Busy Streets and Their Meaning for Portland Real Estate
By Charles TurnerThis is a highly subjective topic. Since no two houses are alike you can’t just take on a busy street and one not and say there’s the “cost” of living on a busy street. The Oregonian ran an article a couple of weeks back. One of the key points being that buying a house on busy street might allow you to enter a neighborhood you could not afford otherwise.
I chose a couple of streets: one busy and another a couple of blocks off that street. The difference between SE 39th and SE 41st is just what I expected; $26/SQFT (all listings single family detached and sold in the last 12 months).
Between Burnside and the 4000 block of SE 39th and 41st:
39th $140/SQFT (8 sold)
41st $166/SQFT (8 sold)
That equates to a $52,000 difference on a 2000SQFT house.
NE Fremont and NE Klickitat between 30th-50th:
Fremont $206/SQFT (2 sold)
Klickitat $210/SQFT (4 sold)
Much closer but twice the number (though still low) sold on Klickitat. I’m not sure that comparing two and four sales over a one year period is statisticly valid. Other factors that contribute to the difference is the client that never gets out of the car when they realize it is a busy street. Also interesting is that the time on market was 10 days for the two Fremont houses and 62 for the Klickitat houses. So much for proving a point with these stats.
Interesting analysis here:
Says that Portland (and Seattle) are at higher risk of a market correction (up to 30% down) then even Phoenix, Las Vegas or Miami. Who would’a thought?
Bring it on.
According to someone I know who lives in Phoenix, everything is being gobbled up right now. I doubt that the Phoenix market have a correction for a while.
What I see with Portland is buyers who price their property according to what they read of the prior years’ appreciation. Unfortunately that’s not where the market now is. There are now over 69 current listings (non-inclusive of FSBO or expired RMLS numbers) in Forest Heights that are priced less than $1,000,000. Bethany area had 80 listings just three months ago and now they’re up to 112. Corbett’s-Lair now has 136; just several months ago the number was in the 80s. The Pearl has over 200 listings!
I wonder if the houses that currently sell for more than asking (or around asking) include the dollars given back at closing (closing costs, payment of repairs, etc). One friend of mine gave back close to $10,000 at closing while the price was reflected at “$5,000 over asking!”.
JJ: I’m hearing about new projects in Phoenix that have been abandoned at various stages of construction. According to http://www.housingtracker.net/askingprices/Arizona/Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale/
it certainly doesn’t look like houses are being “gobbled” up right now. Prices down 2.3% in the last month and Inventory is 47,000(!) I didn’t realize that Phoenix is now 3X the size of Portland, but Wikipedia says they have 1.5Million pop.
Interesting. Perhaps the man who was talking about it is an investor who has a vested interest to see the prices continue to increase. He was a teacher for a real estate valuation class, and he continually spoke about how Phoenix was growing like gangbusters.
That same website you gave (housing tracker) says that Portland’s inventory is up 27.4% higher than 3 months ago, and 52.2% higher than 12 months ago! And in two months time, the 75% percentile has dropped from $516,900 to $499,000.
http://www.housingtracker.net/askingprices/oregon/Portland
Perhaps the man who was talking about it is an investor who has a vested interest to see the prices continue to increase. He was a teacher for a real estate valuation class, and he continually spoke about how Phoenix was growing like gangbusters.
Phoenix was growing like gangbusters until about a year ago. Now it’s one of the epicenters of the subprime-AltA implosion. Possibly this teacher was being a ‘cheerleader’ – or possibly he was just a bit behind the times.
Are we seeing ahead to PDX’s future when we look at Phoenix today?
As far as PDX inventory goes: I suspect we’ll break 18,000 this coming week. If not this coming week, then it looks pretty sure for the week after. If we follow last year’s pattern we’ll see inventory peak in October and then fall as sellers pull houses off the market just prior to the holidays. Last year’s peak was over 16K in October. This year we’re already at 18K in July. Seems possible that we could see 20K in October.
October is still 3 months off. I imagine those homes that not selling are due to over-pricing (trying to sell a Forest Heights house for $700,000 that cost $445,000 three years ago is sad and hilarious at the same time).
Of course, the number of condos on the market far outweigh the number of SFRs. I honestly pity anyone trying to sell a condo right now, except the ones who continue to build them.
The sold price reflects the agreed upon price and does not take into account credits.
If a $100,000 house sells for cash, the sale price was $100,000.
If a $100,000 has $3000 in seller paid closing costs, the sales price is $103,000. The propperty must appraise for $103,000.
If the seller makes $3000 is repairs, the sales price is $100,000.
If the buyer and seller agree to reduce the price by $3000 is lieu of makeing repairs, the sales price is $97,000.
It would seem like “net to seller” would be a better number to use.
Actually we blew through 18K in inventory this last week. The inventory now stands at 18,292, up 2.2% in the last week.