What?? Is the Portland housing market finally cooling off?

Don’t hold  your breath. It isn’t happening.

At least, not unless we have a regional or national economic catastrophe.  Portland is rapidly becoming as unaffordable as San Francisco for young, two earner  families and for everyone else as well.

Below there’s a  link to an article last week in the Portland Tribune.  Or, for a more interesting experience, check out the article on my web site:   www.johndescamp.com and click on the tab at the top titled: BLOG

In any event, see the article for the details.  There are lots of them,  and they’re all depressing.  In particular, have a look at the graph on page 2. The trend of home prices in Portland has been almost steadily upwards for  26 years–since 1992. Even at the bottom of the housing crunch, in 2011, the median home price was higher than in 2004.

The bottom line:

  • Median home prices are higher than they have ever been; higher, even, than at the top of the housing bubble in 2007.
  • In a single year–the 12-month period between July 2015 and July 2016– the median home price in Portland rose by 11.45 %
  • Apartment rental rates are climbing even more rapidly.
  • In the meantime, medium family income has been virtually flat.

The take away?  “Portland, we have an affordability gap”.

And that gap isn’t going away.  As a friend of mine  says, “pigs  will fly before that happens” — (He likes pigs).

If  your clients (millennials or otherwise) are thinking seriously about buying a house “in a year or two” they should budget between 12 and  24% more than today’s prices.  And if they’re going to continue renting, they can expect the percentage increase in their rent to be even higher.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, most investment portfolios aren’t growing  at anywhere near that rate.  The result: future home buyers run the risk of having to allocate an even greater percentage of their available assets and income to housing expense.

Is there a solution? Move to Detroit?  Longview?  Move in with your parents?  Not good options for most people.  Most of the financial advisors and real estate professionals I’ve talked with believe the least risk option is to purchase a home in the near term and lock in current pricing. Or, for those who believe home prices are going to head downward at some point in the near future, wait and buy later.

Just remember, we haven’t seen any flying pigs lately.  And it’s a long drive if you’re commuting from beautiful downtown Longview.

http://portlandtribune.com/pt/9-news/319541-198211-most-millennials-want-to-buy-a-home-but-cant-afford-one

 

Locking Their Hearts Together

Portland is catching up with major European cities in some odd but interesting ways.  That’s just like Portland, isn’t it?

In the last 5 years a lock fetish has swept some of the major cities of Europe.  We’re talking about Paris, Amsterdam, Budapest and Rome.  Farther afield, in Tokyo.  On some of these cities’ most iconic bridges, thousands of visitors have left small padlocks, neatly attached to the metal railings.

I think our bridges are just  trying to keep up with the times.  The locks are sort of a bridge’s version of the metal studs we see in the ears of our baristas every morning.

For the people placing the locks, they’re apparently a metaphor for undying love and affection.  For the maintenance departments in those cities, and for those people with no sense of humor (and this includes all the people in  maintenance departments the world over) the locks are a source of emotions ranging from annoyance to outright anger.

And, no surprise: the French have used the locks as an occasion to vent the self-regarding French philosophy of love and to contrast it unfavorably with that of the US.

Here’s a web site with some great images. You’ll need to cut and paste the entire  thing into your browser.  If Facebook doesn’t let it get through, just go to “locks on bridges in Paris” in your favorite web browser.

https://www.google.com/search?q=locks+on+bridge+in+amsterdam&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=OwgWU7bSI9LloATy-oKQDw&ved=0CCcQsAQ&biw=1121&bih=503#q=locks+on+bridges+in+europe&tbm=isch

 

Of Dental Woes and Gratitude

Someone else has been grinding my teeth……

July, 2016

A few days ago, I found myself sitting in my least favorite chair. You know the one; it’s that 8-way plastic covered recliner that’s upholstered in fake leather.  The leather is the pale brown dirty white color of those lumpy shoes they sell to senior citizens at Wal-Mart.  The chair has a pole for a blinding spotlight. It also features an attached tray for torture implements.  The wet hissing sound that comes from somewhere behind your head on the left side could be something crawling out of the drain. Add your own details  to complete the picture.

Remember that old Dustin Hoffman movie called “Marathon Man”?  The one in which Lawrence Olivier strapped our hero into one of those chairs and tortured him with a dentist’s drill?  Ughhh!  I don’t remember a thing about the plot, but I’ll never forget the horror of hearing the high wine of the drill and watching Dustin Hoffman writhe in pain.

Farther back in my history are dark dental memories, not yet suppressed, of a dentist my parents made us go to because he was a member of our church  The good doctor’s fingers were permanently stained with nicotine and he didn’t believe in Novocain (I think he’d taken a correspondence course from the dental school at the University of Southern North Dakota).

Worse yet, he had an old-fashioned dental drill that was so slow you could feel each burr on the drill bit as it took a little more out of the crater he was drilling in your tooth. This is probably the reason I quit going to church.

To top it off, one of my grandfathers was a dentist. Every visit to my grandparents held hidden within it, like a worm in an apple, the possibility I would be hauled down to “Grandpa Doctor”s office. You could say I have issues……

Fast forward to my recent trip to the tooth guy.  I had a cracked filling and it had to be replaced.  Drilling was required, of course; it’s always required once you walk through the door of your dentist’s office.  This fact is called DesCamp’s Law of the Worst Case Outcome.  This law also applies on any occasion I get stopped by a traffic gendarme.  The chance that I’ll get off with a warning, instead of a ticket, is statistically zero.

The dental assistant covered me with the Shroud of Those Who Are About to Suffer and then fluffed around with long shiny sharp looking things.  When she was finished preparing me for the sacrifice, there was the prick of the needle, the numbness that never comes quite quickly enough, and then a shrill scream.  It took a second for me to realize the noise was coming from the drill and not from me.

As I lay there, cursing the entire dental industry, I realized there was an alternate reality; one in which I couldn’t be sitting in that chair.  At that thought, things began to look different.

There I was, getting my ancient teeth re-treaded for another 100,000 bites.  The service was good, the dentist was chatty and informative, the place was clean and, with my health plan, it was almost free. I get annual maintenance and emergency treatment if I need it.  And I’m in good hands with a professional who knows what he’s doing and, while he’s digging around in my mouth, likes to tell me about his newest whiz-bang  technology dental equipment.

Maybe it’s just me, but I think most of us tend to notice the pain and inconvenience of things instead of seeing the benefit we get for our investment of time and discomfort.  Dental procedures are high on that list.

I’m not saying go hug your dentist.  It’s always good to keep them at a safe distance.  But I am grateful that my guy and his dental minions are there to take care of me.

I’m not ready to start gumming an oatmeal diet just yet.