Oregon Real Estate is still looking like a sound investment. The days of high teens appreciation may be gone but experts quoted in today’s Oregonian still see 5%-8% appreciation in 2007. That means the $300,000 house you look at today could cost between $315,000-$324,000 this time next year. There is more concern regarding the condo market as there are about 16,000 units coming available in the next few years.
Winter months are good for real estate. Both buyers and sellers are more motivated. A home’s landscaping in the winter can never look like it does in May (if you have no intention of doing landscaping before listing you home, list in the winter). It’s harder to make a house shine. Sellers are selling for a reason. Buyers have to want to look at homes in less than ideal conditions.
With a recent client on a particularly nasty night, we looked at a home that was about 45 degrees inside because it was vacant. It was dark and really stormy. Not exactly prime home viewing conditions. We had to go back to another home twice. The first time we saw it in the dark and then again in the daylight. They’ve got an accepted offer on that home.
We’re typically slower during the winter months but in the last couple of weeks, we’ve picked up and though our clients may not be looking or selling today, they are making plans for the New Year. Investors that know year in year out that they need to buy investment property renew that resolution each year. Taking the first step, buying that first investment property, is always the hardest.
We’re looking forward to next year. Doing what we do now better and introducing new tools and programs to enhance the real estate transaction.
6 Comments on “Portland Real Estate Still Appreciating”
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Whats going on out there. Any Updates on some Portland Condos…feed us the data!!! Thx, condoDomain.com
It’s interesting that housingtracker.net shows Portland prices (ergo appreciation) flattening or even dropping depending on what percentile yr looking at:
http://www.housingtracker.net/askingprices/Oregon/Portland-Vancouver-Beaverton/
To be fair, this includes the portland + surrounding areas.
I too am curious about the number of condos being pushed through the pipeline. It seems like there is an amount of overbuilding going on in that arena.
I would also like to know what percent of homes purchased in the portland area were financed with “exotic” mortgages (e.g. ARM, interest-only, and so on). Given the median income in the portland area vs the price of homes I would imagine that number to be quite high.
They are both good points. The Oregonian recently ran an article that touches on potential overbuilding in the highrise condo market. A buyer that locked in a couple of years ago on a new construction is probably still ahead of the game but buying yesterday may have been a risky move. A seller does not determine the price of a property, the market does.
NW 23rd is actually in the 97210 zip code (though has no bearing on this discussion. The break is right around NW 16th Ave.
Housingtracker.net data needs to be interpreted carefully because it tracks asking prices, not selling prices. One of the reasons why transactions have fallen across the nation is because asking prices have not yet dropped to meet the market price.
The person who bought my loft last year tried selling it in June for a 30% markup. He’s now down to a 17% markup, and it is still not selling. Housingtracker.net would register this as a 17% asking price increase, but that is not a useful figure because the loft is not selling at that price.
Check dqnews.com ZIPOR.shtm to get a feeling for condo overbuilding. Note that sales in the 97209 zip code (NW 23rd & Pearl District) have dropped by more than 40% YOY. Together with the increase in inventory from the Housingtracker.net site, this suggests that the increased inventory is not due to increased supply at constant demand, but due to falling demand. Just apply the Law of Supply and Demand to guess where prices are heading.
Also, many units that are being sold are not included on the MLS. In that Oregonian article a couple of weeks ago, a realtor was quoted that she thinks it doesn’t make sense to list 25 of the same unit in a building.
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