Real Estate Information Archive

As the US comes out of the recession, it seems some areas are doing better than others and Kipplinger this week gave some encouraging news when it picked the top 11 cites in the USA to make a comeback, it listed Portland, Oregon as one of them.   The full article can be READ BY CLICKING HERE

Also good news for the Pacific Northwest is Seattle was also on the list.   The Portland area is prime for a comeback according to Kipplinger due to the investment in clean energy, and the high tech field.  There have been many solar power companies putting facilities here, and Intel (the states largest private employer) announced it is bringing 1000 new jobs too.  These jobs tend to be well paying, and bring in an educated workforce.

Portland's location as a city of about 2.25m people and next to a state of 37m people (California) seems poised for more growth once the economy improves, and this is a great step in the right direction.

The city of Portland, Oregon is making the most of their team's inaguual season of MLS play. It's clear the Portland Timbers fans are passionate about soccer and have showed there support by selling out all 12,500 season tickets packages that were available at the newly renovated JELD-WEN Field (formerly PGE Park). Fewer than 500 single game tickets remain for the entire season.

The Timbers play their home opener on April 14th against the Chicago Fire. It's sure to be the loudest event southwest Portland had heard in quite some time.

As a Timbers season ticket holder I cannot wait for the excitement and electricity that will be shared with each and evey fan throughout the stadium.

Go Timbers!

Even with the super low rates of today, refinancing may not always be the best option.  "What?" you say. Are you nuts Rob? Rates are at historical lows.

This is all true, but keep in mind that in the US the way interest is calculated, the majority of it is paid in the first half of the loan period, so if you recently took out the loan, you are probably better off refinancing even if the rate drop is minimal. SEE CHART AT BOTTOM FOR EXAMPLE.

In my case my wife and I were 79 months into a 15 year (180 month) loan, so about half way. On a 15 year you really start paying off a lot of principal about 5 years in (its about 12 years on a 30 year).  In our case the rate drop was over 1% and the payment drop was $890 a month.  Now that's a lot cheaper I know, but it also started all over again on a 15 year mortgage so it wouldn't be paid off for 15 years and for the next five as above I would be paying mostly interest all over again.  BUT - I got to thinking, what if I took out the new loan and kept paying my OLD payment, what would the accelerated payoff now be?  Well guess what, it works out to be paid off within two months of if I do nothing and keep the current loan. So to be clear the advantage of getting the new loan would be that I have $890 a month less debt and of course over the long run pay a lot less interest.

So the advantage here (smaller payment commitment) outweighed the negative (longer term) as it makes it $890 a month easier to qualify for any future loan.  As a result, we decided to take out the new loan and I am making my OLD payments just like I used to using Wels Fargo Bill Pay where I simply typed in a monthly auto-pay of the old payment.

You can and should check this for yourself with an online calculator.  TRY THIS MORTGAGE CALCULATOR  where you can type in additional principal paid monthly and see the results.  Go ahead and play with it, it's amazing.  The chart showing where you actually start paying off any decent amount of principal is below.  This example is for a $250,000 mortgage over 30 years at 4.5%.

Well, its that time of year again, our first big rainstorm of the season is about to hit the Portland area tonight AND our property tax bills have arrived in the mail.  As in every year, I then get emailed a lot asking how to appeal them.   Keep in mind that its tough in Oregon as we have two values.....  The RMV or real market value and the "Assessed Value' which is limited (with exceptions) to a maximum (MAV) of 103% of the previous years assessed value.  Your taxes are paid on the assessed value, regardless of what the RMV says the value is.

If you want to look into appealing, follow THIS LINK to the State of Oregon site.  Keep in mind you MUST appeal before the end of December.

I have also included pages to the tri-county tax offices.  Washington, Multnomah and Clackamas as well as Yamhill along with Clark County, Washington.  Click on the appropriate county name to access the page.

As always, if you have questions please feel free to email or call us. We also suggest you contact competent legal assistance if pursuing a challenge.

Thanks, have a wonderful weekend and Go #1 Ducks!  ROB

And here is why……  I know prices are dropping still (although last month they went up slightly) but is this a good time to buy?  The answer is a resounding YES.  If you bought a $200,000 dollar home (and for the purpose of illustration obtained a $200,000 loan), and that house drops 10% in the next year the math is easy, you just lost $20,000   BUT - and this is a big BUT - if you obtained a loan today for that house at 4.25%, and if that same loan in one year costs 6% then the difference in payment is a lot LESS if you buy the house now.  ($200k @ 4.25% = $984 / $200k @ 6.0% = $1,199) for a difference of $215 every month  Over 30 years that difference is a whopping $77,400!  One thing we have been assured of is that interest rates have to and eventually will be going up as the economy improves.

 DID I MESS UP BY MISSING THE OBAMA TAX CREDIT? NO!

At the end of April (when the tax credit expired) the interest rate was hovering around 6.0% so as stated above you would be spending $77,500 more if you bought a house on April 30th vs. today.  Despite what you read and see, homes ARE selling.  Our team has been having a stellar year selling lots of homes for our sellers and finding quality homes at good prices for our buyers.  We have become experts at distressed sales (short sales) and are CDPE certified, and I am even listing and selling some bank owned homes (REOs).  For the third year in a row, our team is Prudential’s top Portland Realtor and  this is largely due to the generous referrals from you, our buyers and sellers, so thanks for that!  We are well aware that you have a choice in Realtors, we feel that now more than ever experience counts and we all thank you for choosing our team now and in the future.

A recent article by Lawrence Yin, the cheif economist of NAR (National Assn Realtors) caught my attention.   I really never thought about it and I assume most of the readers of this blog didnt either but in any given year, there are 4 million new births, 2 million deaths, and one million new immigrants for a net gain of 3 million new American residents.  This also means that historically the net gain of "new households" is about 1 million new households a year.  Adding to this, there are approximately 2 million marriages anually and 1 million divorces, and all of this adds to changes in living patterns.

Furthermore according to Yin, homeowners look for a new place to live every 7-10 years on average and as a result over the next 10 years we can expect anywhere from 50 million to 70 million home sales !  Wow !!

According to an article in today's Oregonian newspaper, the Portland Metro region is expected to expand by an additional 1,200,000 people by 2030.   This includes the Portland-Vancouver-Salem MSA.  The source is Metro, the regional government for the Portland area.   They are also saying that by that time we will need an ADDITIONAL 300,000 housing units, and interestingly they are saying that by 2040 only 28% of the regions households will include children, a major drop from 50% of households as recently as 1960.  The entire article can be seen at www.oregonlive.com

The Portland-Vancouver-Beaverton metro area ranked No. 1 among 43 U.S. metro areas in a report on America’s “green cities.”

 As listed in the Portland Business Journal, The “Green Cities Index” ranks metro areas on a variety of environmental factors, including traffic congestion, transit use, water quality, carbon emissions, LEED-certified projects and number of “green” jobs. Read more here: http://portland.bizjournals.com/portland/stories/2010/03/08/daily51.html?ed=2010-03-12&ana=e_du_pub

Portland has appeared at or near the top many times on many surveys.  At the same time Portland ranked 8th in the country for public transportation use.   More info on our transit system can be found at www.trimet.org

I am just finishing the last day of learning and sharing at the CyberStars conference in Phoenix. This is a select group of about 140 top producing Realtors who meet annualy and what we all have in common is a great knowledge of how to use technology to better our lives and real estate sales, as well as a desire to share what we know and learn from others.

I have attending this conference every year for 10 years now and I always come away with better tools and tricks to use. This year the emphasis seems to be on more blogging, the use of video, and CRM (customer relationship management). I have just finished creating a series of videos on various Portland neighborhoods which will be up on my site within the next few weeks to show newcomers the various areas to help them choose where to live.

Its also interesting to hear how some of the markets are in other areas, and particuarly as this event is being held in Phoenix where some properties have dropped as much as 60% in value. But at the same time they are now selling more homes than in the boom times as this is a prime opportunity for first time home buyers and investors to get into the market as interest rates and prices are so very low.

I look forward to returning home this evening and sharing what I learned with my team tomorrow.

Metro, the regional government for the Portland, Oregon metropolitan area recently released their projections for population growth in the area for both 2030 and for 2060.

Given the population from the 2000 census being at 1.93 Million, projections are there is a 90% chance that in the year 2030 (only 21 years from today) the population could be as much as 3.2 Million (between 2.9m and 3.2m), and in 2060 between 3.61 & 4.38 Million.

The forecasts are for the seven county area of the Portland-Vancouver(WA)-Beaverton MSA and include the counties of Multnomah, Clackamas, Washington, Yamhill & Columbia in Oregon and Clark and Scamania in Washington.

With our urban growth boundary, the question remains... Where do we put them all ?  But the bigger question from Portland's top Prudential Realtor's point of veiw is what do I tell my clients when they ask me to look inside my crystal ball and predict where prices will go in the next several years.  Clearly with our land use restrictions, booming population and UGB (urban growth boundary) our prices have no place to go but up in the long run.  In fact even in our slower market, the last 8 weeks have been very busy for us on the Rob Levy team to the extent we just hired a new assistant / office manager to keep up with all the sales.

Clearly in my mind, both from my personal and professional experience, there has not been a better time to invest in the future of Portland.  Prices are down,rates are down, inventory is high and we know the future is bright.