The Oregonian reported today that local home prices fell again, 7.6% in August compared to a year ago, a figure which includes the Orenco Station-West Union-Bethany area.  Not great news, if you're thinking about selling your home.

My retirement account lost more than that in the last few weeks, and that fact made me pause to think about the situation.  Yeah, home prices are dropping, and I think they'll be down a little more for a lot of reasons.

One of the things I did not like about the housing boom was the way it transmogrified a home purchase into a security acquisition: Buy some Vanguard shares and watch 'em rise, or buy a house, flip it in a couple of months, and call yourself a real estate genius.

The unreal market created the unrealistic expectation that house prices would always rise.

One of my father's adages was, "buy a piece of real estate, take care of it, and someday it'll take care of you." That sentment notwithstanding, people in my lifetime always bought a home for a place to live.  When my wife and I bought our first house (and several thereafter), we didn't have much thought of cashing in on future appreciation. We wanted a place that was ours alone, for our family in a neighborhood we thought of as ours.  A MySpace of the 20th Century, if you will.

There's no telling where this market will go, but real estate market usually take years to recover. The Orenco Station-Sunset Corridor-Westside real estate market will begin anew, not with a loud crow, but with a tiny peep.  Then there will be two peeps, then three, and so on until suddenly, people will turn around and think, "When did all this noise start?" 

And it will begin because people start looking for a home as a places to live, not as a share of stock.