Auctions aren’t new around here, but on the heels of two high-profile auctions by Buena Vista Homes comes yet another large-scale sell-off of homes.
This time, it’s not by a single builder, but several builders, agents, and owners. On May 4, 2008, over 60 pre-owned homes and new construction will go on the auction block, in an event put on by The Taylor Group, a local real estate broker. They’ve created a website, www.properties2auction.com, designed for this auction, and as a platform ostensibly for more local (and not-so-local) auctions.
In the May 8 round, a mix of townhomes, general single family homes, and luxury properties for bid are located in Portland, Lake Oswego, Beaverton, Tigard, Gresham, Wilsonville, Vancouver WA, Sunriver, Bend, and on the coast. I saw a Street of Dreams home or two on the list. It appears several smaller builders are looking to clear the books of stale inventory, like Buena Vista did earlier.
Similar to the Buena Vista auctions, buyers will need a $5,000 cashier’s check for a bidder’s paddle, enough funds for a 3% earnest money on a winning bid, and a healthy stomach for risk to participate. Inspections and due diligence must happen prior to the auction, and each property offers several times for such inspection.
The live auction takes place at the Hilton Hotel at noon on May 8. Buyer and Seller agents can participate in this and future auctions. More information on the FAQ.
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April 15th, 2008
I had an opportunity to talk with Dana Tims for today’s “Dealing With The Downturn” feature in the SW Weekly section of the Oregonian, which covers Tigard, Tualatin, and Sherwood.
Tims interviewed a homebuilder, supplier, remodeler, homeseller, and real estate agent to gauge how each sector is adapting to a slower housing market.
Here is the text, in case the link goes away:
Trying to adapt to the new housing market
A builder, a Realtor, a seller, a remodeler and a supplier discuss their strategies
Thursday, April 10, 2008
DANA TIMS
The Oregonian Staff
Until recently, a vibrant housing market provided many of the jobs and much of the income that stoked the southwest suburbs’ economy for the past half-decade.
Much has happened in the past year to erase the double-digit profits that home sellers were taking for granted.
The number of houses on the market, for instance, has increased almost sixfold since 2006, giving buyers the upper hand.
Houses are lingering on the market far longer than they did two or three years ago. The multiple offers and bidding wars common among prospective buyers as recently as 2005 have been replaced by sellers trimming asking prices 10 percent and more to keep buyers from shopping elsewhere.
Some areas are feeling the pinch more than others. Below are brief profiles of five people and their accompanying market sectors. Each is trying to find new strategies for coping with the downturn.
The Realtor
Ron Ares jumped from his job as marketing director for a high-tech company to a family-run real estate business in West Linn three years ago. That may as well have been a lifetime ago.
“Inventories were half of what they are now, full-price offers were commonplace and if buyers didn’t have all their ducks in a row, they were likely to miss out on houses that were selling the same day they came on the market,” said Ares, a Tigard resident who specializes in the southwest suburbs. “It was one open house, one advertisement and ‘Katie bar the door.’ ”
The market hit its peak, in terms of median sales prices and number of houses sold, last July or August, Ares said.
Ultimately, he expects that this year will see a considerable dip in closed sales when compared with 2007, but the drop will be less than the 35 percent chalked up so far this year.
Successful agents — that is, those not among the nearly 1,100 Portland-area Realtors who decided not to renew their licenses at the beginning of 2008 — need to pay close attention to the market and be willing to expand their skills sets, he said.
Some agents, for instance, are focusing on so-called short sales, where the balance owed on the mortgage is more than a house’s market value. The endeavor involves negotiating with lenders, who may be willing to settle for less to avoid foreclosing.
In Ares’ case, he is working only with longtime lenders who have endured down cycles before and know how to source solid loans.
“What I’m telling clients is, if you need to sell and don’t want to get stuck, look at what the peak pricing was and take 5 percent off the asking price,” Ares said. “Otherwise, they’ll just be chasing the market down.”
Read the full interview for how the other interviewees are coping with a slower real estate market.
April 10th, 2008
The March numbers are still trickling in, but stable enough to draw some early conclusions as to the state of the Portland metro real estate market.
Sales
Compared to March 2007, residential sales are down 39%, continuing the 2008 trend of being 30-40% off last year’s monthly pace.
Average / Median Price
Despite the slow sales performance, pricing is up (!) ever-so-slightly up from March 2007. Average price was $337,200 vs. $336,300 (March 2007). The median is up $1,000 from March 2007 ($287,000 vs. $286,000). Note, however, that the average sale price in March is down about 2% from February’s result.
Pending Sales
Perhaps the bright spot, pending sales (homes under contract) are roughly equal to this time last year (within 100 units) at 2,960 pending. AMENDED: Like sold inventory, pending sales are actually down about 40% from March 2007–RMLS contacted me regarding a difference in reporting methodology.
Inventory
Around 15,700 homes are now being offered, somewhere around 9.5 months at the current pace of sales. March 2007 showed just 10,577 homes.
Market area data available next week.
Photo courtesy of draggin, used under Creative Commons license.
April 9th, 2008
To date, excessive foreclosure activity in the Portland metro area has been kept bay, perhaps due to generally stable housing prices and less participation by Oregonians in riskier subprime mortgages than other national housing markets. (Note, I’m not saying we’re immune–just less affected.)
RealtyTrac.com is the default oracle for foreclosure information–showing Oregon at #24 nationally for foreclosure activity with 1,415 in January, up double that of January 2007.
Recently the the Federal Reserve Bank of New York has released an interactive mortgage map for owner-occupied (non-investment) homes, tracking subprime and Alt-A loans.
Users can start with a view of the entire U.S. and drill down to state, county, and zipcode levels to view various risk areas such as percent of low FICO score loans, resetting adjustable rate mortgages, delinquencies, and foreclosures.
These interactive charts show the “regional variation in the condition of securitized, owner-occupied subprime, and alt-A mortgage loans” according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.
You can check out the map here (or click the image). and read more about the Fed’s foreclosure resources for consumers.
To be honest, I did not see a lot of variation within the metro area to note. The data is to be updated monthly, so perhaps we’ll see more activity as ARMs reset and local housing inventory remains high. Perhaps the non-owner occupied properties are the lion’s share of defaults and won’t be reflected on the Fed’s map. A couple disturbing Oregon trends: 35% of subprime loans have had 1 payment late in 12 months, and 41% of subprime ARMS are resetting in 12 months.
(Hat tip to Mike Rohrig and Scott Bridwell.)
April 7th, 2008
The real estate blogosphere is pretty well awash with today’s announcement of Zillow.com’s Mortgage Marketplace, but it may take some time to filter down to the home-shopping consumer. Here’s a quick overview…
You remember Zillow.com, the glossy property valuation site for real estate voyeurs–type in an address, get a Zestimated property value, snoop on neighbor’s houses, and wallow in maps, neighborhood data, etc.
Pretty entertaining, particularly where it came to how Zillow calculated home values (often wildly). They took their early lumps but have gained more market information and improved their methodology to the point now where you can make some broad judgments based on their site’s findings.
But the Mortgage Marketplace potentially offers much more value to the consumer. This service will allow you to anonymously shop for mortgages (for free) from an unlimited number of registered lenders. You can contact the lenders of choice when you’re ready to take your due diligence to the next level.
You can shop for a primary mortgage or home equity line of credit (HELOC). All loan fees will be disclosed upfront. Lenders that don’t perform well get scored as such (ala eBay or Angie’s List). Zillow brings new transparency to what has been a high-pressure, high-stakes part of the home-buying experience.
They’ve done their homework. From the CEO’s blog post:
At Zillow we believe in information transparency. We believe informed consumers are empowered consumers. We believe these informed consumers make better customers for real estate professionals. We believe consumers should be able to shop anonymously, so that they are not approached by a salesperson until they ask for assistance. Finally, we believe in open and free marketplaces.
Borrowers have told us via focus groups and surveys that they spend woefully little time shopping for the mortgage they have – 5 hours. About the same amount of time they spent buying their last computer and nearly half the time they spent shopping for their last car. They also tell us that they want their personal contact information to remain private and that they want to see real rates that are accessible to them, not “teaser” rates that don’t reflect reality. They would also like to shop across their options and be able to do an apples-to-apples comparison of loan quotes from multiple lenders in a standard format. Finally, they’d like to be able to understand the reputation of the broker or lender as seen from the perspective of other borrowers, much like they can judge a seller’s reputation on eBay or a hotel’s reputation on TripAdvisor.
If you’ve tried getting mortgage advice or loan bids through LendingTree and others of their ilk, you probably know what Rich Barton is talking about. And it’s probably why people spend so little time evaluating the financing side of a home purchase. Check it out here.
I’m curious to hear if any of you try the service and what your reactions are. Also, if any loan officers are reading, what is your take? Will you participate?
April 3rd, 2008
Over the past few years, those companies that plant the 4×4x8 signposts in yards for real estate signs have had quite a bustling business. But even that little cottage industry isn’t immune to a little regulation.
Apparently, they are now required by law to call utility companies and have them locate all services before the post can be dug and set. Ostensibly, a few too many sprinkler lines and cable TV services got nicked over the past few years by aggressive posthole diggers.
Their advice? Plant a flag where the signpost will likely go, so that the utility companies won’t locate and mark EVERY utility path in your yard with day-glo orange, like what happened to the poor sap below:
Puts a damper on curb appeal, doesn’t it?
Picture and advisory courtesy of Classic Real Estate Services.
March 31st, 2008
Some of the Portland real estate blogging community met Friday night for a little chat, note sharing, and some brewskis. Nice people, nice time. Thanks to Joel Burslem for organizing and all of you that attended.
Here’s an (incomplete) list of attendees. I know I didn’t get to meet everyone, so please forgive me if I overlooked you 
Jeff Bernheisel, Western Title, www.titlerep.info
Chris Ramos, LandAmerica
Joshua Klein, Mobile Marketing, www.thirdscreenusa.com
Matt Firman, Plug My Listing, www.plugmylisting.com
Ben Ficker, Keller Williams, www.portlandspearldistrict.com
Bob Broad, Keller Williams, www.portlandrealestatecafe.com
Dianne Gregoire, Advanced Real Estate Services, www.propertyblotter.com
Joe Gregoire, JW Gregoire Contracting, a budding blogger!
Rick Vazquez, AXIA Financial
Betty Jung, RE/Max, www.bettyjung.com
Tony & Libby Kelly, Keller Williams, tonyandlibby.blogspot.com
Adam DuVander, Sperling’s Best Places, www.bestplaces.net
Nick Bostic, Chicago Title, www.retechcoach.com
Linda Trotta, Advanced Real Estate Services, www.propertyblotter.com
Nick Krautter, Keller Williams, www.sellpdx.com
Ron Ares, Advanced Real Estate Services, www.repdx.com
Joel Burslem, Inman News, www.futureofrealestatemarketing.com
A few notable absences: PDX RE blogging pioneers Charles & Jenny Turner (on vacation), plus Jeff Kempe and some of the bubble blogger crowd. I was looking forward to the Cage Match. Oh well, maybe next time.
A few pics from the evening:
Larger slideshow here.
March 29th, 2008
A quick reminder that the first ever Portland Real Estate Blogger Meetup is this Friday, March 28 from 6 to 8 pm.
Expected attendees: tech-centric real estate agents, mortgage and title professionals, some bubble bloggers and who knows?
Location is at Touche on NW 14th & Glisan (map and details)
Sign up here and let Joel Burslem know you’re coming.
Technorati Tags: Portland, real estate, blogger, meetup, meeting, blogs
March 26th, 2008
January results of the Case-Shiller home price index report reveal the perhaps inevitable news about the Portland real estate market.
In Case-Shiller’s estimation, Portland can no longer claim to be an appreciating market. From January 2007 to January 2008, it’s year-over-year pricing change was -0.5%. It’s just the second smallest decrease nationally (behind just Charlotte, NC), but the the rate of price declines is accelerating.
Tom Cusack over at the Oregon Housing Blog reads into the data a little deeper and finds it to be the first time ever for a year-to-year decrease in Portland’s index. He also notes the January results to be the largest monthly decline in the study’s history and the sixth straight month of declines since the market’s peak in July 2007 (down 4.1% total).
Some believe that our downcycle is timed about 1 year later than other national markets.
Note that the Case-Shiller index lags the current market by 2 months. So, what do more current indexes of asking prices suggest? Altos Research sees a 1.3% decrease in pricing over past 3 months (see chart above).
If there is a nugget of good news in this, perhaps the affordability gap is closing. I will run preliminary sales figures for March around April 5 and we’ll see if the news is any more encouraging.
March 25th, 2008
Many out-of-towners that contact me to talk about the Portland real estate market often ask about the ‘best neighborhoods’ — for resale values, for education, and most often for a general sense of community or livability.
These questions can create a slippery slope for a licensee (i.e. Realtor(R)). Due to Fair Housing laws (and good common sense) we can’t steer clients away from certain neighborhoods because of racial mix, or draw conclusions for a client based on crime rates, demographic profiles, etc.
It’s one reason why I appreciate the City of Portland biannual Resident Survey about issues of neighborhoods and livability. It can fill in blanks for some of the questions that I can’t ethically or legally speak about.
I talked about it a couple years ago, but now the 2007 Survey is available.
The survey measures Portlander’s livability views on city services, development, traffic, infrastructure, and government oversight. There’s plenty of detail — sorted by neighborhood or by survey question.
The survey doesn’t measure ‘vibe’, but for a quick overview, check out the general satisfaction scale for all Portland neighborhoods. As I noted a couple years ago, the dissatisfaction tends to rise as you head east, but you can draw your own conclusions.
March 21st, 2008
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