OnPoint Community Credit Union is running a fairly new TV commercial.  Tracey runs buy her dream house everyday.  One morning she runs by and there is a for sale sign in the yard.  Tracy is a smart cookie.  She doesn’t call the listing agent from the sign and gush about her dream house.  She knows [...]

On October 4th, FHA rules will change regarding Mortgage Insurance Premiums collected up front and the monthly rate charged. Any FHA case number issued after October 4th will be subject to the new rules. The application for a case number takes place after there is an accepted offer on a specific property. I [...]

Curb appeal is one of the most important factors in selling a home. It starts with the ability to take a good picture so that when it is viewed online, the buyer actually wants to make the effort to go out and see it. Once they arrive, they need to get out of [...]

In what seems like a sea of bad real estate and economic news, the Case Shiller Index reports for the third consecutive month slight increases in the Portland real estate market, mirroring the national indexes.  The report, which lags 60 days and uses the seven county Portland MSA to define “Portland,” shows th

I missed a couple weeks of Sunday real estate humor but this should make up for it.  Ever wonder how short sales really work? I’m not sure what the original source was of this humor video. I first saw it months ago but it was only posted a few days ago where it is [...]

Unless you were stuck under a box in your basement this week it would have been hard to miss the news and outlooks on the national and Portland real estate markets and that recovery may not occur until late next year.  The National Association of Realtor’s report at the beginning of the week: Existing-home sales1, [

We visited the last two houses at the Street of Dreams last night.  The $1.7M Forest Edge by Elite Development is clearly the dreamiest of the show.  Not a surprise as you could by the IdeaBox ($148k), The Maybeck detached condominium ($549k), and any one of the three detached houses on NW Cresap Lane for [...]

There’s a $3 off coupon on the front page of this morning’s home delivered Oregonian.  It is a physical coupon to be redeemed at the ticket office, not a discount code.  We’re going to visit the Indigo (open only on weekends), IdeaBox and the $1.7M home this weekend.  They are off-site from NW Cresap La

What’s selling in Portland?  This morning’s search shows the active listings and pending listings in Portland.  I used our proprietary Client Connect search software that feeds from RMLS. Total real estate listings in Portland: Active 5835/1158 pending = 19.8% $0-$199,999: 1542 active/307 pending = 19.9% $200,

RMLS Market Action for the Portland metro area was released on Friday.  Metro area inventory spiked to 10.8 from June’s 7.3.  The increase comes from both a rise in active listing and a slow down in closed sales. I’ve also started to break down inventory by RMLS area for Portland.  Five areas make up Portland

The ribbon cutting ceremony for the South Waterfront’s Elizabeth Caruthers Park is tonight from 5:30-8:30.  It’s an important step forward for an area that has struggled to bring services to its condo tower residents.  The Meriwether Condominiums opened in 2006.  Residents at the time knew it was going to tak

Federal Housing Administration (FHA) home loans make up 30% of all home loans; up from 3% in 2006.  Whereas a “normal” loan requires 20% down, a home can be bought with an FHA loan for as little as 3.5% down.  Defaults are up too which means they need to tighten lending requirements and fees.  As [...]

Here’s a discount coupon for this year’s Street of Dreams.  It’s valid for tickets on site, not online.

We held our client appreciation event at the 2010 Portland Street of Dreams yesterday and had a chance to walk through the three on site single family homes and two of the detached condominiums in neighboring Macleay Overlook.  The show pass is good for the main site and three other locations where the $1.7M home [...]

Did you get your Market Tracker report on Sunday?  Market Tracker is emailed automatically from our system for any of the RMLS area zip codes on the first Sunday night of the month.  We can set you up for up to ten zip codes.  Use the “additional comments” portion of the form to let us [...]

The 2010 Portland Street of Dreams kicks off tonight with the Midsummer’s Night Dream charity event. I decided that on the day of opening night my presences wasn’t going to help the cause taking pictures of the last minute touches. Instead, I thought we’d look back at some of the pictures I’ve take

J.D. Power and Associates announced today that the Prudential Real Estate Network ranked “Highest Overall Satisfaction for Home Sellers among National Full Service Real Estate Firms” in the J.D. Power and Associates 2010 Home Buyer/Seller Study. This marks the second time in three years that Prudential ranked highest i

The Portland real estate market ranks sixth of the 20 cities tracked by Case Case  Shiller report that came out this morning for May.  It may be surprising to many but the 147.98 (up from 146.25 in April) lags behind only five cities since 2000 when the Index was set to 100 across all 20 [...]

Short sales, foreclosures and bank owned properties may be the buzz words of today’s real estate market but an RMLS blog post shows us that short sales and bank owned properties make up less than 20% of the properties listed for sale. In Portland, there are 5604 active residential listings.  Three hundred fifty three

Cresap Summit, the 2010 Portland Street of Dreams site, is such a busy place right now that I had to park in Macleay Overlook and walk down the path to NW Cresap Lane.  Macleay Overlook is home to the detached condo that is a part of the show. Spade and Archer Design Agency are putting the [...]

Once upon a Portland real estate market, fixer properties were hot commodities.  They were easy to finance and the market allowed a lot, if not too much, forgiveness for what might be considered sub par remodels.  Appreciation allowed for some leeway if the buyer was planning on holding the property as well.  Today’

The Oregonian ran a feature story yesterday about the Alphabet District in Northwest Portland on the front of their real estate section.  The story does not appear to be on Oregonlive.com yet.  Our www.AlphabetDistrict.com website is cited as a neighborhood resource and I am quoted.  We’ll be posting some more news

Two weeks is all that remains until the 2010 Portland Street of Dreams is open for business.  There has been an amazing amount of progress since my visit last Friday. Spade and Archer Design Agency was busy at work in the Renaissance Homes house staging the rooms while Earth Advantage was setting up blow test equipment [..

The Portland real estate market continues to plod along according to June 2010 RMLS Market Action statistics reported on their website.  Last month I started to break the Portland inventory numbers down to a smaller area as the Portland Metro area reported by RMLS encompasses five counties.  The metro chart is on the righ

Lower interest rates may have replaced the Home Buyer Tax Credits for now.  The vast majority of the country either missed out or didn’t qualify for the $8000 First Time Home Buyer Credit.  I always stated that the Credits were not a reason to buy a home but a bonus.  Interest rates play a key [...]

The questions are right there on the Seller’s Property Disclosure Statement: Are there any additions, conversions or remodeling? If yes, was a building permit required? If yes, was a building permit obtained? If yes, was a final inspection obtained? Enjoy this week’s Sunday real estate humor and thanks to Nanc

This is the July 9th construction update video of Renaissance Homes’ 2010 Portland Street of Dreams entry, “The Graduate.”

There are just thee weeks until the 2010 Portland Street of Dreams kicks off with A Midsummer Night’s Dream Charity Benefit at Cresap Summit on Friday, July 29th.  I’d like to thank Renaissance Homes for giving me access to their home for the next few Fridays so that Ican complete the series I have been [...]

How much is my Portland home really worth?  Zillow’s Zestimate says it is worth $z but my Realtor/appraiser/neighbor says it is worth $x.  What gives?  Any estimate of value is an opinion, the market eventually determines value. Zillow provides their own answer as to what a Zestimate is : How do we come up with the

This morning I received an email from Realtor.com. The first lines read: “90% of home buyers are using the internet to find their next home with over 1 in 3 finding the home they purchased online.” The percentage is even higher from some demographics. That’s a statement that is important to Realtors, buyer