You usually can’t find as many Portland lease option opportunities being offered as you would have a few years ago. Because the more normal marketplace has given buyers more confidence and sellers more and better offers, some of the usual reasons that Portland lease options come about rarely develop.

One of the appeals to renters that a local lease option conveys is that it provides some financial wiggle room. Back when housing values in the Portland metro area were in freefall, buying seemed like a much more risky proposition than it does today. After all, nobody rushes out to buy something they think is going to be on sale in a month or two—and for a long stretch during the financial crisis, that did seem to be more likely than not. Especially for would-be buyers unnerved by the press reports of that period, renting for a while longer seemed the prudent course…even if bargain real estate prices made it tempting.

A lease option (short […]

There are many generalizations that can be truly instructive for homeowners with Portland homes for sale. The undeniable importance of “location, location, location!” is a good one; de-clutter! as a main order of business is another…as is the wisdom of researching neighborhood comparables.

Anybody with homes for sale in Portland can usually visit the National Association of Realtors® website for useful nuggets of that kind of information. However, one article that appeared there last week seemed to me to be less than real estate gospel—although it was thought-provoking. It dealt with features that might make some homes for sale harder to sell; features that most people might assume would improve rather than curtail a home’s appeal.

The article named seven otherwise “awesome” features that the author, Jamie Wiebe, thought belonged in that category.

First was a school next door, for the main reason […]

I’ll admit it: the tease was irresistible. There was no good reason why I should take the time to read on, even though it was near the top of the Wall Street Journal’s Real Estate section. This was not likely to be the kind of relevant background information that would be useful in my daily Portland real estate dealings.

But the tease was not something I could just skim past and forget. The words were dangling there on the screen; almost a dare:

“Where Home Prices Start at $115 Million.”

It wasn’t just the $115,000,000 home price that aroused curiosity. After all, this was the WSJ Real Estate section—where there are almost always stories about properties somewhere or other in the world with asking prices that numb the mind. It was the idea that there could actually be anywhere on Planet Earth where home prices start north of one hundred million!

Think of what the comparables reports […]

When it comes to understanding the factors that come into play when buying or selling a home—or any practical real estate information at all—Portland high school (or even college) graduates are on their own. If any real estate information has even been touched upon, it will have been in the most cursory manner: at best, one line item in a Home Economics budgeting discussion.

That’s one reason why everyone from first time Portland metro homebuyers to itinerant real estate investors can benefit from the best of today’s how-to real estate books. Here are some of the popular oldies—as well as some valuable newcomers:

100 Questions Every First Time Home Buyer Should Ask is Ilyce Glink’s compilation of insights from top brokers across the country. First time buyers aren’t the only readers who will find this general reference valuable—Portland home sellers who want insight into the concerns of potential buyers will find it a useful resource. The “100 Questions” don’t address every Portland metro real estate information topic; but on the whole, this book is concise and […]

More than one Portland home sale has resulted from a couple’s chance encounter with an open house. It still happens that they just drop in on the spur of the moment.

“Oh look! They’re having an open house down the street!” turns into curiosity, then interest, excitement—and ultimately, a life-altering change in the place they call home.

Today that still happens, but a good deal less frequently than in the past. Part of the reason is the demotion of the open house in the pecking order of Portland real estate strategies. At this point, a local open house is simply never the central element in a home’s marketing blitz. The web has seen to that.

Let’s face it: if you can visit any listed home via its online virtual tour, the whole idea is that it requires a fraction of the time and effort an in-person visit takes. A home’s virtual tour is where you’ll head first. If you are aware […]