SALE! SALE! SALE!

Has anybody else seen the commercials running on TV right now, advertising the HUGE LIQUIDATION SALE for the bankrupt companies, Legend Homes and Pacific Lifestyle Homes?

If you missed them, here's the website: www.NewHomeSale.org

The house shown above is listing at $468,800, down 17.5% from the original listing price of $586,900. That's a significant discount, but not that much greater than the market drop we've already seen. (click on photo to go to listing)

Clint reported on the bankruptcy a few days ago, and the Portland Business Journal featured an article on it as well stating:

Pacific Lifestyle Homes and Legend Homes, two of four local home builders to file for reorganization under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code in 2008, have formed a joint marketing venture to sell more than 100 completed homes in the Willamette Valley by the end of March.

At first read I didn't understand why they would be forming a joint venture, but it is really just a joint marketing campaign.

Honestly I'd expect something a little more creative. Like reducing the price on each home by $1k until they sell. Use the power of scarcity to drive buyers to buy now, before they're gone. Wait too long? Sorry, they've all sold.

Honestly I bet they'll get cheaper if you're willing to wait.

Only 7 show as sold to date, out of 110. Seems like they have a ways to go if they want to sell them all by the end of March.

Lender Implode-O-Meter

I just stumbled across the Mortgage Lender Implode-o-Meter which tracks the implosion of mortgage lenders, much like F@cked Company tracked the implosion of the dot-bombs.

I have poked through the site a bit and it's a throwback to the stories i witnessed (first hand unfortunately) from the early part of the decade.

Another Builder Goes Belly Up

According to a story today in the Oregonian, the soft real estate market has claimed another victim, local builder Tony Marnella.

"Clackamas County homebuilder Tony Marnella and three of his companies filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy earlier this month.

Landing Development LLC, 550 Investments LLC, Tony Marnella Inc. and Marnella collectively owe about $24 million, the bulk of it to two lenders -- Sterling Savings Bank and MW Housing Partners III LP, an affiliate of timber giant Weyerhaeuser."

""One of my biggest frustrations right now is the amount of FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt) being generated by the media about the state of the current real estate market and the local economy," Marnella said in a March 20 post.

"In my opinion, there is a lot of misinformation and a failure to acknowledge the positives about our local real estate market.""

Right, it's all the media's fault. It has nothing to do with people actually needing a real down payment, and being required to take out loans where you actually pay back some principle, not just some of the interest. And it also has nothing to do with an overpricced market that probably made him a lot of money over the past few years.

"It's true that the Portland area remains vigorous relative to the weakness in much of the rest of the country. But the market in the area has slowed, as Marnella's own numbers show.

Marnella's various companies brought in $4.3 million in revenue in 2006 and $1.1 million in 2007, according to the bankruptcy filing. So far in 2008, the companies have generated revenue of $10,000."

Maybe you should have done something when your revenue dropped by 75% last year, and tricked to basically zero this year. But nope, you're committed to building more homes that people don't need and can't afford. Smart.