Portland Real Estate Blogger Meetup

Long overdue, the burgeoning Portland (and Vancouver, WA) real estate (RE) blogging community will have an opportunity to meet face-to-face, trade war stories, share best practices, and…tip a few back.

The venerable Joel Burslem, of Future of Real Estate Marketing fame (and Social Media Manager for Inman News) kicked off the meetup announcement yesterday. Already a dozen have committed, and rumors are that some of our Seattle blogging brethren may attend, too.

Date: Friday March 28, 2008
Time: 6:00 pm
Place: TBD (likely a PDX pub of some sort)

When re:PDX kicked off in October 2005, Portland had but 3 real estate bloggers. Now, my feedreader contains nearly 60 (here’s a partial list).

For those in mortgage origination, title and escrow, and real estate sales, you might take the opportunity to pick the brains of some of Portland’s pioneering RE bloggers if you have an interest in this type of social media.

Sign up here. Hope to see you there!

Technorati Tags: Joel Burslem, blog, real estate, Portland, Oregon, meetup, meeting, blogger

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3 comments February 27th, 2008

Portland Real Estate Market Activity - January 2008

The reporting on January 2008 Portland real estate sale results is likely to send panic waves through the home seller community.

I mentioned Friday that housing inventory is up to 12.8 months supply–the highest level in seven years. This metric, which is calculated by dividing the active number of listings by the number of homes sold in the previous month, was driven high by unusually slow sales for the month (down 32% when compared to 2007). Pending sales for January are down by a third, too.

With those kind of numbers, it might seem surprising that year-over-year average appreciation is up 1.8% over 2007, and the month-over-month median is up a full percentage point from December. But Jeff Kempe correctly points out at the Oregonian’s Front Porch blog, that January sales numbers are the result of efforts sown in November and December pending sales.

From my vantage point, buyer traffic seems to be recovering–lots of showings, open house traffic, web hits. But the question is, when will buyers capitalize on bulging inventory? Or will fears of falling knives keep them at bay?

For January, the average sale price was $342,900 and the median (or middlemost value) was $280,000 for homes in the Portland metro area. Average time to market a home was 83 days (vs. 65 in Jan. 2007).

Below are the January 2008 results for average and median sale prices, appreciation, and time on market (or DOM*), sorted by average sale price.

Source: RMLS, February 2008.

* Note: DOM or days on market may exhibit reporting inconsistencies and should be used to analyze trends only.

Technorati Tags: Portland, Oregon, real estate, market, results, 2008, appreciation, average, sale, prices, median

6 comments February 18th, 2008

Will You Need a Year to Sell Your Home?

Ok, a misleading title…

Sales results for January 2008 were released by RMLS this afternoon and let’s just say that buyers sat on their wallets in the first month of the new year. At the current rate of sales, the housing inventory at the end of January would take nearly 13 months to sell.

Folks, that is the highest inventory ratio since January 2000. There’s more to the story, of course. Come back on Monday for more in-depth analysis.

Until then, have a good weekend

Add comment February 15th, 2008

Sorry to crush your Eames dreams

but all 1,000 tickets for the 2008 Street of Eames modern home tour are already gone. Immediate absorption of all tickets has become an annual event.

Update: Organizers tell me that tickets sold out in 1 hour. And, please don’t yell at the volunteer staff. Only so many modern architecture fanatics can traverse the gracious hosts’ homes in one day!

The Street of Eames home tour is a phenomenally successful fund-raising event for the after-school programs for low-income and homeless children attending Portland’s Chapman and Beach Elementary schools.

If you didn’t get tickets, you can view a handful of pictures of the homes you won’t get to see on tour at http://www.streetofeames.org.

Get on their 2009 list now….

Technorati Tags: Portland, Oregon, Eames, tour, homes, modern, house, design

3 comments February 15th, 2008

Week Links - February 8, 2008

A handful of real estate-related (or not) links affecting the Portland market (or not):

Congress Passes Economic Stimulus Package
The President is expected to sign it quickly. Besides tax rebates, the plan also includes higher conforming (i.e. government-insured) loan rates of up to 125% of the area’s median home price. (Current conforming loans are limited to $417,000.)

It’s unknown how much, if any, impact this will have on the local real estate market. Larry Morris of EquiPoint weighs in with his analysis. Perhaps it will have more impact on California buyers, and therefore, free up some California sellers looking to move to Oregon (a traditional source of local real estate activity).

Wall St. Journal covers Portland Teardown
Did you know a Wall Street Journal contributor is writing an ongoing diary of her effort to tear down and build a new home inside the Portland city limits? (I didn’t.) Here’s the latest entry.

Buena Vista Auction - Part Deux
Some of the leftovers from the 1st Buena Vista auction, plus some buildable lots, are going under the gavel again March 8.

Round House
Very cool house in NY, but I would have liked some coverage about the mechanicals that turn the house, and not a shot of the urinal. (Courtesy of the Zillow Blog.)

And, now for something really different…

Frozen in Time
What happens if over 200 people suddenly and instantly freeze in place in the middle of Grand Central Station?

From the same people that brought you the No Pants Subway Ride of 2008.

Technorati Tags: economy, stimulus, real estate, round, house, Portland, Oregon

Add comment February 8th, 2008

Exploring Place at Portland Spaces

After launching their inaugural, eye-catching print issue recently, Portland’s newest home magazine, Portland Spaces has also hit the online space with some real intent.

The Portland Spaces site includes some DIY features, a resource guide (aka advertisers), an interesting historical retrospective of the PDX single-family home, plus not one, but two active blogs:

The Design District and Burnside Blog

I am interested to see how much activity and content will go into the online Spaces in support of the print edition over time.

See more at http://www.portlandspaces.net/.

1 comment February 6th, 2008

Portland Downtown Street Mnemonic

Locals find it easy to remember the street progression in NW Portland’s Alphabet District (from south to north from Burnside):

Burnside, Couch, Davis, Everett, Flanders, Glisan, Hoyt, Irving, Johnson, Kearney, Lovejoy, Marshall, Northrup, Overton, Pettigrove, Quimby, Raleigh, Savier, Thurman, Upshur, Vaughn and (Wilson).

But what about downtown south of Burnside (the street that divides north and south PDX)? Less straightforward, but perhaps a mnemonic will help:

All Across Portland Our Streets Wind Around Mossy Yards. Traffic Snarls May Mean Jammed Cars, Cranky Motorists Making Minimal Headway. Harried Commuters Just Love Going Slow.

For (north to south from Burnside):

Ankeny, Ash, Pine, Oak, Stark, Washington, Alder, Morrison, Yamhill, Taylor, Salmon, Main, Madison, Jefferson, Columbia, Clay, Market, Mill, Montgomery, Harrison, Hall, College, Jackson, Lincoln, Grant, and Sherman

Courtesy of Samuel John Klein at The ZehnKatzen Times.

Who’s up for tackling a mnemonic for North, Northeast, and Southeast PDX?

1 comment February 5th, 2008