Owner: Portland Housing Blog URL:http://www.portlandhousing.blogspot.com Join Date: Wed, 06 Feb 2008 22:41:40 -0600 Rating:0 Site Description: Watching the Portland real estate bubble burst since early 2007 Site statistics:Click here
Demand - It Ain't What It Use To Be 2008-03-06 21:45:57 As we wait to see what the month of February holds for the Portland housing market I thought I would take a look at the January pending sales for all RMLS data.January 2008 reported 1,671 pending sales, this is a 34% drop from the prior year and pending sales haven’t been this low since 1995.Realtors have been touting the month over month gain from December to January but this comparison offers a more accurate look at the state of the housing market.
Publicity Rendered Condo Development Worthless 2008-03-05 13:06:48 From the Oregonian:The owner of a new condo and office complex northeast of the Sellwood Bridge is suing Multnomah County and the city of Portland, claiming that it hasn't been able to sell a single unit because of publicity about moving the bridge.In a lawsuit filed in Multnomah County Circuit Court, Wasson Properties claims that because the county and the city have talked about possible plans to build a new bridge just north of the current bridge, potential buyers are afraid that might mean the new condo-commercial complex will be demolished."The uncertainty of what's going to happen makes this building very unattractive," said Jim Marvin, the attorney who filed the suit Monday. "Who wants to buy a condo that's going to be ripped down?"According to the suit, Wasson Properties talked to t Read more:Condo
, Development
, Rendered
Southern Oregon Unemployment At Recession Levels 2008-03-04 17:54:49 From the Mail Tribune:Job losses in retail, construction, manufacturing and tourism shot Jackson County's unemployment rate to 7.6 percent in January, the highest in three years.Employment Department figures showed payroll employment declined by 4,080 jobs in January, with about three-quarters of them lost because of seasonal cutbacks in the retail trade sector. Over the year, payroll employment rose by 1,160 jobs, but that wasn't enough to counter losses in the other sectors.An estimated 7,845 people are idled out of a work force of 102,837. The county's unemployment rate is worse than the national rate, which is 4.9 percent, and the state rate, which is 5.5 percent.But it's better than other SouthernOregon
counties: Josephine posted 9.5 percent unemployment in January, Douglas 9.9 perce Read more:Recession
, Unemployment
It's All About Inventory 2008-03-03 17:57:41 From the Bend Bulletin:Central Oregon homes sales are coming off of one of their worst winters in a decade, and the tenor of the industry’s sales incentives is changing.Gone are the offers of free cars and Pottery Barn gift certificates.In their place: cold, hard cash.At Renaissance Homes, President Randy Sebastian is offering $12,000 to $14,000 to buy down the interest rates on homebuyers’ loans in his Bend subdivisions. At last week’s level, that amounted to an offer of 4.65 percent interest for the first 10 years — almost three-quarters of a percent below similar loans in the open market.It’s all about inventory reduction and, so far, price cuts have not done the trick, Sebastian said.Renaissance has shaved anywhere from 11 percent to 20 percent off the list prices of its unso Read more:Inventory
4th Quarter HPI From The OFHEO 2008-03-03 17:12:53 The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO
) recently released their fourth quarter Housing Price Index (HPI). The index uses the same pairing method as the Case-Shiller index.The HPI is a weighted, repeat-sales index, meaning that it measures average price changes in repeat sales or refinancings on the same properties. This information is obtained by reviewing repeat mortgage transactions on single-family properties whose mortgages have been purchased or securitized by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac since January 1975.The House Price Index is based on transactions involving conforming, conventional mortgages purchased or securitized by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. Only mortgage transactions on single-family properties are included. Conforming refers to a mortgage that both meets th
How bad was January? 2008-03-03 00:51:07 I pulled all the January
closed sales numbers I have available and found something really interesting. The worst year is in red.January 2008 reported a 32% year over year drop and a 41% drop from January 2005 levels.UPDATE: Pending sales are also down 34% from last January.
Warning! You Will Lose Your Home... 2008-03-02 10:47:03 From the Oregonian:When a foreclosure starts, so do the sales pitches.They come with a knock at the front door, a letter in the mailbox or a bright sign on the telephone pole."You'll lose your home if you don't call now!" "Sign here and we'll save your home!""Stop foreclosure!"But watch out for this last-ditch offer: A rescue from foreclosure.Some foreclosure rescue operations may be legit and their tactics may, in some cases, be legal. But consumer advocates say they haven't found any that they'd endorse."Every single one I've seen is bogus," said Richard Hagar, a Seattle-area real estate appraiser who trains police in how to spot scams.At their core, most foreclosure rescue schemes offer a false promise to save someone's home from foreclosure.The schemes come in two basic flavors: a cons
Subcontractors File Lien On NW Condos 2008-03-01 14:31:21 From The Oregonian:Two subcontractors filed liens against Marty Kehoe's Cambridge condo project in Northwest Portland in the last month.Liens can signal a developer is in a financial pinch and stringing out his contractors. Or, they can come amid a dispute between contractors and the developer.Kehoe says this is the latter.Pioneer Sheet Metal filed a $67,800 lien on Jan. 31. The Cronin Co., a Portland tile and flooring company, put a $27,300 lien on Feb. 7.Kehoe says the bills were a minor dispute -- not related to late payments -- on a $50 million condo project and have been resolved."It's a nonissue," he said.Kehoe said the Cambridge actually had surprisingly few liens for a project of its size. "That's the thing that's the story here," he said.Construction is about done, and Kehoe says
Auto Layoffs in Oregon 2008-02-29 00:20:11 237 people have been laid-off from a Eugene call center.Semperian is a subsidiary of GMAC, the financing arm of auto maker General Motors. They announced the layoffs today.Layoffs were a direct result of fewer people buying cars in the U.S. Read more:Oregon
De-spon-dent 2008-02-28 18:57:36 Despairing, Desperate, Hopeless. Having lost all or nearly all hope. Implies a deep dejection arising from a conviction of the uselessness of further effort.Used in a sentence: Portland Realtors are starting to feel despondent.Portland Realtors/bloggers are having a meetup…AND I WAS INVITED!!! Possibly the result of a mass mailing gone wrong. If you want to attend click here.
You'd Have To Be In A Cave Somewhere Not To Realize That The Economy Is Slowing Down 2008-02-28 09:53:15 From the Oregonian:A housing and retail development meant to revitalize a once-seedy stretch of East Burnside Street seems to have stalled, the latest victim of a downturn in the construction market and broader economy.On Wednesday, the Portland Development Commission voted not to renew a memorandum of understanding with Opus Northwest, picked in 2005 to develop the Burnside Bridgehead project.Instead, PDC staff will spend the next 30 to 60 days trying to figure out how to salvage a project that has taken years of work and piles of money but attracted little interest from possible tenants."You'd have to be in a cave somewhere not to realize that the economy is slowing down," said John Bartell, Opus Northwest vice president. "Everybody that we've talked to is just sitting and waiting."The c Read more:Realize
, Slowing
, Somewhere
More Bend Layoffs Could Occur 2008-02-27 14:13:15 From the Bend Bulletin:The top official at Central Oregon’s division of Knife River Corp. said Tuesday that the excavation company has laid off 15 percent of its work force since November and that more staff cuts could occur.The layoffs, which amount to 70 to 75 of Knife River’s 465 jobs, are all due to market conditions, primarily a slowdown in housing construction, said Hap Taylor, the president of Knife River, which is a subsidiary of Bismarck, N.D.-based MDU Resources Group Inc.The company sent a letter to its employees last week saying more cuts were possible.“There might be further layoffs,” Taylor said. “It’s all economy-related and has been happening pretty much everywhere we have a business. Every company is going through the same problems.”Taylor is the former owner Read more:Occur
December S&P Case-Shiller Index 2008-02-27 09:13:45 The S&P Case-ShillerIndex
is based on observed changes in home prices. It is designed to measure the increases or decreases in the market value of residential real estate.For each home sale transaction, a search is conducted to find information regarding any previous sale for the same house. If an earlier transaction is found, the two transactions are paired and are considered a “repeat sale.” Sales pairs are designed to yield the price change for the same house, while holding the quality and size of each house constant.Sales pairs from the following counties are included in the Portland index: Clackamas, Columbia, Multnomah, Washington, Yamhill, Clark (WA), and Skamania (WA).The first graph shows the year over year changes for the month of December
2007. The index consists of 20
Good Luck With This One. 2008-02-26 20:11:37 From the Columbian:An east Vancouver residential complex is being converted from apartments to condominiums, according to its owner, Portland-based Ironwood Partners LLC.The two- and three-bedroom condos in the 60-unit complex will sell for $148,000 to $165,900.The Evergeen East condos are on the west side of Northeast 157th Avenue, about one block north of Mill Plain Boulevard and near the Columbia Tech Center business park.They must have found a niche that the 17 months of inventory were ignoring. Read more:Good Luck
Reality Still Hasn't Hit Bend Builders 2008-02-26 17:43:53 From the Bend Bulletin:Central Oregon’s real estate market has cooled, but it won’t likely reach the depths of 1986, according to one longtime builder who says a diverse approach will steer his company through the slowdown.That’s when the city of Redmond issued only a handful of commercial and residential building permits throughout the entire year, according to the city’s building department.“It was dead, very dead,” said Steve Buettner, president of SunWest Builders
Development LLC.This could be the year that some of the region’s smaller subcontractors — who can’t find enough business — go out of business, he said.“Some dropoff is OK,” he said. “In the boom times, everyone jumps into it, including some of those who shouldn’t. Those (lower-quality builders) wil
Oregon Economy Sheds Construction Jobs 2008-02-26 16:04:20 From the Oregon
ian:Monthly state figures released Monday showed Oregon lost 5,900 construction jobs last month when a winter drop of 3,700 would have been normal. Seasonally adjusted construction employment stood at 98,500 jobs in January -- the first month below 100,000 since March 2006.The national housing crisis appears to have caught up with Oregon, hitting construction workers especially hard. "The economy's slowing," said Dae Baek, deputy state economist, "so despite better affordability of houses, the potential buyers are dwindling."Building permits, which provide a view into the near future, have plunged. Permits for privately owned housing units halved from December 2005 to December 2007,dropping from 2,181 to 1,093, said economist Timothy Duy, University of Oregonadjunct assistan Read more:Construction
, Sheds
December Case-Shiller Numbers 2008-02-26 10:16:47 According to the Case-Shiller
Index Portland home prices were up 1.2% in December
2007 when compared to December 2006 home prices.I'll update my graphs for you tonight... Read more:Numbers
Largest Net Loss Of Jobs Since End Of Recession In '03 2008-02-25 21:16:40 From OPB:Oregon suffered more job losses than job gains in the second quarter of last year.About 105,000 jobs were lost last spring because of bankruptcies or business slowdowns. During the same time, about 101,000 jobs were gained -- by growth and business start-ups.The loss, however, is the first since the tail end of the last recession in 2003. But state economist, Art Ayre, isn’t worried.Art Ayre: “I think it is probably is just a blip. If we look at another data series that’s more current it shows continued job growth. But back in the first quarter of 2007, things were very weak and that’s showing up in these numbers.”Ayre says he has only just got access to a new mine of data.The numbers give him insight into the boom period of the mid-90s, the recession of the early 2000s, Read more:Largest
, Recession
Have You Noticed A Shift In The Local Conversation? 2008-02-25 16:01:32 On Saturday I took a walk from Willamette Park to the So What district. Along the way I heard a few comments about the condo market.I overheard a bicyclist telling his riding partner that developers ‘think there is endless demand for those condos’. Then while walking around the So What district I overheard a woman exclaim to her husband, 'Wait! They’re building more?’, about the Mirabella retirement building.Have you noticed a shift in the local conversation? I sure have. Read more:Conversation
, Local
, Shift
Need Office Space? Bend Has Some Available 2008-02-25 09:38:40 From the Bend Bulletin:When Chemica Technologies, a Bend-based biotech research firm, pulled up stakes and moved to Portland last year, the managers at Grace Bio-Labs didn’t hesitate.Grace, a maker of patented labware for the molecular study of cells, was about to burst out of its space on Empire Avenue, Business Development Director Michelle Carney said. So it bought the building that Chemica left on west Bend’s Cyber Drive, complete with built-out lab space and offices.Now Grace Bio-Labs, which has been in Central Oregon since 1986, has 2½ times more space for its 17 employees, with room to build out further.“It’s very well suited to what we do,” Carney said.“So it was just a matter of being in the right place at the right time and having the right connections that we found Read more:Space
January Neighborhood Summary 2008-03-12 14:20:16 Here is my next project; assembling data for the Portland neighborhoods. This graph shows the median sale price using a three-month moving average .I’ll work on adding more specific data for each neighborhood…stay tuned. Read more:January
, Neighborhood
, Summary
Oregon Coast Real Estate Freezes Up 2008-03-12 12:21:59 From the Oregon
ain:When Sharon and Ray Sinclair listed their little ocean view house in Yachats for sale in May 2006, they assumed it would sell in a flash. Or, as Ray Sinclair puts it, "Poof. That's what we expected."But in six months, only three people asked to see the house. The couple dropped the price from $599,900 to $575,000 and took over showing it themselves, hosting open houses five days a week.They lowered the price again, this time to $539,000. And still, it didn't sell.Finally, on one of many sleepless nights, Sinclair devised a plan. In January, he announced an essay contest to win his house. Pay $200, write 100 words -- and you could be the lucky dreamer to walk away with the deed to a three-bedroom, two-bathroom house right across the street from the Pacific Ocean."This is Read more:Coast
, Estate
, Real Estate
You Haven't Seen Green Yet 2008-03-11 17:20:32 From the DCJ:Last year, the Regional Multiple Listing Service became the first MLS in the country to indicate "green certification" for realtors. Basically, it creates a searchable datatbase for realtors looking for "green properties.""Only our Realtor-subscribers have the tools and knowledge to narrow down the more than 14,000 active listings in the Portland metro area and help buyers find their green home," RMLS CEO Beth Murphy said in a release.Clearly, as the market expands for this sort of niche, the gatekeepers of real estate (aka realtors) will have to stay on top of all the emerging markets. Especially, here in oregon, the green market. Realtors can also become green certified. What sort of rigorous training and education does a Realtor need in order to become ‘green certified’ Read more:Green
, Haven
Buena Vista Second Auction Results 2008-03-10 20:40:30 From KGW:A local builder known for their contributions to charity auctioned dozens more homes over the weekend.BuenaVista
Custom Homes offered 52 of its new houses for auction at the Ambridge event center in Portland Saturday.The 36 homes that sold went for a combined $10 million.Many who won bidding wars paid thousands less than the home's appraised value.“It wasn't as hard as we thought it was going to be, you just have to pre-qualify, and hope that nobody bids higher than you,” new homeowner Sandy Blackburn said.In December, the company auctioned off 141 homes for more than $65 million. Read more:Auction
, Second
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