Portland Green Homes Demonstrate Altruism and Practicality

Whether we see it as evidence of the advance of a wider green homes movement or simply of rising environmental consciousness, Portland green homes are becoming properties with a distinct marketable sales advantage. What were once viewed as altruistic gestures practiced by only the most dedicated preservationists are going mainstream—and at a rapid clip. The National Association of Realtors® recently found that 70% of those surveyed believe eco-friendly features add value to a home. In other words, the practical advantages of ‘going green’ are becoming more and more evident to prospective buyers.

For sure, one reason for the increasing popularity of green homes in Portland is a growing and sincere concern about sustainability.

But there’s also another reason: a growing and equally sincere desire to save cash!

There are in fact a number of practical reasons why green homes save their owners money—

  • Tankless water heaters are one example of a technology that’s been around for a while, but which is now gathering popularity. The engineering is based on the fact that constantly storing and re-heating of a volume […]
2015-04-30T15:28:32+00:00

Seeking Out the Best Realtor in Portland is Worth the Effort

When you Google “seeking the best professional,” in about a half a second you are presented with 403 million candidates (not to play favorites, SearchEngineWise, when you ask Bing the same thing, it gives you a mere 62.6 million…which might actually prove more useful, since it would only take you a little more than a year to scan each for 2 seconds).

Narrowing the quest, when you Google “seeking the best Realtor®,” it gives you just a few less than 2,000,000 likely results. Since anyone seeking the best real estate professional to buy or sell their home isn’t after one eight states away, almost everyone quickly narrows the search to ‘best Realtor in Portland.’ That number varies from time to time, but almost always more than 500,000 show up (the ones at the top are paid ads).

This isn’t actually as whimsical a quest as such results suggest: it’s a quite serious undertaking. Even if you are a veteran homeowner—someone who has bought and sold homes multiple times in the past—today’s market is so vastly different from […]

2015-04-27T17:18:12+00:00

Portland Spring Real Estate Selling Season: it’s Sprung!

When the first spring day comes along (as opposed to the first day of spring), a goodly proportion of Portland’s residents feel the annual pull toward the garden store aisles. Even those who’ve stoutly resisted ordering seeds, gardening tools, or any of the other back yard paraphernalia the catalogs kept hawking all winter can succumb to this particular Call of Nature.

Burpee, Scotts and Miracle-Gro shareholders can relax: spring has sprung.

The Portland spring real estate selling season starts stirring, too, pretty much in lockstep with the appearance of the tulips. Whether or not the tulips have succeeded in poking up out of the ground, it’s a cinch that by this time they will have made colorful appearances on store shelves everywhere, just like the Peeps and chocolate bunnies. Unlike the rest of the early spring’s trappings, though, the spring real estate phenomenon doesn’t disappear from sight once Easter Sunday is a memory. In fact, it picks up steam.

There are any number of explanations why spring real estate in Portland is always expected to ramp up. Part […]

2015-04-22T17:08:43+00:00

3 Good Reasons to Avoid Portland Homes for Sale by Owner

Let’s start out by agreeing that a “For Sale by Owner” sign on a Portland fence does have a certain appeal. It summons up mental images of a simple, direct relationship: no middle men, just straight talk and fair dealing with the One in Charge! And in fact, in many walks of life, dealing directly with the owner can be a plus. When you’re recommending a retail outlet to friends, telling them that you know the owner strengthens your endorsement.

So when you cruise by a sign announcing a local For Sale by Owner property—a “FSBO”—you wouldn’t be alone if you were tempted to walk up and knock on the door. Buying a home directly from its owner should be a way to purchase a house at the lowest possible price, what with no real estate professionals getting involved!

That’s the fantasy, and although those assumptions are theoretically possible, in reality, homes being put up for sale by their owners represent a temptation that many experienced home buyers avoid. They have more than one reason.

1. Owners […]

2015-04-20T13:16:34+00:00

Portland Real Estate Could Echo News of Rise in Home Sales

Portland real estate trends don’t always trace patterns that are precisely identical to those in the rest of the state or nation, but sooner or later the local market almost always responds similarly. That’s because there is a certain amount of momentum—positive or negative—that is automatically spawned by the good or bad real estate market news reported in the mass media.

So when last week’s Commerce Department report on new residential home sales was released, Portland real estate watchers had reason to smile. Delightedly.

It wasn’t just that the bottom line number for February’s new home sales was substantial (estimated at 539,000, seasonally adjusted annual rate); it was how all the other stats supported them. Forbes headlined that February’s numbers hit a 7-year high. The financial web site Calculated Risk observed that although the report contained only two months’ worth of this year’s data, “Sales in 2015 are off to a solid start.”

In fact, just about all the accompanying details were heartening. The monthly new home sales are always revised several times as final real estate figures become available, and this time ‘round, […]

2015-03-30T16:49:42+00:00

Changed Portland Foreclosure Picture Still Presents Opportunities

The Portland foreclosure situation is a good deal different from what we were discussing a few years ago when the tidal wave of 7.3 million foreclosures and short sales swept the nation. When The New York Times “Dealbook” recently pronounced that the supply of cheap foreclosed homes in America is dwindling, it came as news to…well, no one.

Let’s face it: Portland Metro Area investors wouldn’t need to look up the latest statistics to guess that number of offerings would be down. The continuing rebound in home values, slow but steady improvement in the overall economic picture, and even just the passage of time has to mean that the glut of subprime-crisis-era foreclosures would have worked their way through the system.

But there are always new foreclosures, and for anyone hoping to make a bargain buy in today’s Portland foreclosure market, the same qualities that brought post-crisis success still apply today:

  • Knowledge of (or willingness to research) comparable neighborhood values
  • Realistic appreciation of rehabilitation costs
  • Decisiveness (willingness to act swiftly)
  • Ready access to investment capital

The principal difference in today’s Portland foreclosure milieu is that far fewer are available, and the difference […]

2015-02-16T18:38:45+00:00

Inspecting the Portland Metro Area Home Inspector Brings Peace of Mind

The importance of hiring a reliable home inspection is one of the bedrock principles every home buyer reads and hears about from all quarters. Any Realtor® worthy of the name will be able to recommend a Portland home inspector with the kind of strong credentials that establish the validity of his or her report—it’s part of the full service a real estate professional brings to the process of buying a home.

The object of the inspection is, of course, to prevent the unexpected: repair bills that might otherwise go undetected until after the purchase. A good inspector finds problems before you close on a property. Although a home inspector’s fee may require an investment of a few hundred dollars, it’s certainly better than spending tens of thousands down the road.

A thorough inspection and the report that follows are what you are looking for—what earns a new home buyer peace of mind. And choosing the right candidate isn’t difficult, as long as you are willing to follow a few common sense procedures. For instance, the written inspection report is an important part of the […]

2015-02-04T15:58:52+00:00

For Portland Metro Area’s Affordable House Hunters, a 5-Step Approach

Despite the improving economic outlook, for many families, finding an affordable house in Portland can still be a challenge. According to a study by the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University, more than a third of today’s families have had to devote at least 30% of their combined household income to the monthly mortgage payment—and that figure exceeds the generally accepted standard. In other words, even though mortgage interest rates remain pegged at historically low levels, landing an “affordable” house in Portland (just as in the rest of the country) can take some doing. Here is one five-step approach that has rewarded house-hunters in the past:

  1. Define Affordable House in dollars

The first step to finding an affordable house should be to work out a target budget. The Wall Street Journal currently recommends spending no more than 28% of monthly income on your house). Make sure to include additional fees such as legal fees, repairs, maintenance, and closing costs in your calculation. The bottom line you come up with isn’t one set in stone, but it’s a reasonable goal to have in […]

2015-01-27T00:37:55+00:00

House Flipping Can Profit—Even if it Takes Longer

ABC’s Nightline recently aired an interesting segment about house flipping, which included a magic number that’s probably never been seen before.  Portland Metro Area house flippers would have been glued to their TVs if they’d stayed up late enough to catch Nightline, because if authentically magical, it’s a good number to know.

The segment was part of a series called “Realty Check.”  This one was about new strategies in the “ever-competitive world of flipping.”  The show started with some background about how expensive house flipping can be if it’s done in a hurry and on the cheap.  Just slapping a coat of paint on the walls can result in an investment that languishes on the market, often until the asking price is reduced to an unprofitable level.  The narrator stated that in the past, house flipping was often approached with the idea that the sooner a renovation could be completed, the better: “Get in, get out, move on.”  We were shown how TV series like Flip It to Win It, Flipping Vegas, Rehab Addict, and Flip or Flop turned rehab projects into races against […]

2015-01-12T22:53:00+00:00

Calm, Communication Solve Portland Metro Area Neighbor Misbehavior

Finding the absolutely perfect home—then being able to afford—may be every Portland home seeker’s dream accomplishment, but absolute perfection in any realm usually remains exactly that: attainable in a dream, but nowhere else.

In fact, online mortgage site HSH.com surveyed homeowners and found a tiny 20% of the home owning population had zero complaints about their current digs.  Sixteen percent wanted a larger place; 9%, more closet space.  Lower percentages wanted more natural light, lower maintenance costs, another bathroom, or a swimming pool.  Interestingly, about a quarter of respondents wished they had done more research on their new neighborhood…or neighbors.

Although the pollsters didn’t give a clear report on how many considered neighbors the biggest problem, it’s certainly true that issues with neighbors can add unnecessary stress for you or your family.  It’s rare to find people who actually decide to abandon ship because of neighbor problems; much more commonly, Portland metro area homeowners just learn to live with them.  But rather than accept that burden, psychologists prescribe a number of ways to try to address such problems.  At least four approaches can be […]

2015-01-07T21:55:06+00:00