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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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Another High Profile Portland Condo Stalls on the Launch Pad
Another 354 apartment units will enter the downtown Portland market next summer, testing the area’s ability to absorb unprecedented numbers of high-end apartments.
The Oregonian and the Portland Business Journal report that the CYAN/PDX will lease its smallish, energy-friendly units instead of selling them in a stagnant condo market.
The CYAN/PDX condo/apartment switch is the sixth project to do so in recent times. The others included the last tower in the downtown Harrison project, Ladd Tower in the Cultural District, SE Portland’s 2121 Belmont, the Pearl’s Wyatt, and the South Waterfront’s 3720.
They join a couple other South Waterfront projects originally designed as apartments, making for a crowded field of new rental living spaces. The Portland Business Journal estimates that 2,500 high-end units will compete for tenants as these projects complete.
Existing high-end renters should feel some security that their leases aren’t going up anytime soon.
Leasing information for CYAN/PDX.
Some Good and Bad in Portland’s Housing News
In the midst of bailouts, presidential debates, bank takeovers, and other fear-inducing events, the Portland housing market continues to evolve. A few news items and notes:
September market activity may surprise some
Year-to-date across the Portland metro area, home sales have been running at about 65% of 2007 levels, month in and month out. September 2008, though, is on pace to come in over 80% percent of September 2007′s total.
Now, before someone starts calling August ‘the bottom’, the 1,600+ homes sold in September are more like January and February averages, and haven’t made much of a dent in the 17,000 active listing inventory still left for sale. Unless we see a significant number of expirations and canceled listings, many home sellers are in for a long winter. I will run preliminary numbers next week when most sales will be logged in RMLS.
A local news crew caught me yesterday for some comments about the local housing market given all the turbulence in the past few days. The summary is pretty thin and some of the advice and conclusions made me wince, but how much in-depth analysis can you squeeze into a 1:45 segment?
(The report is after the brief ad)
Link to KPTV News video.
I don’t think they used my best quotes or deepest analysis, but I will stand by the contention that people view Portland as an attractive location to live.
Case-Shiller shows declines of 6.6% in Portland
Standard & Poor’s Case-Shiller index for July came out on Tuesday, showing Portland’s prices in a 6.6% decline from the same period in 2007. As markets like Boston, Denver, and Minneapolis show signs of recovery, Portland and Seattle are showing some acceleration in the opposite direction, although they still rank as 5th and 8th respectively in the 20-city index. According to RMLS statistics, August median home prices were down 7.3% from the previous year, so expect Case-Shiller to continue to downgrade Portland.
Mortgage insurer finds Portland’s price decline risk to be ‘minimal’
PMI Group, a private mortgage insurer reports that the risk of significant Portland metro price declines is viewed to be among the nation’s lowest. They may be wrong, but for now, it should keep mortgage insurance rates low for buyers with less than 20% equity.
50,000 Subprime and Alt-A ARMs to reset
On Tom Cusack’s Oregon Housing Blog, he estimates up that 50,000 subprime and Alt-A loans will reset in the next 12 months on owner-occupied homes in Oregon and Washington. You’d think borrowers would have re-fied by now. Maybe they can’t.
