Let's Take The House Off The Market Until January, Really?
I helped buyers buy a SW Portland house a few years ago on Thanksgiving Day, but that was an exception. Most buyers and sellers take that day off, if not the week. In fact, it’s safe to say a good number of homeowners will either remove their property from the market or not list their property for sale until the holidays are done with- in other words, until January.So what?Well, if you’re a seller you should expect housing inventory to be very high in January. As I mentioned earlier this week, January historically is the month of the year where inventory is indeed highest. That means that at the beginning of 2010, you’ll have more competition to sell your h

Case-Shiller Report: Portland Home Prices Fell...
Portland home prices have fallen 11.8% from last year, according to this morning's new Case-Shiller report.The report covers the time span from September 2008 to September 2009. Last month's report showed Portland's home prices to be down 12.5%. Month-to-month, there's no major movement in the prices, but as you'll see below, Portland continues to fall in the “rankings.” Out of the 20 cities analyzed in the report, Portland ranks 14th best (or 7th worst) for depreciation.Overall, U.S. Home prices were down 9.4% year-to-year, but continue their trend of general improvement since the start of the year.Here are the 20 cities in the report listed from l

The Best Time Of The Year To Buy In Portland is...
I recently met a first-time homebuyer who had her eye on living in close-in, Southeast Portland. She had lots of questions about the buying process, the cost of homes, and the state of the market. One thing she asked was if there was a “best time of the year” to buy.I've found that the best time of the year to buy for one person is different for the next. After all, we're all different and our ups and downs come at different times of the year. So to me, the answer is specific to person asking the question.That said, there is a factor in Portland's real estate market that is beneficial to buyers more so in winter than in summer- housing inventory.When

Trees Add Value To Portland Homes
This is the first time I’ve seen a report specific to trees and their financial value to real estate. The following are excerpts from Friends of Trees:In a study of sold homes on the east side of Portland, a new report says street trees add an average of $8,870 to sales prices and reduce time-on-market by almost two days.The report, which will be published in Landscape and Urban Planning, is the first of its kind to examine the “effect of urban trees on the housing market” by explicitly focusing on street trees. Co-authors, Geoffrey Donovan of the Portland Forestry Sciences Laboratory and David Butry of the National Institute of Standards and Techn

Portland State Center for Real Estate 2009 Quarterly Report
The Portland State Center for Real Estate has released its 4th Quarter 2009 report. It’s a good read with tons of information (75 pages long, covering both commercial and residential markets, as well as Portland and other parts of Oregon).Here’s an excerpt regarding Portland’s market:“Once again the housing market statistics reflect a decrease in value from the prior year. Median home prices were down 12.1% annually in August, and 11.5% for the western part of the nation… However, prices are still substantially higher than they were before the housing bubble. For Portland, the index based on a home valued at $100,000 in 2000 stood at $150,060