If you did not catch 60 Minutes on February 28th, let me just say the advice I gave in my previous blog must have caught on. There is now a national movement encouraging people to leave their large banks and support their local community banks with their loan and deposit business. I banking, bigger is definately not better for the individual consumer. True, if you are a multi-national corporation or a Fortune 500 company, Bank of America and its' cronies are just the thing. For the rest of us, local is what its all about. Kind of like real estate. Location is everything.

Florence is holding up pretty well against the wave of foreclosures. Out of 408 active residential listings, just 17 (4.2%) are bank owned. Unfortunately, many of those foreclosures were lost by young families unable to survive in our local economy. Some have rented, others have moved to communities with greater job oportunities. In my profession, the American dream of home ownership and becoming invested the community is a good thing. Even the beautiful Oregon coast is not exempt from the cycles of the larger economy. New construction, and the jobs it provides, has suffered greatly. I look forward to to day demand for new housing returns to Florence, and those young families who left come back.