“At the end of the day…” “The bottom line…” “When all is said and done…”

The final verdict on whether any activity is ultimately deemed a triumph comes down to how successfully it addresses future circumstances. It’s especially relevant when you find yourself at the outset of searching for a new Portland home.

That’s not always as easy as you might think. The pressures of the moment (especially when the change of residence is mandated by outside factors—like a job transfer or quickly approaching school registration deadline)—can loom so large that when you find a house that’s perfect for the family now, second thoughts about the distant future don’t even surface.

Better idea: before you even start, take a breath! The search for your new home in Portland will ultimately be much more successful when you start out with an unhurried appraisal of your family’s requirements, not only as they are in the immediate future, but further downstream as well.

To accomplish that, the first order of business is to make as good an approximation as you can of the likely longevity of your family’s […]

If you are preparing to sell your property in Portland this fall, it’s worth considering what the marketing angle will be: how to characterize it most accurately—and appealingly. It starts with the choice of wording for your home’s property type, which will set up prospective buyers’ expectations before they come upon the more detailed description.

Cottage or Bungalow This property description instantly conjures up images of a small, cozy, picturesque Portland property. Buyers attracted to a cottage are likely to appreciate features that indicate economy and efficiency. The marketing message can emphasize practicality and the charms of a compact, tidy, easily maintained living space.

Penthouse This type of condo or co-op once indicated position on the upper floor of a tall building, usually set back from the outer walls—but today, any top floor unit can be considered a penthouse. Buyers attracted to penthouse living are luxury-minded: in the market for the best of the best. Marketing materials should emphasize luxury additions and upscale neighborhood features: everything that sets the property above the crowd. If your penthouse has a great view, it might be […]

Owning rental homes in Portland may be a profitable venture, but sometimes the image of a landlord could use a little public relations boost. For instance, the cartoon version of a landlord is the opposite of pet-friendly. Lassie or Puff? Fuhgeddaboudit!

That parody landlord attitude might once have been pretty much on target—even in rental homes in Portland—because many landlords have traditionally been automatically against pet ownership in their local rental homes.

The legit reasons to exercise caution are real enough. Possible stains on carpets, scratched hardwood floors or doors, improperly disposed kitty litter clogging plumbing, dogs barking all day while the tenant is at work—all that can happen. Despite the bad press, though, today’s landlord is much more likely to recognize the benefits that argue for opening their rental homes to pet-doting tenants:

1. Reduced Vacancy Rates

The numbers are undeniable. There is the group of potential tenants with pets, and those without. When a rental is open to pets, the applicant pool includes…well, everyone! More prospective interested tenants decreases the likely downtime for the investment—and the difference hits the bottom line.

2. Higher Quality […]

When you are selling a home in Portland, two underlying unknowns are always present. How long it will take? Is one. The second is what will the final selling price be?

The answer to that second one at least partially depends on actions the person selling the home controls, since performing renovations and add-ons boosts a property’s salability. But which renovations add the most value? Even though considerable study has been given to the issue, for any given home it’s difficult to pin down which are most likely to have the greatest impact.

Even so, some general observations are widely accepted:

ITEM: Some kinds of renovations show a much higher return than others. Replacing a traditional entry door with a steel door, for instance, often generates about a 100% return on the investment. A sunroom addition, on the other hand, is likely to result in closer to a 50% return when the home is sold. The web site remodeling.com presents national averages tabulated each year.

ITEM: The old focus on “location, location, location” applies to improvements, too. Selling a home in different areas of the […]

Even though nearly 9 out of 10 homeowners ultimately enlist a real estate agent to sell their properties, let’s face it: the thought of going it alone does go through many minds. And surveys confirm the primary motivation, which is, of course, saving the agent’s fee. Pocketing that cash would add that much more to the bottom line—that’s just common sense! Isn’t it…?

What makes sense in theory doesn’t always work out that way in the actual marketplace—in fact, the probabilities actually point in the opposite direction. The verified financial analyses tell the tale—the average sales price for real estate agent-assisted sales are so much higher than “For Sale by Owner” sales that the percentages favor the real estate agent choice: last month’s updated statistics listed the difference at more than $40,000.

Going it alone can be even more costly in other ways. Selling a house yourself is a time-consuming affair—particularly if you are having to organize all the processes from the ground up. Not only do you have to do all the initial legwork to create and manage the entire marketing and […]

When you are selling a home in Portland, two underlying unknowns are always present. How long it will take? Is one. The second is what will the final selling price be?

The answer to that second one at least partially depends on actions the person selling the home controls, since performing renovations and add-ons boosts a property’s salability. But which renovations add the most value? Even though considerable study has been given to the issue, for any given home it’s difficult to pin down which are most likely to have the greatest impact.

Even so, some general observations are widely accepted:

ITEM: Some kinds of renovations show a much higher return than others. Replacing a traditional entry door with a steel door, for instance, often generates about a 100% return on the investment. A sunroom addition, on the other hand, is likely to result in closer to a 50% return when the home is sold. The web site remodeling.com presents national averages tabulated each year.

ITEM: The old focus on “location, location, location” applies to improvements, too. Selling a home in different areas of the […]

If you have been doing groundwork with an eye toward investing in Portland real estate, chances are you’ve also been watching some new national movement in housing sales. Last month’s Real Trends Housing Market Report showed U.S. sales of 5,880,000 units (a 5.1% increase over June 2013 numbers): “a substantial improvement over the five prior months.” Prices also continued to rise across most of the nation, though at a slightly slower rate. It’s the consistency of the appreciation that has continued to attract investors.

Those investors are drawn for differing reasons—since investing in real estate in Portland can advance a variety of financial strategies. For investors who purchase residences in order to rehab and flip, any continuation of price appreciation and rising sales volume is encouraging news. For others who plan to hold long term to maximize rental income potential, still low mortgage rates continue to undergird a historically attractive environment.

Whether investing in Portland real estate becomes the high point of a portfolio or a footnote depends on such a wide variety of factors that entire books continue to be written about […]

When the American Institute of Architects reports on emerging trends, sooner or later they’ll be showing up in the Portland listings. That’s been true of one trend the AIA started reporting in 2010: the move to ever-larger square footages.

But now a more interesting finding is developing. It’s one of the principal findings in the AIA’s 2014 Home Design Trends Survey—one that falls into the category of “emerging home characteristics”—one likely to become more commonplace in coming years. Combining several different attributes, it is best summarized by the single term “accessibility.”

“Residential architects report that the most significant trend in home layouts is improving accessibility,” writes Kermit Baker, the AIA’s Chief Economist. With a large segment of the population reaching retirement age and beyond, concern about the physical demands of daily living concerns more and more homeowners. Predictably, baby boomers will prefer to remain in their own homes as long as possible, creating both a huge market for remodeling design ideas that increase ease of use without losing attractiveness, and a resale market for the homes thus improved.

Almost two-thirds of responding architects report […]

A crucial part of selling your Portland home comes right at the outset—when you set your asking price. It boils down to a decision to go high (the I-love-this-place-and-gotta-have-it-no-matter-what price); or low, with a number that is just under neighborhood comparables (the I’d-better-snap-this-up-before-someone-else-does price).

Success in selling your home quickly is commonly understood to correspond with the lower price strategy, it’s true. But are there ever reasons why you would want to set a price that’s significantly higher than your neighborhood usually commands? Is there EVER a right time?

Although the common wisdom for selling your home is a pretty firm ‘NEVER!’—but there might be some possible exceptions. When might it be reasonable to ‘test the market’? Here are a few:

No true comparables. If you have a Portland home that’s verifiably one of a kind in the area, comparisons based on size, number of bedrooms and baths might be misleading. In such a case, it’s important that the differences be blatant—obvious to everyone—because banks and other lenders are likely to need considerable persuading, “Comps” are easy to justify, which is why they are […]