I have a new measure for judging the Bend housing market. Listen to Brooks Resources. They obviously have an institutional memory of past booms and busts, which the rest of the developers are lacking. Except, I would probably take their stated 'public' timeline, and double it (as internally, they probably do.)

It's not in their best interest to predict armegeddon, but they are the only local resident developers willing to admit there is much of a problem at all -- and its telling that they are also the oldest and most experienced.

The declines mentioned in the Bulletin are for the last year, of course, but the graphs clearly show the huge declines from the year before that, too.

The median prices are a mystery to me, but unsold houses aren't profitable to anyone, no matter what the price. I suppose prices are sticky and lagging, and will yet come down. Or the inherent building prices of material, labor and land conspire to keep prices up despite a lack of demand.

Condo's are selling? Well, I'd love to know what percentage of the condos built or being built are selling instead of the raw numbers. Still, these are second home buyers, I'm guessing, and people either not here until after retirement or only here for vacations. Not a healthy market for Bend. I think they haven't gotten the word yet that Bend is about to lose its superpowers and become a shlub.