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THE BULLETIN • THURSDAY, AUGUST 16,2012
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IN BRIEF Retailers to offer mobile payments Cash, credit or debit? You may one day have far more choices to make at the checkout counter. Agroup of big retailers, including 7-Eieven, Best Buy, CVS and WaiMart, said on Wednesday that they were forming a company that would offer a way for customers to pay for purchases with their smartphones, joining a wide array of groups and companies seeking a piece of this market. Other than announcing the formation of the payments network, to be called Merchant Customer Exchange, the companies released few details about how their mobile payments would work, and did not say when the technology would become available. They said that their payment application should be available for virtually any smartphone, and that it will use a secure technology to process transactions.
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Vacancy rate starting to shrink for Bend's industrial real estate • Several large deals have closed this year, but there's still an 'ample supply,' expert says By Elon Glucklich The Bulletin
The list of Bend industrial buildings for sale or lease is slowly shrinking, after several high-profile deals this year pushed the vacancy rate down. But more than 500,000 square feet of industrial space remains unfilled. And Bend's oversupply of office space is largely unchanged from the depths of the recession. Canadian telecommunications company Navigata bought the old Suterra building on Southwest Columbia Street in June- the same month that Breedlove Guitars moved into a building on American Loop, and bulletmaker Nosler purchased the former Mt. Bachelor bus barn.
Those transactions alone absorbed more than 75,000 square feet of industrial space, combined. Sales on buildings of more than 10,000 square feet have been rare amid the down market, said Bruce Kemp, principal broker with Compass Commercial Heal Estate Services. But the recent activity comes as businesses bet deflated real estate prices won't go down any further, Kemp said. Navigata paid $1.8 million for the Suterra building. In 2010, the building was valued at $2.5 million, Deschutes County property records show. "We've had really great progress in the industrial
market" in 2012, Kemp said. "Rates remain low, but I don't think we'll see anymore downward movement:'
Downward trend Compass performs quarterly surveys of Bend's commercial real estate, compiling vacancy rates for industrial, retail and office space in different parts of town. The company's survey for the second quarter of 2012 found 12.8 percent of the city's industrial space vacant. That's down from 14.5 percent in the first quarter, and 16.6 percent this time last year. The vacant Cessna airplane factory on Nelson Road at Bend Municipal Airport accounts for roughly 25 percent of Bend's open industrial space, said Brian Fratzke, principal broker at Fratzke Commercial Real Estate. See Real estate IE4
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Vacancy rates More than 68,000 square feet of industrial space was leased in Bend during the second quarter of 2012, lowering the city's industrialvacancy rate to 12.8 percent. But retail space has gone largely unchanged in the last year, and office vacancy has increased. 21.9%
Office
21.1% 20
r~ndustrial 17.6 Yo 15
---
~
- -Retail 8.8%
8.5% 5 03 2011
04 201 1
01 2012
02 2012
Source: Compass Commercial Real Estate Services
Andy Zeigert I The Bulletin
CENTRAL OREGON TOURISM
Carlyle to buy big stake in Getty The Carlyle Group, one of the biggest private equity firms in the world, plans to buy a controlling stake in the photo and video distributor Getty Images in a $3.3 billion deal that gives the Getty family and management a larger share of the company. Carlyle Group said Wednesday that it will partner with co-founders Mark Getty and Jonathan Klein and the Getty family in buying the company from another private equity firm, Hellman & Friedman. Getty Images Inc., which is based in Seattle, creates and distributes still images, video and multimedia products for customers to use in brochures, websites and other outlets.
Economy shows signs of resilience The U.S. economy looked more resilient Wednesday after reports showed factories produced more goods in July and homebuilders grew more confident in the housing recovery. At the same time, consumer prices stayedflat last month. Low inflation could boost consumer spending and lift growth in the second half of the year. Economists approachedthe mostly positive data with some caution. The economy remains weak after a sluggish spring. And a severedrought in the Midwest could send food prices surging later this year and crimp consumer spending. - From wire reports
CPI Consumer price index, percent change, by month, seasonally adjusted:
:lfil 0 1.6%
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Joe Kline I T he Bulletin file photo
Spectators and participants, such as these swimmers emerging from Wickiup Reservoir on June 23 at the Pacific Crest Weekend Sports Festival in Sunriver, have helped boost tourism this summer.
A sizzling summer • Visitors are pouring in for a variety of reasons -from events to beer buzz to weather By Rachael Rees The Bulletin
Sunny skies and a slew of events ranging from the Sisters Rodeo to the Pacific Crest Weekend Sports Festival in Sunriver may make this summer tourism season one of Central Oregon's brightest since the recession. "There was a lot of pent-up travel interest that came together in the summer," said Alana Hughson, president and CEO of the Central Oregon Visitors Association. "I wish we could pinpoint the increase to one specific thing, but it comes from a variety of different " factors."
Since March, she said, the region's growth in lodging taxes has exceeded the last six-year period - a healthy indicator that tourism in the region is on the road to recovery. Lodging properties were also able to raise room rates from the steep discounting that happened during the recession years, she said, which contributed to the increase. June room-tax collections in Deschutes County increased 29 percent over June 2011, she said. Total room-tax collections for the fiscal year from July 2011 to June 2012 were up about 6.5 percent. And while surveys for July and August aren't complete, Hughson said, pre-
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Economic recovery is weakest sinceWWII By Paul Wiseman The Associated Press
25 %
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www.bendbulletin.com/business
liminary reports show July was a strong month. Total fiscal-year collections in the city of Bend equaled about $3.5 million - a 7.4 percent year-over-year increase and a historic high, Doug La Placa, the president and CEO of Visit Bend wrote in an email. Vanessa Berning, director of sales and marketing for Seventh Mountain Resort, said events - biking, running, triathlons, the Bend Summer Festival, Bend Winterfest, Bend Brewfest and others - create an atmosphere that doesn't exist in many other communities. See Tourism I E4
WASHINGTON- The recession that ended three years ago this summer has been followed by the feeblest economic recovery since the Great Depression. Since World War II, 10 U.S. recessions have been followed by a recovery that lasted at least three years. An Associated Press analysis shows that by just about any measure, the one that began in June 2009 is the weakest. The ugliness goes well beyond unemployment, which at 8.3 percent is the highest this long after a recession ended. Economic growth has never been weaker in a postwar recovery. Consumer spending has never been so slack. Only once has job growth been slower. More than in any other post-World War II recovery, people who have jobs are hurting: Their paychecks have fallen behind inflation. Many economists say the agonizing recovery from the Great Recession, which began in December 2007 and ended in June 2009, is the predictable consequence of a housing bust and a grave financial crisis. Credit, the fuel that powers economies, evaporated after Lehman Brothers collapsed in September 2008. And a 30 percent drop in housing prices erased trillions in home equity and brought construction to a near-standstill. So any recovery was destined to be a slog. "A housing collapse is very different from a stock market bubble and crash," says Nobel Prizewinning economist Peter Diamond of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "It affects so many people. It only corrects very slowly." The U.S. economy has olher problems, loo. Europe's troubles have undermined consumer and business confidence on both sides of the Atlantic. And the deeply divided U.S. political system has delivered growth-chilling uncertainty. The AP compared nine economic recoveries since the end of World War II that lasted at least three years. A lOth recovery that ran from 1945 to 1948 was not included because the statistics from that period aren't comprehensive, although the available data show that hiring was robust. There were two short-lived recoveries - 24 months and 12 months - after the recessions of 1957-58 and 1980. See Recovery !E3
5 reasons you should stash cash in an emergency fund
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0.25 0.00 _ .:..__:_:.....:...,_-'-:-:--0.25 - - -- ; -0.50 , - - - - --. JULY JULY '11 '12 Source: U.S. Bureau of L aOOr Statistics
© 2012 McC iatchy-Tribune News Service
By Donna Gehrke-White Sun Sentinel (Fort L auder da le, Fla.)
It seems like a waste ofvour hard-earned money: Putti"ng your cash in an emergency fund when all you have to do is pull out your credit card to pay for the unexpected. But financial planners say there are five vital reasons you should keep a special fund just for emergencies - even if you have to stash at least six months' worth of expenses in a savings account that pays
almost zero in interest. • You might lose your job. The economy has slowed down recently, losing steam from April PERSONAL to June, the U.S. Bureau FINANCE of Economic Analysis reported. It is a time for caution. Putting expenses on your credit card if vou are laid off can be disastrous. You also have to consider whether you are in a unique occupation
with a narrow field of employment, said Patrick Buchanan, president of Private Wealth Management in Lake Mary, Fla. That might mean you spend more time looking for work - and need more in your emergency fund. • You might become injured or sick. Are you adequately insured to cover your loss of income? Buchanan asks. Even if you think you are,you might need your emergency fund to pay for unexpected expenses
while you recuperate. • The emergency fund helps diversify your assets. It's important to have a variety of savings and investments because it protects you from losing much of your money if it is, for example, in one stock, said Matt Saneholtz, a Plantation personal planner who is president of the Financial Planning Association of Greater Fort Lauderdale. • Cash is accepted everywhere. During an emergency you might find yourself in a
position when you quickly need to pay for something. Credit cards aren't accepted everywhere and you wouldn't want to sell stocks or bonds at a loss to cover unexpected expenses. "There is no substitute for liquidity and marketability in the face of a financial crisis," Buchanan said. • You sleep better. There's something to be said for peace of mind: You know you have the money in case something happens.