Well known for recycling and other sustainable living practices, Portland area residents are proud of their conservation efforts. Well, on June 16, preservationists outdid themselves by moving the historic Ladd Carriage House through several city blocks to a temporary site, an impressive feat requiring over 15 hours to complete.
Built in 1883, the house was located on the site of a future underground parking garage that will serve the Ladd Tower luxury apartment upon its completion. The home weighed 534,000 pounds and required 70,000 pounds in lifting steel for transport. Here’s some time-lapse video and commentary: Link: YouTube time-lapse video of Ladd Carriage House move.
While it would be easy to simply regurgitate the Visitor’s Association version of the area’s virtues, I will share my summertime, top-of-mind list:
Oregon Strawberry Season — If you haven’t tried the delicate, ephemeral, and fragrant sugar-bomb also known as the Oregon strawberry, then you’ve been eating poseur fruit. Make your pilgrimage to Strawberry Mecca soon, though. The season is about over. Then you’re stuck with the insipid versions from Cali or Mexico.
Hoop Heaven — Ok, let’s get down to my real inspiration for writing this today.
The NBA Championship will soon be arriving in Portland. With today’s expected drafting of Greg Oden, Portland’s only major pro sports franchise has the opportunity to shed several years of mediocrity and shame, and thus, reestablish the Rip City/BlazerMania fever that grips and elevates the city when we have a contender. Besides, we get to thumb our nose at Seattle (You’re Number Two!).
Housing inventory is at a 3-year high — (A real estate point, finally!) Portland metro home inventory has been hovering in the 12,000 or 13,000 active listings range for a few months now. Market times are up and prices are leveling some. With the pace of sales slowing, you have more choices and, perhaps, more negotiating room. Neither increased inventory, time on market, or rising interest rates have seriously dented the Portland real estate market and turned it into a purely buyer’s market…yet.
In fairness, a couple reasons NOT to move to Portland — summertime road construction and hay fever. Not on the visitor association list, but just my personal gripes.
I have had several listings on the market recently and have been struck by the sheer numbers of independent buyers operating without the aid of a buyer agent. Portland has an independent streak to be sure, but does it extend to buying real estate?
Surely, it is easier than ever before to research properties without the aid of an agent–there is no lack of Internet sites devoted to home valuations, classifieds, real estate search, and limited MLS access. But, getting inside each home for hands-on due diligence is a chore if you plan on only visiting open houses or calling the listing agent for an appointment.
It isn’t just lower priced, first-time homes or investment properties. I have shown properties in the $275,000 to $700,000 range to ‘unrepresented’ buyers, apparently content to talk with the listing agent. Even today, I showed a listing to a couple relocating back to Portland, and with only a few days to find a home, were apparently calling each listing agent for an appointment. I wondered how productive their time could be, waiting for listing agents’ availability to provide a showing.
I can understand first-time buyers that might not yet understand the value of having an agent that can provide advice, market information and exclusive representation–and gain them access to any property in the multiple listing service.
But, why do seemingly sophisticated buyers choose to go independent? At some point, they will have to decide how to enter into an agreement, either:
with an agent brought in just to represent them during the sale agreement process;
with the listing agent, now operating as a dual agent and representing both parties; or
representing themselves solely, with the listing agent serving as a go-between in negotiation, but offering no counsel to the buyers.
So, I pose this question to readers….why not use an agent during your investigation period?
Some theories:
Patent distrust of agents in general
Buyers hope to negotiate a better deal on their own
Listing agents know more about the property anyway
Undue pressure from agents to buy a property quickly
Buyers aren’t serious enough to ‘employ’ a buyers agent, but want to see properties anyway
Do have have a buyer’s agent, but aren’t getting value from the relationship or don’t want to bother them, or are too embarrassed to admit it.
I’m just curious. Buyers, which is it for you? And other agents, what has been your experience?
While the overall market appreciation in the Portland metro area is showing roughly 10% growth when comparing 12-month averages to the year prior, that growth is somewhat spotty.
Lake Oswego, Gresham, Hillsboro, and Yamhill County are leading the charge with 13% or greater price appreciation, balancing out the lackluster results for West Portland (including downtown), Beaverton, Tigard, Tualatin, Wilsonville, and Sherwood–all well under the area average.
Here are year-to-date figures through May 31, 2007:
Neither significantly up, nor significantly down, the Portland metro real estate market continues its delicate balance of a slower pace of home sales and still-rising sale prices.
Results through May 31, 2007, when compared to January through May of 2006, show that new listings are up 15.8%, closed sales are off 8%, and pending sales are down about 5%. The disparity, though, hasn’t pushed things into a pure ’sellers’(oops) ‘buyers’ market, where increased inventory creates downward pricing pressure.
In fact, the 12-month roll-up of average and median prices shows 10+ percent increases over the same period the year before. And at the current pace of home sales, the existing inventory would take just 4.5 months to sell off (vs. 2.3 months in May 2006).
The year-to-date average home sale price throughout the Portland metro area is now $337,900; the median value is $314,500. As of May 31, 12,486 homes are currently on the market throughout Portland and its suburbs. Average selling times are down from last month (63 days), taking 60 days to sell (up from 43 days this time last year).
Bargain hunters in the Portland area will need to look carefully for softening prices. North and Southeast Portland, Gresham, Milwaukie/Clackamas, Lake Oswego/West Linn, Hillsboro, and Yamhill County all show double-digit average appreciation increases. West Portland, Tigard/Tualatin/Wilsonville, and NW Washington County have exhibited lower-than-average appreciation rates, perhaps due to a slowing in new construction.
While the fundamentals of the local real estate market continue to be relatively healthy through the first half of the year, the real risk for a subdued Q3 and Q4 would appear to be mortgage rates. Over the past 6 weeks, rates have risen on 30-year fixed loans as much as a half to three-quarters percent, adding hundreds of dollars per month to buyers’ monthly payments.
Tomorrow: Year-to-date average and median sale prices, plus appreciation statistics, sorted by community.
In the eighteen months since I started this site, my intent was to create a real estate commentary about Portland that would both provide a creative outlet for me and reflect my values of transparency and consultation. I was inspired by the thorough and prodigious efforts of another local agent, Susan Marthens, whose movingtoportland.net site was (and still is) the definitive resource for Portland-area real estate information.
My blog has generated press interviews and other promotional opportunities. And importantly for my family, it has generated business like the first-time homeowners/schoolteachers from the Bay Area, a retired couple from Sacramento, and most recently, a pediatrician and social worker relocating from remote NE Arizona, who are among the countless delightful relationships developed from the notes and calls I’ve responded to.
I haven’t paid for any online advertising, I haven’t hired a search engine consultant, or engaged in any real link-baiting or contentious arguments that tend to drive traffic. So, getting to Google Page One results by sharing real estate news, thoughts, market activity, and occasionally some humor, is gratifying. Especially when you’re ranked ahead of large agencies that spend huge amounts on their online presence.
Granted, I have some work to do. Try “portland home search” or “portland real estate agent” and the results slip a bit. And it also inspires me to improve my content quality and increase my writing frequency.
So, thank you, my frequent readers, linkers, and traffic contributors (you know who you are) for doing whatever it is that Google believes is important when it comes to providing useful search results.
Enough bragging. Other real estate bloggers drive more traffic and are far more interesting. But today, I feel validated, just like Navin Johnson.
Oregon ranks 16th nationally in property tax payments, collecting a median
value of $9.49 per $1,000 assessed value, as reported in a study by the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB).
The median property tax bill in Oregon came to $1,910. As a share of state and local government revenues, Oregon property taxes contribute around 20%–very close to national averages. (For you out-of-staters, Oregon assesses a 9% income tax and is one of only five states in the country without a sales tax.)
The NAHB study looked at all 50 states and attempted to address the unique tax environments of each state and local government. From the study:
“The analysis of real estate taxes across states is an important source of information for estimating the economic impact of housing, comparing the affordability of housing and cost of living in general, and making decisions about relocating or retiring in a different state,” says Natalia Siniavskaia, the author of the NAHB HousingEconomics.com report.
The study finds a strong correlation between the extent to which state and local governments rely on property taxes to fund local services and the amount of real estate taxes they collect per home. While state median property taxes per home reflect home values to a certain extent, the correlation is not as strong.
New Jersey ranked first with a median real estate tax of $5,352 per household, a rate of $16.03 per $1,000 assessed value. Louisiana collected just $1.72 per $1,000 for a median of $175 per household.
The national averages were $1,614 median property tax bill, at $9.64 per $1,000 assessed, and contributing 21.74% toward total government revenues.
Hoop Heaven — Ok, let’s get down to my real inspiration for writing this today.
I have had several listings on the market recently and have been struck by the sheer numbers of independent buyers operating without the aid of a buyer agent. Portland has an independent streak to be sure, but does it extend to buying real estate?
Neither significantly up, nor significantly down, the Portland metro real estate market continues its delicate balance of a slower pace of home sales and still-rising sale prices. 
Oregon ranks 16th nationally in property tax payments, collecting a median
