A Eugene developer’s departure is a sign of difficult times for real estate.
Chad Ruhoff has moved from the Eugene area, leaving behind an unfinished subdivision and a dissolved company. A leader in the area’s development industry, the move is a shock to people who knew him and also shows them how tough the local real estate market is becoming.
A native son and second-generation home builder left Eugene recently, trailing devastated finances, a dissolved company and a ghostly, undone subdivision in his wake.
Chad Ruhoff’s departure is a sign of the times for Eugene-Springfield’s idled home builders. Metro area housing starts dropped 175 percent, to 32 starts in the first quarter of this year, compared with the first quarter of 2008. And 2008 was a depressed year.
Ruhoff’s departure was shocking though, friends and co-workers say, because he was so strongly rooted in Eugene. He married here, hand-built his home here and followed his father into the business here.
Read the full story in The Register-Guard.
