Case-Shiller on house prices: The extended dance remix

Portland OR -- there are no jobs, and cost of living is high. But folks keep moving here, and retiring here ... and driving the housing cost up.

I guess they visit and decide to stay -- I've been told we are like a mini-Boston without the excessive snow.

Perhaps if Time quit putting us up as a top city to live in, our housing would stop being so expensive. Think San Fransico & Seattle prices, but mid-west pay levels.

As our old governer use to say, please visit but don't stay.

Yes people keep moving here but the real reason home prices keep rising regardless of what else goes on in the market is the urban growth boundary. It also keeps the farmland surrounding the city affordable. Every state should have them

Justin, do you have the ability to generate a plot that shows the actual prices relative to inflation? I think that may be more telling, and make the bust of circa 1991 look more dramatic.

I have the ability (and the technology), skyroach. And I actually thought of that as I assembled the chart but just didn't have the energy. That'll be tomorrow's project, I guess.

Financial institutions have not been following best practices when it comes to lending out money. The NewsVisual story on Wells Fargo http://www.newsvisual.com/newsvisual/2007/11/can-experience.html makes clear that larger financial institutions can make prudent lending decisions, at least according to that bank's CFO. They need to avoid seeking too much market-share, though.

RE: Portland

Feh. Old people's joints can't take the cold, damp climate here. Once hard recession hits and the novelty wears off Portland will come back to earth.

Don't believe the hype.

I pray for rain - ice cold, drip,drip,drip - type rain (it's what we get here) every day. And no, I'm not a renter.

We are a derivative of the CA housing market. People sell their homes down there and put down large down payments up here. Now that CA is in a deep freeze Portland lost its population growth variable.

One fifth of boom-time loans were I.O in Oregon...we are no different than anywhere else.

Clint8200: Actually, the share of interest only loans in Portland itself was more like 30% in recent years.

The Urban Growth Boundary in Portland may have some effect on prices, but it's generally been overstated. There's still plenty of land available inside the UGB - it's not like we've reached saturation all the way out to the 'burbs. Also, you have to consider that places like Seattle, SanFrancisco and SanDiego have natural growth boundaries: water for the first two and desert&fire prone hills for SanDiego.

And as has been pointed out: the jobs picture here is not that great.