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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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The Gray Lady Continues Her Love Affair with Portland
Here’s yet another travel article about Portland from the New York Times by Matt Gross, the Frugal Traveler–this time heralding Portland’s cheap(er) eats, sights, travel, and lodging.
Here’s the article and a corresponding slideshow.
Photo credit: Leah Nash for The New York Times
2009 Portland Monthly Real Estate Issue Arrives
Portland Monthly magazine’s annual real estate issue is out, offering tips on buying, renting, selling, remodeling, refinancing — in short, a treatise on how to adapt to a fundamentally volatile housing market.
I’ve highlighted this issue each year on re:PDX, and it continues to generate interest long after the magazine is off the newsstand, particularly with those interested in moving to the state.
Portland Monthly‘s coverage also includes Neighborhoods by the Numbers, a breakdown of 95 urban neighborhoods and 25 suburban areas. You’ll find stats on real estate market dynamics, crime, schools, population, and other demographics.
On a personal note, the real estate market data this year was provided by the agency I’m affiliated with, MRealty.
Feature Article: Buy, Sell Rent, Keep?
Comparison Article: Neighborhoods by the Numbers
Get your copy today at local newsstands, or visit online. If you are interested in past issues, I have them on-hand. Just drop me a note.
Street(car) of Dreams Show Changes Locale
An annual Portland institution, The Street of Dreams, will take a new tack this year, eschewing its tour of sprawling million dollar manses in favor of highlighting newly completed condos in the Pearl District instead.
It’s not by choice, however.
The Home Builders Association of Metropolitan Portland reports that the show canceled its Lake Oswego site due to lack of construction financing.
No wonder, the Portland area already has 537 detached homes and 77 condos for sale priced at $1 million plus (as of March 23, 2009).
So, for the first time in its 34-year history, the home tour will not feature single-family detached homes, but instead approximately 10 condos in the $1M to $4M range.
I think the SOD concept is ready for a makeover anyway. Million dollar inventory has been on the rise for some time, and the choice of sites has been iffy at best. Here’s a couple shots from last year’s show, featuring the enormous radio towers looming over one of the sample homes on Mt. Scott.
re:PDX Home Search Page Now Available
It thrills me to no end to announce the availability of my long-awaited (awaited by me, anyway) real estate search page here at re:PDX. The software developers and designers in my company have been dealing with my persnickity preferences in incorporating a map-based search into the site, but here it is.
Serious shoppers and real estate junkies (you know who you are) alike will like it. Features:
- It’s Google map-based.
- It’s neighborhood-defined.
- It contains all homes for sale in the Portland MLS that are approved for internet display.
- It’s free to use and no registration is required to use the map.
- If you would like to save homes to a Favorites list for future viewing, you can do so by setting up an account.
- You can even request a showing of any listing with just a click.
To see it in action, just click the Home Search in the top menu.
Misery Loves Company in PDX
Break out the Prozac, PDXers.
Recent articles and awards by the NYTimes, greenability authorities, and travel mags gush glowingly about the city. But if you want to see Portland show up on all those great Top 10 lists, you’ve got to take the bad with the good.
Of the top 50 metro areas, Business Week proclaims Portland to be the Most Miserable City in the U.S. Why? Here is their rationale:
- Depression rank: 1
- Suicide rank: 12
- Crime (property and violent) rank: 24
- Divorce rate rank: 4
- Cloudy days: 222
- Unemployment rate (December 2008): 7.8% (now closer to 10%)
(I would add Greg Oden’s knee injuries to the list.)
Kari Chisolm over at BlueOregon has the best retort so far. What say you?
Photo courtesy of Meredith Farmer, used under Creative Commons license.
Modern Home Enthusiasts, Don’t Despair
The Street of Eames modern home tour scheduled for April sold out in less than a day (once again), but you have an opportunity this weekend to view 11 other modern design homes in Portland.
For FREE, no less.
The 11xDesign tour features 11 contemporary design projects by a variety of architects. The tour is self-guided and runs from 10am to 5pm, Saturday February 21. Get details at the 11X Design site.
As usual, Brian Libby has this well covered over at Portland Architecture and on the Dwell Magazine blog.
Street of Eames Tix Go On Sale
Highly coveted tickets for the 2009 Street of Eames modern home tour go on sale Monday February 16 at 10am. If past years are any indication, you want to be ready with a twitchy mouse finger because tickets are usually gone in under an hour.
From the organizers’ email:
From 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturday, April 18, ticket holders will tour a collection of seven mid-century and contemporary modern homes that would not otherwise be open to the public.
This annual self-guided tour raises money for after-school enrichment programs serving homeless elementary school students at two public schools in Portland. The event is run by volunteers with all proceeds going directly to the programs.
More information is available at the Street of Eames site. And Brian Libby provides an excellent preview at PortlandArchitecture.com.
A Wintry PDX Poem
A Question for Portland, from PAgent at OurPDX.net.
Buy Your Own Slice of Middle Earth
Bend’s Lord of the Rings-styled, 6-acre development is now for sale at $1.3M.
Umpqua Bank originally loaned $3.4M in 2004 for the project. An auction in December yielded no bidders and Umpqua foreclosed on January 16.
The Shire, a 15-lot, village-themed concept in the southeastern part of the city, was marked by its Old World housing styles and fantasy setting styled after J.R.R. Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” series.
The CC&Rs promoted the use of English architecture, including unique stonework, artificial thatched roofs, terraced gardens and a network of streams and ponds with a pathway leading to what was called The Ring Bearer’s Court.
No word if the Mordor subdivision will suffer the same fate.
Photo courtesy of the Bend Bulletin.
On The Hunt for a New Home? Try Searching on a Neighborhood Map
UPDATE: The home search feature discussed in this post is now integrated with re:PDX. Just click the Home Search link in the top menu.
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Earlier, I alluded to some changes going into the new year and here’s the first—a new, upgraded real estate search feature.
Since re:PDX is getting a makeover, it will be some time before it’s integrated into this site, but you can use it now at my independent search site, findportlandhouses.com.
Different from other real estate search sites, this one is based on neighborhood boundaries and integrated with Google Maps so you can search your preferred neighborhoods. You might be interested in just Hawthorne, Ladd’s Addition, and Laurelhurst, for example, but not all of inner SE Portland or a particular zipcode.
The search requires no registration, unless you’d like to save properties to a Favorites account or request a showing.
Here’s a screen shot of the site (click on the image to go to the site):
Here’s a peek at the neighborhood-level detail. Icons show the active home listings. Hovering over the icon shows a thumbnail and price. Clicking on it gives you more detail over in the sidebar.
The properties include all* RMLS listings ranging north of Salem to Vancouver. The Gorge is represented and some beach properties, too.
Be careful. Using it could be addicting.
* “All” means all listings approved by the listing broker for display on the Internet. Some brokers opt out of this.
