love and the need to wield it delicately.

Tough love is helping someone to do the right thing even when it’s painful. Tough love in real estate occurs when Continue reading The Socially Conscious Realtor in Grants Pass and the Need to Feel Connected

It is my belief that one of the basic fundamental needs of all humans is the need to feel connected, the need to love and be loved, the need to belong. It is the reason we’re nurtured as newborns, the reason we’re elated on our wedding day, and the reason we seek security in the place we call home. As a Socially Conscious Realtor in Grants Pass I understand that need to feel connected. I understand that home owners purchase property in neighborhoods that they connect with in order to form friendships, participate in local schools, and foster a sense of belonging to a community. And so I try to treat every one I encounter in my career as a realtor with a respectful validation of that fundamental need to feel connected.
But sometimes the need to feel connected runs head on into the tough love of separation. Newborns are ultimately weaned from their mothers. Marriages sometimes end in divorce. Families change, grow, and move on to new neighborhoods. And these days, a dramatic number of homeowners have lost their homes to foreclosure. As a socially conscious realtor I recognize the powerful emotions involved in the dramatic events that influence people’s lives. I also recognize the power of tough love and the need to wield it delicately.
Tough love is helping someone to do the right thing even when it’s painful. Tough love in real estate occurs when Continue reading The Socially Conscious Realtor in Grants Pass and the Need to Feel Connected

I’m a socially conscious real estate consultant and every day I hear hardships brought upon us by the present economic situation. A close friend recently shared a valuable story about, of all things, a house, and I thought I’d share the story with you. Following are the words of Cliff Custer from Grants Pass, Oregon:

The diagnosis has been delivered; Our nation is in critical condition, economically and militarily on life support. But our new physician-in –chief, Barack Obama, has assured us that there is great hope. We will survive, he affirms, when we assume personal and local responsibility for our recovery. (There is nothing like a near-death experience to reveal what is important in life.) Obama describes us as “neighborhood people.” This infers a radical new emphasis for the successful governance of our nation. The healing begins in our house, not the White House or Wall Street banking houses. This means the buck starts here, that we must stop pointing the finger at Washington and start offering a helping hand to our neighbors.

A recent Christmas miracle in our local Grants Pass, Oregon, community demonstrates how this home town good neighbor policy works and how it can help to heal this land we love. I know it is rather late to be sharing a Christmas story but this one is so timely it deserves a tardy telling.

This story doesn’t begin with reindeer on the roof but with rain pouring through a very leaky roof. The owner of the roof and the house it couldn’t protect is Cameron Renfro. When a group of his friends discovered his situation and that he was surviving on a six hundred dollar a month income we decided to try to help.

We contacted the Daily Courier, our local newspaper here in Grants Pass, and asked for their assistance. The Daily Courier ran a front page article about the project, describing the historic nature of the house, and according to the Historic Registry, the house is the second oldest standing residence in Grants Pass, Oregon. The Courier story included a picture of Cameron in front of his home with instructions on how to donate to the Cameron Roof Fund. In fitting fashion for this Yule Tide tale, there proved to be a whole host of “angels” who responded to the article. One in particular deserves honorable mention. An elderly widow from Grants Pass sent a touching letter. She said she was in poor health and had very little money. The envelope contained a one dollar bill and the promise to pray that enough money would be raised to repair his roof.

When all the donations were counted the fund had a little over two thousand dollars but the needed amount we discovered was over seven thousand. Now comes the miracle.

Just when it seemed Continue reading Grants Pass, Oregon, Man’s Plight Shows Yes We Can… and Did

There’s nothing like a recession to make you count your money, or what’s left of it. And if you’ve got your eye on retirement, well… you’ll be counting every dollar. For those who’ve had a dream of retiring in Southern Oregon and owning real estate in Grants Pass, Medford or Ashland, that dwindling amount of cash must be spent wisely. The good news is that it now appears to be a time for action if you want to buy a reasonably priced home in Southern Oregon.

In 2004, Time magazine declared Grants Pass in Southern Oregon to be one of the top ten towns in the United States to retire. Some of the reasons behind the attraction of the Grants Pass real estate market cited in the Newsweek article were affordability, recreation, the clean environment of Southern Oregon, and low taxes. With 70 million-plus Baby Boomers perched to retire, Grants Pass and surrounding communities became a retirement destination and the Southern Oregon land rush surged to new heights. With tens of thousands of new home buyers in Grants Pass, Medford, Rogue River and Ashland, real estate prices rose to record highs as Boomers grabbed for their retirement dream homes before it was too late. The prevailing attitude was to buy property before the prices rose even higher — and then the bubble burst and the party ended with a resounding thud. But not for everyone.

Reviewing the bottom line, the reasons for choosing a retirement home in Southern Oregon communities like Grants Pass, Medford, Rogue River or Ashland hasn’t changed. All the positive factors remain. It is still a great place to live with a clean environment, lots of recreation and low taxes. And now with interest rates dropping and an expanded inventory of homes due to short sales and foreclosures, the attractiveness of Rogue Valley real estate Continue reading Grants Pass and Southern Oregon Real Estate Owners and Retirees Rethink Their Options

It may only be an analogy, but look at it this way; the global financial blackboard has been erased. It was erased in 1929 when the stock market crashed and plunged global marketplaces into a worldwide depression. The Great Depression was long and deep and the legacy of Herbert Hoover’s presidency became one of “too little, too late.”

Then came 1932 with FDR, the New Deal, and the financial blackboard began to chalk up again with a plan for recovery that grew in complexity and power for decades… until now. Beginning in 2005 when the Real Estate bubble began to leak before it burst, the financial landscape began its slow, ugly metamorphosis into an unmanageable beast. As 2008 draws to its conclusion, to our dismay we find ourselves staring at a financial blackboard that has once again been erased. I for one am glad since circumstances are forcing change on us that most didn’t even know we needed. Now we see the task at hand means the creation of a new financial system for the way things operate at the global level, for the way money is exchanged and regulated, for the way we barter amongst ourselves and with our global partners, for the way banks lend money and to whom, and for the way builders build. Continue reading Grants Pass Real Estate Rewrites the Blackboard

As a socially conscious real estate consultant from Grants Pass, Oregon, when I look at the choices of homes out there I sense that two different markets will emerge out of the ongoing economic upheaval. One of these markets will be a rebound or stabilization of prices for existing homes everywhere, including Grants Pass real estate. This will lead to modest or flat appreciation in the local Southern Oregon real estate market and elsewhere in the country. The other trend will be the market for new homes in Oregon and throughout the country. Ultimately, this trend will become the hot new market that will drive a resurgent new economy. This market for new Green homes and hybrid green homes has huge potential since it has revealed many of the unspoken culprits of the economic melt down, including our vulnerability to the shock of rising energy prices as well as our dependency on imported commodities.

As we have recently experienced in Grants Pass and throughout the country, , the rising cost of fuel and it’s effect on commodity prices along with land shortages and cheap financing created a perfect economic storm. As the price of real estate falls and affordability improves on every level here in the Oregon real estate market and everywhere else, most buyers are beginning to think hard about homes in the same way that they looked at owning an SUV. Is it practical? Continue reading Socially Conscious Real Estate Consultant Offers Advice for Grants Pass Real Estate Buyers

There is an emerging realization that the economy as a whole may recover in a way most folks would never have imagined. There may, in fact, be two economies that develop throughout America in the next few years. The Southern Oregon real estate and Grants Pass real estate markets are a case in point. As in all parts of the country, homes in Grants Pass are not selling like they once were. The same is true for all of Southern Oregon, including the Medford real estate market which is the neighboring community. These two towns represent Southern Oregon and are a microcosm of what is happening in Oregon real estate and America. Grants Pass and Medford foreclosures have risen as homes sold from 2004 through 2006 are going back to the banks in record numbers. These homes are being sold for about 2/3 of their sales price 3 years ago. Builders and developers in Grants Pass and Medford cannot compete with foreclosed homes so they have quit building until the market improves, and to add fuel to the fire, media pundits are analyzing the economy and telling buyers and sellers alike that Southern Oregon real estate is not going to get better soon. Yet, these are the same experts that said there would be no end in sight to the appreciation of real estate values here in the Southern Oregon and Grants Pass real estate market or throughout the country. The reasons behind the rapid rise in appreciation at the time were the booming California market and a desire for Californians to cash out and take advantage of more affordable Southern Oregon real estate prices, not to mention the additional benefits of the Oregon lifestyle. So Southern Oregon built and built to accommodate the endless waves of anxious immigrants from California to Grants Pass and Medford — and then the music stopped! Grants Pass new homes and Medford new homes stopped selling. It was then that we realized that the experts were wrong and they only predicted what they thought would materialize based on what had already happened. These same folks told us that oil would be $200 per barrel by the start of 2009 and that gold would be $2000 per ounce by now. I also heard predictions that the DOW would rise to 20,000 by the end of 2008. All of this forecasting was based on what was going on at the time without taking other local factors into account that would effect the Southern Oregon and Grants Pass real estate markets. Hardly anyone saw the crash coming. So now the experts see what has happened and they are telling us to expect more of the same. But once again they don’t take into account the variables that actually have the greatest impact on the economy and world trends.

Here in the Grants Pass real estate business I try to identify trends for builders, developers, buyers and sellers. Some of these local trends are serving as indicators of where the future of the Southern Oregon real estate market is headed and probably the greater national picture as well. Here are some of the facts that matter: Continue reading Grants Pass Real Estate Market Points The Way Out Of The Crisis