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Where Home Prices Are ‘Starting at $115 Million’

I’ll admit it: the tease was irresistible. There was no good reason why I should take the time to read on, even though it was near the top of the Wall Street Journal’s Real Estate section. This was not likely to be the kind of relevant background information that would be useful in my daily Portland real estate dealings.

But the tease was not something I could just skim past and forget. The words were dangling there on the screen; almost a dare:

“Where Home Prices Start at $115 Million.”

It wasn’t just the $115,000,000 home price that aroused curiosity. After all, this was the WSJ Real Estate section—where there are almost always stories about properties somewhere or other in the world with asking prices that numb the mind. It was the idea that there could actually be anywhere on Planet Earth where home prices start north of one hundred million!

Think of what the comparables reports […]

2015-11-09T23:27:11+00:00
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Real Estate Best Sellers

When it comes to understanding the factors that come into play when buying or selling a home—or any practical real estate information at all—Portland high school (or even college) graduates are on their own. If any real estate information has even been touched upon, it will have been in the most cursory manner: at best, one line item in a Home Economics budgeting discussion.

That’s one reason why everyone from first time Portland metro homebuyers to itinerant real estate investors can benefit from the best of today’s how-to real estate books. Here are some of the popular oldies—as well as some valuable newcomers:

100 Questions Every First Time Home Buyer Should Ask is Ilyce Glink’s compilation of insights from top brokers across the country. First time buyers aren’t the only readers who will find this general reference valuable—Portland home sellers who want insight into the concerns of potential buyers will find it a useful resource. The “100 Questions” don’t address every Portland metro real estate information topic; but on the whole, this book is concise and […]

2015-11-05T05:17:52+00:00
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Know the Emotional Element in Selling Your Portland Home

When you read up on the dos and don’ts for selling your home, there is one piece of advice that’s universal when it comes to negotiating a successful deal: don’t let emotions get in the way. It does seem peculiar that something that is so obvious about any negotiation would have to be stated at all—much less repeated so often. You have to conclude that it happens a lot.

It does, and there are deep-seated reasons. Although selling your home is primarily a business venture, it’s one with some of the emotional overtones usually associated with creative endeavors. When an artist or sculptor, jewelry designer or photographer—any creative professional—decides to offer works for sale to the public, it’s nearly impossible for him or her to remain completely objective about how it is received. Or to avoid forming feelings about those who accept or reject the creation.

Selling your Portland metro home only seems to be all business. True, it’s a single-transaction enterprise. It begins with preparing the property, and concludes with negotiating […]

2015-10-28T22:54:30+00:00
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Portland Open Houses

More than one Portland home sale has resulted from a couple’s chance encounter with an open house. It still happens that they just drop in on the spur of the moment.

“Oh look! They’re having an open house down the street!” turns into curiosity, then interest, excitement—and ultimately, a life-altering change in the place they call home.

Today that still happens, but a good deal less frequently than in the past. Part of the reason is the demotion of the open house in the pecking order of Portland real estate strategies. At this point, a local open house is simply never the central element in a home’s marketing blitz. The web has seen to that.

Let’s face it: if you can visit any listed home via its online virtual tour, the whole idea is that it requires a fraction of the time and effort an in-person visit takes. A home’s virtual tour is where you’ll head first. If you are aware […]

2015-10-22T23:17:37+00:00
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Bottom Line Impact of Portland Metro Area Mortgage Interest Rate Shifts

If you begin a search for a new home by going online to check out Portland Area listings, it’s likely that one of the first search criteria you enter will be the price range. After all, unless you are a virtual looky-loo who is just checking out how the other half lives, your budget will dictate which homes you seriously consider. If you are one of the more than two-thirds of us who will be counting on a loan to help finance that home purchase, the monthly payment amount is really what matters.

That’s why you don’t have to be a dedicated number-cruncher to be keenly interested in the direction Portland Metro mortgage interest rates are going to head. In fact, if you aren’t one of those whose idea of a good time includes working out spreadsheet calculations, it probably came as a shock the first time you realized how big a deal it is when mortgage interest rates notch up or down even a single percentage point. If you’ve never really dug in to look at the numbers, you might want […]

2015-09-10T17:37:49+00:00
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A Skilled Portland Metro Appraiser Works in Everyone’s Favor

Mortgage and down paymentA skilled Portland area appraiser provides a service that should help make the buying and selling of a residence a smooth transaction.

‘Should’ is the operative word.

Going back to ancient times, homes have always been ‘real’ when it comes to establishing the amount of money that they are worth. The home’s role as the center of family and community groupings guarantees that it will change hands carefully. When something is so important, ownership does not come about haphazardly—doubly so because of its typically hefty price tag, arrived at after deliberation and scrutiny from buyer and seller alike.

Every home that is sold in Portland today should be a shining example of the efficiency (and fairness) of our free market. As a mechanism for determining the value of a good, the home buying system is without equal, since buyer and seller both have to agree on a price.

That’s where having an expert Portland Metro appraiser comes in. An appraiser (not to be confused with a home inspector, who reports on the […]

2015-08-26T00:03:42+00:00
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Mapping Out the Real Costs of Building a New Home in Portland

If you are considering buying a new home in the Portland Metro Area, it might have occurred to you that building your own could be another option. Even if you aren’t one who has always dreamed of designing your own new home with exactly the features you want (and none you don’t), the idea might seem worth exploring—particularly when the reasonable asking prices for some of today’s Portland area “land-only” listings make for tempting daydreaming…

The fact is, few have actually mapped out the cost of building their own new Portland home for a number of reasons. The most obvious one is that to project anything like an accurate cost, you would have to know its features—in other words, design it (or have it designed). But short of hiring an architect, you can begin to appraise some of the major cost considerations to factor in when building a new home:

  • Once you have selected a local contractor, you will find yourself asking him for an estimate of today’s average price per square foot. That will only be useful for a ballpark estimate (certainly […]
2015-08-21T17:36:39+00:00
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No Roadmaps Guarantee Portland Area Real Estate Agent’s Success

There is an interesting theory about why some Portland Metro real estate agents complete so many more home purchases than do others. It isn’t that ‘success breeds success’ (although the thing we call “momentum” is certainly real enough). It has to do with being able to harness two somewhat opposing character traits.

In any business, there seldom seem to be any irrefutable rules that guarantee prosperity. Since that’s the case, it’s odd that there are so many best-sellers proclaiming roadmaps to success. If all those books were simply rip-offs, you would think they’d quickly develop a backlash (which would kill the market for books about succeeding in business).

I’d be willing to bet that the answer lies in the commitment it takes to buy AND read the book in the first place. If you don’t finish it, you feel guilty enough that you won’t blame the author. If you do finish the book, you probably already possess the energy and stick-to-it-ness that means you’re more likely to succeed in the first place.

That self-validating quality applies to Portland real estate agents—and most of us […]

2015-08-18T21:39:23+00:00
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In the Real World, Selling Your Portland Metro Property is a Balancing Act

In a theoretically perfect world, before you set about selling your Portland Area home, you would have emptied it of all evidence of human habitation, called in the best staging pros on the planet, and set off to vacation in a Caribbean island spa-hotel so you could sift through the dozens of above-asking offers in comfort from the beach.Caribbean-Beach-13-Wallpaper-HD

“Let’s see,” you would soon be musing, sipping your mimosa as you thumbed through the pile of offers from your Portland agent; “should I accept this all-cash offer for 150% of comparable value—or hold out for this one for 200% of comp that came in with only 50% earnest money…?”

It is here where it might be best to depart from this reverie to point out that in this less-than-perfect world (the one that we actually live in) the more probable situation is one where your home is fully occupied, either by your family or a tenant.

How do you make the most of that mimosa-less situation? If you and your family are the occupants, your Portland […]

2015-08-04T23:41:58+00:00
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Island Homes for Sale at Fire Sale Prices (just not here in Portland)

imagesThe good news is, yes, you read that headline correctly: there are drop-dead gorgeous oceanfront island vacation homes on sale for you right now—this summer! The bad news, however, (depending on your vacation and travel plans) is that these homes for sale aren’t as convenient (geographically speaking) as some others.

They are in Greece. There’s always a catch, isn’t there?

CNNmoney’s website reported last week that the recent escalation in Greece’s financial trouble has produced a notable increase of interest from foreign investors.  Reports indicate that prices are discounted anywhere from 30% in the most popular islands to as much as 50% in less relaxing places. Like Athens.

Alexandros Moulas, who is an Athens-based associate at the global property firm Savills, says that buyers are mostly from Europe, but also the Middle East and Asia. So why not add Pacific Northwest buyers to the pack? We like vacation homes, too!

There are reasons why Portland locals might consider a Greek investment property, aside from the travel benefits. A Greek island home, for example, can be a […]

2015-07-22T23:48:35+00:00
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