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Originally Posted by Rodney
On the other hand, we know a couple nearing retirement age who need to sell their very desirable house to fund their retirement years, pay for medical care, and so forth. They're selling their house right now and moving directly to Portland. Even though Portland is overvalued, it isn't anywhere near as overvalued as our area. And they'll trade down from their large house to a nice condo in a good neighborhood. So they should still clear a good chunk of change on the deal after all the properties have been sold and bought.
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That's exactly what's driving up the prices in Portland -- that and pure speculation from California. People are buying and selling 6 months later, all over western Oregon and Washington.
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the easy money from the dotcom boom ran up prices in the late '90s. And just as prices started to fall, the low interest rates arrived, fueling speculation again. And a lot of Silicon Valley types switched their investments from stock to real estate.
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That makes a lot of sense . . . and it implies that as the interest rates inevitably start to rise, the prices will fall there and everywhere else that is dependent on those California prices and speculation. Some markets will stay stable for sure, but southern California I think is at the top of the heap, and I think they will be the first to feel the bubble.
We're actually thinking seriously about moving to Croatia (from Miami) right now -- we have family in Zadar and Berlin, and could set ourselves up very nicely near the Adriatic; possibly also keep an apartment in the states, probably Portland, so that we can come back if necessary. But Croatia is at the beginning of a boom right now, very safe, and beautiful, and cheap, because still not part of the EU.