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re:PDX is presented by Claire Widmark, broker affiliated with M Realty LLC in Portland, Oregon.
Phone: 971-275-3691
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Join The Homeowner Fray with Resolve
The rear-view, reflective thoughts of the holidays now turn to forward-thinking, hopeful expectations for the New Year. And while I haven’t been a big practitioner of New Year’s Resolutions, I do think it is a good time to set some goals if you’re considering your housing options in this transitioning market.
After record run-ups of the past few years, attitudes about real estate are shifting back to the traditional fundamentals–owning and personalizing real property, buying and holding over the long-term, establishing community identity. It’s back to thinking about how to LIVE, not how to INVEST. Remarkably low interest rates and the first buyer’s market in years should work together to make homeowners out of the best-prepared.
So, will 2007 be the year you get serious about becoming a homeowner? Resolve right now to take the exploratory steps that will enable you to join the ranks of the landed gentry.
Here are a few items to get you thinking:
Review your credit report.
Once a year, you can review a free copy of your credit report at www.annualcreditreport.com (a site offered by the credit bureaus). Check it over for delinquencies and other lurking surprises, so you can clean them up sooner than later. You’ll have to pay a few dollars additional to get your actual credit score, but it is well worth knowing before you make a loan application. If things are blemished, you can improve your scores with just 6 months of good credit behavior.
Talk to a mortgage broker/planner (or two).
If you’re a first-time buyer, a half-hour on the phone with a loan officer going over your income, debts, assets and liabilities can go a long way toward giving you the confidence to plunge in deeper. Will you qualify for conventional financing or will you need something more creative? Will you need mortgage insurance or will an piggyback loan be affordable? Are there programs suited to your needs, including some recently reinstated state-sponsored, first-time buyer plans?
Engage a real estate professional.
Armed with the mortgage information and a realistic housing budget, talk to a real estate broker (or agent). Tell them your timeframe upfront. A good agent will stay in touch and feed you market information for that moment when you’re ready. Can you realistically buy what you want in Lake Oswego for $300,000? Also, when it comes time to shop in earnest, you’ll want the services of a buyer’s broker in your corner to represent your interests exclusively in the transaction. Ask to see an earnest money agreement and supporting paperwork prior to writing an offer and familiarize yourself with the decisions you’ll need to make when the time comes.
Save that bonus or tax return.
Got some cabbage coming back from Uncle Sam, or perhaps some profit share or a merit bonus from work? Squirrel it away specifically for housing. Even if you qualify for that 0% down loan program, you’ll still need some cash–$250 to $400 for a home inspection and around 3% of the purchase price for closing costs. Again, conversations with lenders and real estate pros can help you plan for these eventualities.
Watch the market.
Many agents offer online home search resources, some better than others. Until you’re ready to hit the open house tours or have your buyer’s agent cart you around, you can familiarize yourself with homes in the market, amenities, time on market, and more. Is inventory sitting around or going quickly?
With advance preparations like these, you will be more relaxed and confident when you’re ready to hit the market. Here’s to the New Year!
[tags] real estate, new year, resolutions, plans [/tags]
Photo by jennifer beuhrer Used under Creative Commons license.
Portland Area Market Activity – December 2006
The residential real estate market in Portland continues its inexorable and gentle settling.
Long-term homeowners will be pleased with continued appreciation gains, and home buyers have nearly twice the selection in available listings than they had in 2005.
For the year, as of the end of November, new listings were up about over 14% and closed sales have fallen about the same amount when compared to last year. Over 10,900 homes are now actively marketed, putting the available inventory at just over 5 months at the current pace of sales.
Average and Median Prices
The average sale price year-to-date in the market is now $318,200 (vs. $276,600 for 10/2004 through 11/2005). Half the homes in the metro area sold for more or less than the median price of $267,900 (up from $230,500 last year).
Appreciation
Over the past 12 months, Portland-area properties averaged 14.4% appreciation. North Portland, Milwaukie/Clackamas, and Lake Oswego/West Linn have surged late in the year to 18% or better. Areas such as West Portland (including downtown), Tigard/Tualatin, and NW Washington County have fallen to around 10% for the year. The median price is up 14.9% over last year.
Inventory
For the first time since January 2004, the Portland metro area has over 5 months of available inventory–10,965 homes. This means at the current pace of sales, all existing listings would sell out in 5.1 months, with no new inventory being added. This is roughly described as a ‘balanced market’, but seem to be tipping more in favor of buyers. The average time on the market for active properties through November was 42 days, versus 43 days this time last year.
I’ve published a tabular view of year-to-date results on my Market Activity page.
Appreciation percentages are based on a comparison of average price from the last 12 months (12/01/05 – 11/30/06) with 12 months before (12/01/04 – 11/30/05).
Source: RMLS, December 2006.
[tags] Portland, Oregon, real estate, market, activity, statistics, results, appreciation, sales, inventory, trends [/tags]
Photo by stargazr. Used under Creative Commons license.
Friday Fun – McMenamins Mashup
For weeks now, I have been toying with the idea of creating some real estate mash-ups–you know, where someone geocodes various locations and places them on a Google or Yahoo map. I’m still working on the real estate application (stay tuned), but my experimenting has yielded some useful results.
In honor of the McMenamin brothers opening yet another quirky pub location, I have released a McMenamin’s Mashup, showing all the Portland-area McMenamins locations on a Google map.
For the uninitiated, the McMenamins empire includes pubs, restaurants, theaters, hotels, breweries, and wineries. These establishments are family-friendly and feature their own brewery and winery selections as well as basic pub fare. Some locations feature more full-service restaurants, movie theaters, hotel rooms, live music and even golf and other unique attractions.
Many locations are in reclaimed and renovated hotels, farms, schools, theaters, taverns–buildings that no one else would touch. In many cases, they’ve been redone in a style that combines the original architecture with Grateful Dead styling, plus European antiques and local northwest art. In a word, funky (but comfortable).
A visit to a McMenamins is a quintessential Northwest experience.
Their latest venture: renovating a mortuary–The Chapel Pub. After reviving a derelict poor farm, a train station, a few dilapidated hotels, and a Masonic Lodge, I think they’ve got it figured out.
My McMenamins map includes locations within 45 minutes of downtown, but they have spread locations south to Eugene, Salem, Roseburg, east to Bend, and as far north as Seattle.
[tags] McMenamins, Google, maps, mashup, beer, pub, Portland, Oregon [/tags]
Portland named in Frommer’s top travel destinations
The travel editors and authors from Frommer’s Travel Guides and frommers.com compiled their annual list of ‘twelve surprising, thriving, or emerging travel destinations’. Portland joins these unique choices of destinations in Frommer’s top 2007 list:
- Krakow, Poland
- Tokyo, Japan
- Minneapolis, Minnesota
- Panama
- Asheville, North Carolina
- Ethiopia
- Virgin Gorda, British Virgin Islands
- Okanagan Valley, British Columbia
- Glen Canyon, Utah
- Zurich, Switzerland
- Portland, Maine
From the Frommer’s website–
Situated one hour from the Cascade Mountains and one hour from the Pacific coast, Portland serves as a convenient hub for the area’s excellent outdoor adventure opportunities — from summer hiking and mountain biking to winter snowboarding and downhill skiing on Mt. Hood, and kayaking and fishing on the Columbia River. Portland, an environmentally friendly town, has revitalized its waterfront along the Columbia River as part of an overall commitment to responsible urban development. Here is one of only three US-based sake manufacturers, in which you can tour the facility and participate in a sake tasting. Foodies are starting to recognize Portland for its flourishing restaurant scene, especially in the Pearl River warehouse/loft neighborhood. There is also nearby Willamette Valley, a wine region touted for its up-and-coming Pinot Noirs. For a unique place to stay, check out one of the several hotels run by the McMenamin family — our favorite is the Kennedy School Hotel.
I will note one more reason to visit Portland or Oregon in general. No sales tax.
Here is the complete Frommer’s list and the accompanying podcast (zip ahead to around to 19 minutes for the conversation about Portland).
[tags] Portland, Oregon, travel, destinations, Frommer’s, guidebooks, top, podcast [/tags]
Guest Post: Half is More?
Today’s post comes from Dr. James Maciokas of Marquee Mortgage. No, he doesn’t have a doctorate in mortgages (actually experimental psychology & neuroscience), but he’s an exceedingly sharp guy and is very attentive to his clients.
Today, he illustrates a strategy to carve years and interest dollars off your mortgage.
Do you want to know an inside secret the mortgage industry does not want you to know? How would you like to save tens of thousands of dollars and pay off your mortgage 5-7 years early without paying a single penny more then you already pay? My father always says “if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.” Well in this case he would be wrong.
Here is the secret, break your monthly payment up into two separate installments. Pay half on the 1st day of the month and pay half on the 15th day of the month. You may be asking yourself, how does this work?
Unlike rent where you pay on the first of the month for the “privilege” to live there for the rest of that month, with a mortgage you borrow the balance of your loan for the entire month and then pay interest on that money you borrowed for that month. So the payment that is due on the 1st of the month is paying for the money you borrowed the previous month, plus a little extra to pay down the balance.
Let us go over a scenario together, and use an example with a 30-year $200,000 mortgage at a rate of 6% and assume the next payment is due January 1st. To take advantage of this secret, we would pay our full payment on January 1st which pays the principal and interest for living in the house in December.
Then on January 15th, we would make a half payment and on February 1st, we would make the other half payment. For the life of the loan, we would continue to make half payments on the 1st and 15th of each month. Using this scenario we would save $48,600 and the loan would be paid off 5.5 years early.
In essence, instead of borrowing the money for the whole month you are now only borrowing it for 2 weeks and making a payment. So you save on interest fees for the last 2 weeks of each month. If you would like more information on how to implement this strategy with your mortgage, I would be happy to help.
In talking with James about this, he said it is admittedly a strategy that requires discipline. I encourage you to contact James with your questions on how best to implement a bi-weekly payment schedule.
Dr. James Maciokas – email
Marquee Mortgage
Phone: 971-327-1457
[tags] mortgage, bi-weekly, payments, interest, principal [/tags]
Week Links – December 8, 2006
Time to catch up on some local and national real estate story links.
It’s a great time to buy a house, right? Maybe. — The Oregonian
Portland hasn’t seen a housing market like this one in at least 10 years.
Goose Hollow condo tower gets second chance — Portland Tribune
City approves a smaller Allegro
Poll: Worst of U.S. housing slowdown over — MSNBC
But survey of economists shows average home price will fall in 2007
Housing outlook in 2007? Weaker. — The Oregonian
Two experts predict there will be a shift to a buyer’s market with a slowing in the rise of prices
5 home trends we never saw coming — CNN/Money
Some unusual items that more and more home buyers have on their wish lists. Plus: What’s out.
Streetcar planning calls for patience — Portland Tribune
It’s time to slow down and figure out its next destination.
Avoiding foreclosure rescue scams — CNN/Money
Don’t be the next victim to lose your house to “consultants” who claims they will pay your mortgage.
[tags] real estate, Portland, national, U.S., housing, articles [/tags]
Photo by Don Gato. Used under Creative Commons license.
Hordes Descend on Oregon Cities
Ok, it’s not an all-out invasion, but still, it’s good news for the Oregon housing industry and affiliated businesses like real estate agents and property managers.
It’s no big surprise, but the in-migration to Oregon continues. Portland State University’s Population Research Center estimates that Oregon’s population grew by 58,720 during 2006–a 1.6 percent increase from 2005.
The state’s population estimate now stands at 3,690,160. Seventy percent of the population lives within one of Oregon’s 241 cities or incorporated towns.
Deschutes and Crook counties in central Oregon were the fastest-growing in the state with 6.4 and 7.7 percent increases. The tri-county area (Clackamas, Multnomah, and Washington counties) added 25,260 residents and Deschutes County grew by 9,125 people.
Portland State’s researchers estimate that a quarter of the state’s increase came from natural causes (i.e. more births than deaths). The remainder is due to in-migration–in this case, 43,355 new residents from out-of-state.
Visit the Population Research Center report site for more information.
[tags] Oregon, population, growth, migration, Portland State University [/tags]
