Real Estate

Neighborhoods by the Numbers

Fri, 22 Mar 2013 11:31:00 -0700

Check back at the beginning of April to access our brand-new interactive listings of Portland’s neighborhoods and suburbs.

Image: Stuart Mullenberg

Portland's Hottest Microhoods

A look inside Portland's hottest nano-size neighborhoods and the trends driving our real estate market.

Image: Stuart Mullenberg

Portland's Current Market Trends

The major movements within Portland's real estate market, from cash purchases to sustainable mixed-use developments.

Rental Market Madness

If you're frustrated by trying to find a place in today's rental market, you're not alone.

Approved residential permit data provided by Construction Monitor. Maps built by Metro's Data Resource Center.

Real Estate Growth Map

Portland's residential development over the past three years.

Portland's Hottest Microhoods

Fri, 22 Mar 2013 08:00:00 -0700

Image: Stuart Mullenberg

Forget gray hairs. Over the past few years, real estate has given us wrinkles. Falling home prices, rising foreclosures rates, and painfully long market times all etched lines into our continuously furrowed brows. But finally, finally, we get something to give us a grin. Prices in Portland are up 6 percent over last year, home sales are up 20 percent, and time on the market is down to 64 days (two weeks less than in 2011), according to the Regional Multiple Listing Service. In a joint-produced 2013 real estate report, the Urban Land Institute and Pricewaterhouse Coopers put Portland in the country’s top 20 markets to watch. Of course, we remain well shy of Portland’s peak median price of $302,000 in 2007 (in 2012, the median was $249,900), but our low inventory could help improve things.

Portland’s home inventory supply at the beginning of 2012 sat at seven or eight months. Today it’s hovering around three, meaning the market meter’s arrow has moved from the buyers’ favor to sellers’. That led to an “adjustment” for clients intially, says Keller Williams principal broker Nick Krautter. “We had to counsel them that what had been happening for five years really just wasn’t happening anymore,” he says.

One rule that still applies: the “location location location” adage. But it has changed. The 20-minute neighborhood (the idea that people want places to shop, eat, drink, and recreate within easy walking or biking distance) has, in some places, shrunk as the artisan craft movement that’s spawned so many nano–coffee roasters, brewers, furniture makers, and designers extends to neighborhoods, too. The result: a kind of “microhood”—attractive pockets of retail and residential that appeal to a particular set of interests or values, like SE Division Street’s culinary cachet or N Williams Avenue’s bike appeal. “It’s not that other cities aren’t doing these things,” notes Matthew Gebherdt, an assistant professor in Portland State University’s real estate program, “but in Portland it’s kind of a status symbol.”

In this year’s real estate feature, we spoke to agents, developers, lenders, and appraisers to identify and explore seven such microhoods and to dig into the trends pushing our housing market ever so slowly toward recovery. After all, if real estate is going to give us wrinkles, we’d just as soon they were smile lines.

North Pearl & Slabtown • North Williams Avenue
Dekum Triangle • SE Division Street • NE 42nd Corridor
Orenco Station • Interstate & Killingsworth

Real Estate Growth Map • Current Market Trends • Rental Market Madness

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Image: Stuart Mullenberg

PEARL & NORTHWEST NEIGHBORHOODS

North Pearl and Slabtown | North of NW Northrup Street and west to 23rd Avenue

Median Home Price: $376,650 | $390,000
Average Days On Market: 145 | 85
Inventory Supply*: 3.6 months | 2.5

Boomers looking to downsize flooded the Pearl’s early market, attracted by handy transit options, proximity to performance venues, and chic, sleek condos. But as the gleaming, glass-fronted buildings march ever northward, the Pearl’s landscape has become increasingly attractive to citizens less, shall we say, seasoned. For example, the Ramona Apartments, which debuted in 2011 as one of the Pearl’s first experiments in family-oriented housing with its own school and affordable rents, now boasts children—most under 10—in more than half of its 138 units. The completion of the Fields Park at Overton and 10th gives condo-bound youngsters a place to somersault out their Saint Cupcake highs, while Childpeace Montessori offers another educational option, and a growing number of restaurants (Breken Kitchen, Olympic Provisions NW, and the Bent Brick) give Mom and Dad plenty of ways to tap into Portland’s culinary scene without having to cross the bridge. And while no one is saying much about new condo development (“I am beginning to at least hear the word again,” notes Phil Morford, founder of Civitas Development), a host of new apartment projects are already well under way. The 179-unit Savier Street Flats opened last month, and both the Parker Apartments at 12th and Pettygrove and Slabtown Flats at 20th and Raleigh have shovels in the ground. The rentals serve a different income level, Ramona developer Ed McNamara points out, which could shift further the area’s demographics. And New Seasons will be right there to serve them: the local chain plans to open its 13th Oregon store at 21st and Raleigh in 2014.

Where you shop: Mio Seafood Market and Safeway

Morning buzz: Smith Teamaker

Date night: Olympic Provisions NW

For the dogs: The Fields Park

Commute time**: 10 minutes on the streetcar

Walkability score: 78 | 66

Schools: Chapman | West Sylvan | Lincoln

Coming soon: New Seasons at 21st and Raleigh in spring 2014

* Inventory supply figures provided by Keller William's Nick Krautter, based on the previous six months of sales.

** All commute times listed are via mass transit to Pioneer Courthouse Square.

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Image: Stuart Mullenberg

BOISE NEIGHBORHOOD

N Williams Avenue | From N Fremont to Shaver Streets

Median home price: $311,000
Average days on market: 35
Inventory supply*: 0.7 months

North Williams plays a different rush hour soundtrack than other parts of the city: the beep of horns, creaking of brakes, and low hum of idling cars that form the melody elsewhere mingle with the whiz of air through bike spokes, the ding-ding of bells, and the occasional “on your left!” Here, traffic is as much about two wheels as four. Up to 4,000 bike commuters pedal this stretch of asphalt daily. It’s not by accident. The once-thriving epicenter of Portland’s African American community was blasted away in the ’50s by a proposed expansion of Emanuel Hospital in the 1970s that never happened, leaving empty blocks. A more recent designation as an Urban Renewal Area filled the void with more than $3.5 million in business loans and grants as incentives for developers and shop owners. Young buyers began flocking to the area’s lower home prices. Jon Kellogg and Thad Fisco’s Adaptive Development planted an early flag of renaissance with “The Hub,” a food-centric collection of shops and eateries that debuted in 2008. Next came Pix Pâtisserie (now Kenny & Zuke’s Deli Bar), the United Bike Institute, and just last spring, the Albert, a 72-unit luxury apartment building at Williams and Beech, which joined new properties like the ecoFlats and Sumner Brownstones. Coming in 2013: New Seasons will open its doors at Fremont and Williams, attracting even more gentrifying buyers hoping to find their own piece of Portland’s two-wheeled pie.

Living Here

Where you shop: Chop Butcher Shop and Whole Foods

Morning buzz: Ristretto Roasters

Date night: The Box Social

For the dogs: Irving City Park

Commute time**: 18 minutes via the no. 44 bus

Walkability score: 69

Schools: Boise-Eliot | Jefferson

Coming soon: New Seasons at Williams and Fremont, 2013

* Inventory supply figures provided by Keller William's Nick Krautter, based on the previous six months of sales.

** All commute times listed are via mass transit to Pioneer Courthouse Square.

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WOODLAWN NEIGHBORHOOD

Dekum Triangle | NE Dekum Street, between Seventh and 13th Avenues

Median Home Price: $249,950
Average Days on Market: 65
Inventory Supply*: 1.5 months

Mark Saldana has a nose for the “Next Big Thing.” One of the founding chefs at popular ¿Por Qué No? on N Mississippi Avenue before it was Hipster Central, Saldana and friends Ryan Wade and Jeffrey Ray dove into reviving the Dekum Street Market building at NE Eighth Avenue in 2006 as Good Neighbor Pizzeria, serving a menu of locally sourced doughy deliciousness. Joined shortly thereafter by Breakside Brewing, Woodlawn Coffee and Pastry, and the lauded Firehouse, the Dekum Triangle has begun to resemble its early-20th-century self. Back then a streetcar delivered Portlanders to a bustling neighborhood hub with its own theater, bakery, and general store adjacent to a Ladd’s Addition–like pattern of axial streets. Invigorated by the wide reach of the Interstate Urban Renewal Area, and first-time buyers who couldn’t afford other parts of the city at the height of the housing boom, Dekum quickly became a Northeast hot spot. But as the housing market waned, so did Dekum’s expansion, according to Jerry Johnson, principal at real estate consultancy firm Johnson Reid, as buyers could find more “investment grade” properties in blue-chip neighborhoods like Laurelhurst and Westmoreland. Now, as Johnson notes, market fundamentals seem to have shifted, which means Dekum looks to be on the rise again.

Living Here

Where you shop: Classic Foods (on first Fridays) and Fred Meyer

Morning buzz: Woodlawn Coffee and Pastry

Date night: Firehouse

For the dogs: Woodlawn Park

Commute time**: 35 minutes on the no. 8 bus

Walkability score: 64

Schools: Woodlawn PK–8 | Jefferson

Coming soon: Still Life Spirits, 2013

* Inventory supply figures provided by Keller William's Nick Krautter, based on the previous six months of sales.

** All commute times listed are via mass transit to Pioneer Courthouse Square.

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Image: Stuart Mullenberg

RICHMOND NEIGHBORHOOD

SE Division Street | From 20th to 50th Avenues

Median home price: $334,000
Average days on market: 37
Inventory supply*: 0.6 months

Division Street residents don’t have to do the dishes as often as the rest of us. With more than 40 restaurants—among them standouts like Pok Pok, Xico, and Ava Gene’s—lining the walkable blocks between 20th and 50th Avenues, residents here could eat out every night for a month without repeating restaurants. The street’s explosion as a foodie nexus, though, is a fairly recent one. It’s been nearly 40 years since then-mayor Neil Goldschmidt and neighborhood residents quashed Robert Moses’s Mount Hood Freeway Plan—which would have paved an eight-lane freeway to the popular peak between SE Division and Clinton Streets. Still, for decades, the commercial district lumbered under the plan’s legacy of restrictive zoning. Then, in 2006, the city rezoned the area neighborhood commercial and mixed-use, helping shops and restaurants sprout anew. Designating Division as a “Main Street” brought frequent-service transit lines (the no. 4 bus comes at least every 15 minutes) and, in an influx of city and federal funds—close to $2.5 million—to help pretty up the streets (think repaving, public art). And then Pok Pok exploded onto the national scene, sparking a chain of culinary development unlike anywhere else in the city. Exhibits A through G: the Woodsman, Cibo, Bar Avignon, Victory, Sunshine Tavern, the Whiskey Soda Lounge, and pie master Lauretta Jean’s. As a result, buying here today is tough, with median home prices soaring over $330,000, and an average time on the market that’s roughly half that of the rest of the city. But a spate of new apartments opening up (See “Kings of Division,” right) makes renting a potential option. Either way, just remember a move here probably means a larger dining budget and a stiffer exercise routine.

Living Here

Where you shop: The Woodsman Market (right) and New Seasons

Morning buzz: The original 1999 Stumptown location

Date night: Ava Gene’s (see Italy, Rocking)

For the dogs: Sewallcrest Park

Commute time**: 20 minutes on bus no. 4

Walkability score: 77

Schools: Abernethy | Hosford | Cleveland

Coming soon: Pok Pok owner Andy Ricker’s new noodle house, spring 2013

* Inventory supply figures provided by Keller William's Nick Krautter, based on the previous six months of sales.

** All commute times listed are via mass transit to Pioneer Courthouse Square.

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Image: Stuart Mullenberg

CULLY NEIGHBORHOOD

NE 42nd Corridor | Near NE 42nd Avenue and Alberta Street

Median home price: $200,000
Average days on market: 62
Inventory supply*: 2.1 months

NE Alberta Street might “end” at 33rd for Last Thursday revelers delighting in the eclectic scene, but for home buyers it’s just beginning. A few blocks up from the Northeast street’s hipsterfied galleries and cafés, at 42nd and Alberta a natty new neighborhood is emerging around Delphina’s Bakery, Rocket Pizza, Doggy Business pet day care, Rose’s Homemade Ice Cream, and coming this summer, the Old Salt Marketplace, a market, deli, and meat counter dreamed up by the trio behind Grain & Gristle. Just up the road, residents can pick up produce from the Cully Neighborhood Farm every Monday and Thursday, or frequent Cully Park, a former gravel pit mine on its way to transformation into a neighborhood green space thanks to a consortium of local businesses and organizations. Families attracted to the area’s large lots, easy access to sprawling Fernhill Park, and two Montessori schools have long adored this pocket of Northeast—as have those seeking green-minded neighbors like Environmental Building Supplies founder Markus Stoffel, who in 2008 completed his 2,000-square-foot net-zero Cully home. But as the housing market has tightened, competition for homes here has, too. Living Room Realty owner Jenelle Isaacson recently fielded a request for a home in the $400,000 range anywhere along the Alberta corridor, west of 60th. “There were zero,” she says. “Not a single home in that market.”

LIVING HERE

Where you shop: Cully Neighborhood Farm and New Seasons

Morning buzz: Delphina’s Bakery

Date night: Karaoke at the Spare Room

For the dogs: Cully and Fernhill Parks

Commute time**: 40 minutes via the no. 75 bus with a transfer to MAX

Walkability score: 39

Schools: Vernon PK-8 | Jefferson/Madison

Coming soon: Old Salt Marketplace, summer 2013

* Inventory supply figures provided by Keller William's Nick Krautter, based on the previous six months of sales.

** All commute times listed are via mass transit to Pioneer Courthouse Square.

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Image: Stuart Mullenberg

HILLSBORO

Orenco Station

Median home price: $201,250
Average days on market: 79
Inventory supply*: 1.6 months

One of the country’s seminal examples of suburban transit-oriented development, Hillsboro’s Orenco Station has been lauded by everyone from former Vice President Al Gore, who visited the mixed-use development in 1998 during the grand opening of the west-side light-rail, to Sunset magazine, which dubbed Orenco America’s Best New Burb in 2005. A 40-minute MAX ride from downtown Portland, and mere minutes from major employment centers Intel and Nike, Orenco’s skinnier streets give it an intimate and walkable feel. The development’s 209 acres include row houses, apartments, condos, one-acre Central Park, retail outlets like New Seasons and Starbucks, and several restaurants. Oh, and did we mention Orenco also hosts the Hillsboro Farmers Market in the summer? Conceived a full decade ahead of what Pricewaterhouse Coopers and the Urban Land Institute now call 2013’s trend of “urbanizing suburban nodes,” Orenco isn’t happy to rest on its nationally lauded laurels. Since the pedestrian-friendly development debuted, Orenco has added two apartment buildings (the Nexus apartments opened in 2007, and the 190-unit Platform14 was pre-leasing apartments as this hit the printer), drop-in child care (WeVillage opened its second Portland-area location here in 2012), and a Bishops Barbershop, among other retail. And there’s more on the way: while Intel builds its new fabrication centers on one side of Cornell Road, on the other Orenco will add the 45-unit Alma Gardens, an affordable housing building for seniors, and Holland Partners should complete the 304-unit Wrap Apartments by May 2014.

Where you shop: Renaissance Premium Wines and New Seasons
Morning buzz: Starbucks
Date night: Yuki Sushi & Saki Bar
For the dogs: Central Park
Commute time**: 40 minutes aboard the Blue Line
Walkability score: 51
Schools: Orenco/Quatama | Evergreen/Poynter | Liberty
Coming soon: The 304-unit Wrap Apartments, May 2014

* Inventory supply figures provided by Keller William's Nick Krautter, based on the previous six months of sales.

** All commute times listed are via mass transit to Pioneer Courthouse Square.

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Image: Stuart Mullenberg

HUMBOLDT & OVERLOOK NEIGHBORHOODS

Interstate & Killingsworth | From N Overlook to Ainsworth Streets and east to Albina Avenue

Median home price: $311,000 (Humboldt) $262,000 (Overlook)
Average days on market: 58 | 46
Inventory supply*: 1.2 months | 1.7

A one-time automobile arterial—it was part of the route from Portland to Seattle—N Interstate Avenue owes its renaissance to another form of transportation: light-rail. Spurred by the launch of the Yellow Line in 2004, Interstate soon saw some of its shabby-but-not-so-chic roadside motels ripped out and replaced with new shops and services. There’s still plenty of neon, but now it’s joined by Stumptown Coffee (at Black Cat Café and Pub), arguably the city’s best buffalo wings (Fire on the Mountain), and affordable housing (the Prescott Project, a 155-unit apartment building slated to open in early 2014). Young couples and families (as well as workers at the nearby Adidas HQ) flocked here in the early ’00s ... and continue to. “The target market for the [Corso] apartments will be households aged from 20 to 40 years old, earning between $25,000 and $75,000 per year,” states real estate consultancy firm Johnson Reid’s 2011 market analysis for the Corso Apartments, currently under construction at Interstate and Sumner. As Interstate’s cool quotient has grown, so too have pocket communities along its edges. To wit: Albina and Sumner, where so-good-and-so-secret-we-don’t-want-to-tell-you bakery Sweedeedee, Cherry Sprout Produce, Red Fox Bar, Mississippi Records, and the Portland Modern Art Museum all hum in hipster harmony. But if you want a ticket on the NoPo train, you’ve got to be quick. Inventory is under two months, reports real estate agent Nick Krautter of Keller Williams. That’s partly because the neighborhood, with its quaint Craftsmans, large lots, and picturesque sunset views, is so small. But it’s also because of what a 15-minute ride from downtown on the Yellow Line delivers you to: two grocery stores, a developing food scene, and more house for your money than in many other parts of the city. Better find your way fast.

Living Here

Image: Stuart Mullenberg

Where you shop: Overlook Farmers Market (May–Oct) and New Seasons
Morning buzz: Sweedeedee
Date night: Miho
For the dogs: Overlook Park
Commute time**: 20 minutes on the Yellow Line MAX
Walkability score: 73 | 34
Schools: Beach PK–8 | Jefferson
Coming soon: Three new apartment projects arrive this year: the 155-unit Prescott Project, the 46-unit Corso, and the chic 30-unit Jarrett Street Lofts.

* Inventory supply figures provided by Keller William's Nick Krautter, based on the previous six months of sales.
** All commute times listed are via mass transit to Pioneer Courthouse Square.

Rental Market Madness

Fri, 22 Mar 2013 08:00:00 -0700

Goodbye, Craigslist

IN THE RENT-CONTROLLED Big Apple, where vacancy rates regularly dip below 2 percent, and competition for the city’s apartments verges on all-out warfare, employing a leasing agent to hunt down a rental is about the only way to ensure you score a dream (or at least cockroach-free) apartment. With similarly low vacancy rates here, it was only a matter of time before the practice arrived in Portland. “We’ve found the need and request for rental location service to be increasing as the rental market continues to be competitive,” says Jenelle Isaacson, founder of the fast-growing firm Living Room Realty. So the firm, along with a few others, began offering “relocation services.” For a $500 deposit (applied toward your total fee—one month’s rent once you find an apartment) a Living Room agent will research, preview, and photograph potential properties for you. Goodbye, Craigslist. Hello, home.

The only thing tougher than buying a home in Portland right now might be trying to rent one. With citywide vacancy rates hovering at or under 3 percent (among the lowest in the nation), “competitive” doesn’t quite do the situation justice. Some tenants are offering larger deposits—or in some cases slightly higher rent—to make themselves more attractive, according to the Community Alliance of Tenants. “The market has been tight because it’s been a long time since anyone’s built rentals,” explains Jerry Johnson, principal at Portland real estate consultancy firm Johnson Reid. Mix in former homeowners out on their keisters after foreclosure with poor prospects for buying another home any time soon, and you’ve got a recipe for a rental market so tight it’s practically vacuum-sealed.

As demand has risen, of course, so have rents—generally about 7 percent a year since 2010, according to Metro Multifamily Housing Association’s fall 2012 apartment report. Some tenants—particularly those in studios—have even seen a 30 percent increase over the past two years. “When some of the jobs started coming back, there was a pent-up shortage of rent increases, and everybody took their jumps as quickly as they could,” says Mark Skelte, owner of Western Realty Advisors. Today, you can expect to pay around $938 for a one-bedroom in the city, although price-per-square-foot rates vary wildly between neighborhoods and new versus older properties. Skelte and others predict rents will continue to increase moderately over the next couple of years, but the increase could slow as many of the current apartment projects being built throughout the city come online. Between 6,000 and 10,000 units are planned or proposed for development in the next year or so, according to the MMHA and Johnson, including about 1,100 affordable housing units backed by the Portland Housing Bureau. Notes Johnson: “They’ll build until rents stop increasing and vacancy gets up over 5 percent.”

Vacancy and rent information courtesy of Norris, Beggs & Simpson’s Fourth Quarter 2012 Multifamily Report. Vice president Robert Black notes that fourth quarter vacancy rates tend to be higher than the rest of the year since few people move in the winter. He also points out that the seasoned rental rates reflect a wide range of properties and accompanying rates. For instance, the older rentals east of 82nd Avenue generally maintain rates lower than buildings of the same age in a more close-in location.

Portland's Hottest Microhoods • Real Estate Growth Map
Current Market Trends • Rental Market Madness

Keep Portland Free(er)

Fri, 22 Mar 2013 08:00:00 -0700

Local architects Joann Le and David Horsley design a lot like their firm’s name, Dao, suggests: they seek an ineffable harmony with nature.

In the case of the tiny Irvington house we profile, their efforts replaced an old, dilapidated garage with a simple, elegant, 950-square-foot home so reserved in its subtle interplay of wood, glass, plants, and steel, it is barely noticeable from the street. So it comes as a lucky irony that Dao got its city permit to build only weeks before the neighborhood became the Irvington Historic District; otherwise the quiet little home would have had to meet a city bureaucrat or committee’s definition of “compatible” with its neighbors.

Initiated by Irvington property owner Mary Piper, Portland’s newest national historic district is also its largest. Now anyone who owns property on these 170 city blocks must have any visible change—from building a new dormer to installing more energy-efficient windows—reviewed for its historical accuracy or compatibility. And, for the privilege, they get to pay fees running anywhere from $900 to over $2,000.

Did all of the property owners agree? Not quite. But to block the historic district, over 50 percent would have had to formally disagree—with notarized letters. Irvington follows Northwest Portland’s 50-plus-block “Alphabet District.” If a group of Buckman preservationists succeed, 67 blocks of Southeast could be next.

Registering a historic district used to be a powerful tool for preserving—and, often, economically jump-starting—important buildings and small, architecturally distinct neighborhoods. The Pearl District, for instance, might be a very different place were it not for the 13th Avenue Historic District. Established in 1987, it helped protect the old industrial quarter’s august masonry warehouses and provided tax incentives for renovations. But in total, that district covered just 20 buildings—a surgical strike in the name of preservation. The Irvington district’s regulation of more than 2,800 structures is a carpet-bombing aimed at preventing growth and change. In March, the Portland City Council loosened the regulations. (Now, for instance, you can paint your house without a review.) But the larger issue of a few well-organized homeowners imposing stylistic restrictions on wide swaths of the city stands.

For sure, it’s an unsettling time for Portland’s neighborhoods, with every third block seemingly growing a new apartment complex (usually without parking). But older buildings aren’t necessarily great buildings, and even when they are, who says they are automatically degraded by something new next door? Period styles, high craft, smaller scale, and aged patina of old neighborhoods can gain a richness by the contrast with the new.

Over the years, I’ve been intimately involved in preservation efforts like Frank Lloyd Wright’s Gordon House (now at the Oregon Garden in Silverton) and the Stockyard Exchange Building (which unfortunately no longer stands in Kenton). But these were discrete properties with deep historic importance. Irvington’s breed of historic megadistricts awakens the western libertarian in me. Portland needs to celebrate its history; it also needs graceful additions like Dao’s Irvington project. If I lived in the Buckman neighborhood, I’d join the dozens protesting the proposed historic district with signs in their yards: “Keep Buckman Free.”

Portland's Current Market Trends

Fri, 22 Mar 2013 08:00:00 -0700

Nouveau Ritz

While Portland’s unlikely to make a cameo on MTV’s Cribs any time soon, according to many real estate agents our city’s luxury home market (homes over $600,000) is slowly clawing back from its shadowy nadir. “In 2012, there was a tremendous uptick in the more expensive properties being sold,” says Michael Hasson, founder of Hasson Company Realtors. “Part of what caused that was an abundance of inventory that was just sitting for three years.” But the trauma of the recession has left the luxury market, understandably, changed. “It’s not about the size of the house anymore,” says Jenelle Isaacson, owner of Living Room Realty, one of Portland’s fast-growing real estate firms. “It’s about lifestyle. People are willing to sacrifice a lot of square footage for a neighborhood that fits with their personality.” Beam Development’s Brad Malsin calls the shift a kind of Ace Hotel model of living: “People are willing to put up with less luxury in exchange for cool common places to connect.” As a result, builders who used to work solely in the suburbs, crafting showpiece homes, have begun picking off infill projects. “Now you’re seeing Renaissance Homes and Arbor Custom Homes in Portland,” says Mark Hepner, co-owner of Portland Residential Appraisals. “Ten years ago the only thing they built was a house in a suburb. Now, they’re looking around in the urban district like Sellwood and Moreland and Laurelhurst, buying lots and old houses and tearing them down.”

New (Seasons) Math

Proximity to urban amenities seems to be the drumbeat of today’s highly desirable neighborhoods. But can having a grocery store or cinema within walking distance really raise the value of your home? In theory, yes, according to a 2007 Metro study. Using hedonic modeling (fancy math to measure complex behavior, like home buying), local real estate consultancy firm Johnson Gardner evaluated more than 400 Portland home sales in 2006 and determined that, indeed, some amenities appear to have a statistically significant impact on home price. Top of the list: cinemas, wine bars and shops, and specialty grocers. But appraisers haven’t embraced the new math in their calculations. “There’s no standard adjustment for proximity to New Seasons,” says Mark Hepner, co-owner of Portland Residential Appraisals. “When you talk about the hip neighborhoods, you’re talking about areas that have diverse housing stock. When you try to narrow down your adjustment to a specific item, like a New Seasons, there’s not enough consistency in all the factors to make a fair comparison.”

Kings of Division

Andy Ricker’s Pok Pok might have captured the culinary heart of Division, but seven-year-old Urban Development Partners has claimed something more tangible—land. The development firm owns six properties on Division, between 31st and 39th, among them the Reliable, a LEED Gold-certified building with 13 residential units hoisted atop popular eateries like the Sunshine Tavern and Wafu. UDP came to Portland in 2006, after transforming Oakland’s historic Mutual Creamery building into 26 live-work spaces. Division immediately caught their eye. “When the city puts investment or intention behind an area—with tax incentives, up-zoning, even just cleaning up the streets—it’s a recipe for reinvention,” notes cofounder Eric Cress. The firm’s first Division Street building, the Richmond, opened in 2008, anchored by the Victory Bar. Next came Reliable, in 2010, followed by a 26-unit LEED Platinum mixed-use building at 38th and Division in 2011. Up next: a 39-unit building at 3339 SE Division St, slated for completion this fall. (Salt and Straw and St. Honoré have already signed up for ground-floor retail spaces.) And in 2014, UDP will debut two more mixed-use projects at 3360 and 3330 SE Division St.

An ADU Explosion

When the Portland City Council approved waiving system development charges and upped the maximum size of Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) to 75 percent of the main house in April 2010, the number of completed backyard cottages grew by more than 30 percent: from 52 in fiscal year 2009 to 70 in 2010 and 104 in 2011. The savings—typically several thousand dollars per dwelling—helped encourage a wave of these backyard bargains, but so did the emergence of an übertight rental market. And since the city voted to extend the waiver for another three years, look for more of these charming cottages coming to a backyard near you.

Cash Dash

In Portland’s low-inventory real estate market, money doesn’t just talk—it screams. Fully a quarter of all home purchases made in 2011 and 2012 were cash purchases. No financing, just dollar signs. “It’s basically investors getting into the market,” explains Jerry Johnson, principal at Johnson Reid real estate consultancy firm. “They see huge buying opportunities. When cash buyers come in, it typically means they’re reading bottom of the market.” It can be good business for builders, as Keller Williams principal broker Nick Krautter points out: “You can pay $250,000 to $300,000 for a house, tear it down and build another, and still make money,” he says. “That wasn’t the case two years ago.” The proliferation of cash buyers can be frustrating for buyers looking to finance a home, since cash deals are often more attractive to sellers. Krautter relates the story of a recent listing in the low $300,000 range that garnered six offers within 48 hours, all well above the listing price. Two of them were cash offers (and one of those won out). “Sellers are really looking at the bottom line,” he notes. But as the number of foreclosure properties on the market continues to decrease, Michael Hasson of Hasson Company Realtors expects to see cash sales level off.

Portland's Hottest Microhoods • Real Estate Growth Map
Current Market Trends • Rental Market Madness

Real Estate Growth Map

Sat, 16 Mar 2013 09:00:00 -0700

Approved residential permit data provided by Construction Monitor. Maps built by Metro's Data Resource Center.

TheSE three maps show Portland's residential development over the past three years. Metro's Data Resource Center graciously built these snapshots using data provided by Construction Monitor. The small dots represent approved single-family home permits; the larger dots represent approved multi-family residential permits. All told, the four counties (Multnomah, Washington, Clackamas, and Clark in Washington) have added more than 9,000 residential homes or apartments since 2010.

Portland's Hottest Microhoods • Real Estate Growth Map
Current Market Trends • Rental Market Madness

Our Schools Guide 2013

Thu, 24 Jan 2013 15:29:00 -0800

Welcome to our annual schools guide—a comprehensive listing of 596 public and private schools in Multnomah, Clackamas, Washington, and Clark Counties.

To help you understand the best educational options for your kids, we’ve gathered dozens of points of information, from demographics to dropout rates. We’re offering a laser focus on achievement data, showing how well students are doing on standardized tests in math, reading, writing, and science.

Why? Because this information is increasingly becoming crucial to how schools will be evaluated in the future. Over the past two years, in fact, the Oregon Department of Education has significantly toughened reading, math, and sciences standards in grades 3 through 8 to align them with expectations of high schools, and to make sure even younger students won’t hit snags on the way to graduation.

“We want to ensure that we have a streamlined process for getting accurate information on how prepared students are—and to avoid any surprises,” says Crystal Greene of the ODE. “We don’t want them to get to high school, and go, ‘Wow, I’ve always done well in school before, but now I don’t know if I’m going to graduate.’”

But an even greater paradigm shift is yet to come: in 2014, Oregon will begin implementing a national set of achievement markers called the Common Core State Standards that will allow us to directly compare our schools with those in 44 other states (including neighboring Washington). Though at times controversial, proponents believe the new standards will not only make the reams of state achievement data more useful, but also help Oregon’s students become more competitive in a national job market.

Download the expanded data below to see how your child’s school is doing.

PDF Oregon Public Schools Data

PDF Washington Public Schools Data

PDF Oregon/Washington Private Schools Data

The New Nesting

Fri, 25 May 2012 08:00:00 -0700

JD AND AMBER MCLANDRICH embody family values, modern Portland style. At 29 and 30, respectively, they work good jobs (he’s a GIS specialist; she’s a teacher). They live with their 2-year-old son in a Southwest Portland townhouse and espouse the traditional real estate agent’s mantra. “Location is everything to us,” Amber says, praising their home’s proximity to parks, museums, and shops.

The twist? The McLandriches rent their home. Moreover, they say they don’t care if they ever own. (They investigated buying a house but concluded they couldn’t easily replicate their current, and much preferred, lifestyle.) And according to economists, sociologists, and real estate experts, their anti-picket-fence stance is becoming a badge of liberty for the two most influential demographics in the nation and in Portland: baby boomers, and people 32 or younger, like the McLandriches, often broadly tagged as “millennials.” In growing numbers, those generations are remodeling the traditional American dream of land, home, and equity.

“Together, those two groups make up two-thirds of the market,” says Will Macht, a local developer and Portland State University real estate professor. “Both tend to prefer locations that lend themselves to rentals.”

Over the past year, Portland’s vice-tight rental market has garnered plenty of notice. Vacancies hover around just 3 percent, and rents are increasing by up to 4.8 percent each year. This makes the city one of the nation’s toughest—or, if you’re a landlord, most potentially lucrative—places to rent. And money aside, the trend could herald a deep cultural change in Portland and beyond.

In the ’90s and ’00s, buying a fixer off Mississippi or Foster was considered the height of cool among the young transplants flocking to the city. (The mortgage free-for-all certainly helped.) Prices rose—then fell. Even with some owners “underwater,” as they say, newcomers may find these districts prohibitive for buying, but still desirable for living. Last year, studies by the National Association of Realtors and the Urban Land Institute both revealed that huge millennial majorities want exactly the mixed, walkable neighborhoods that have been Portland planning gospel for a generation.

“Places like Hawthorne and Alberta are awesome,” says Justus Peacock-Broyles, a 27-year-old chef and frequent overseas traveler who rents a house near Mount Tabor. “But to live here, I have to rent.”

However, mounting evidence suggests that for many of Peacock-Broyles’s cohort, renting isn’t just a fallback; it’s the goal. Recent surveys reveal his generation’s marked preference not just for dense, urban environments but, in the increasingly fluid, freelance- and contract-work world, for ready mobility. About one Portlander in 15 is self-employed, and renting makes sense when you’re waiting for a call from a Hong Kong creative agency or a Pendleton carpentry job.

“I have no desire to own a house. I’d rather spend that money to take a trip once a year.” —Julia Gardner, 38, Artist

Local developers are getting wise. (According to one real-estate firm’s estimate, 13,000 apartment units are either under construction or proposed in the metro area.) “Younger people have a new flexibility to work where they live,” says Robert Ball. “And they’re more experience-oriented.” After his last project, the Wyatt, was transitioned from condos to rental units, Ball plans to break ground on a new, all-rental development in August in the Pearl District: the Parker’s rents will start at $1,000, and its common areas will come stocked with barbecue grills, Ping Pong tables, and even an XBox gaming console. Residents will be able to down the day’s first espresso in the lobby coffee bar.

If these millennial desires find near-perfect expression in Portland, they’re not confined here. Recent stats show younger people—regardless of income level—spurning the big houses, long commutes, and car ownership that denoted success for previous generations. Meanwhile, at the other end of the age (and income) spectrum, baby boomers are also going deedless. A 2009 survey found that 75 percent of retiring boomers said they want to live in urban, “mixed use” settings.

“It doesn’t mean everybody’s going to move downtown,” says John McIlwain of the Urban Land Institute. “It means there’s going to be more rental housing in both cities and suburban town centers.”

So is Portland’s hot rental market just inflating another bubble? Gerard Mildner, director of PSU’s Center for Real Estate, says that just as stereotypical Depression survivors reused tea bags, millennials scarred by the housing crash may always rent. “People who lived through the ’30s behaved very differently than the generations before and after,” he says.

Ball thinks that paradoxical conservatism could be good. “When people buy, I say, ‘Make sure you get a place you’ll feel comfortable for a long time.’ And if they’re just buying because they want to sell in a year or two? That’s a bad idea.”

Neighborhoods by the Numbers: Real Estate 2012

Fri, 23 Mar 2012 09:00:00 -0700

AS THE SPRING home-selling and buying season commences, most good news lies in the future. How far? Nobody knows for sure.

Yet if you scan our annual real estate grids with a magnifying glass, positive stories can be found: neighborhoods seeing upticks in value, median ages going down, median income going up. And last year, the number of homes sold actually increased by more than 8 percent in Portland and by 12 percent in its outlying suburbs. In neighborhoods that saw double-digit percentage price drops in home values—like the Pearl, Hillside, and Cathedral Park—sales increased by as much as 80 percent.

According to Gerard Mildner, director of PSU’s Center for Real Estate, these trends should inspire some cautious optimism for the future.

“There are more transactions happening, and fewer people have homes on the market,” he says. “That means there’s some upward pressure on prices.”

But the best news, Mildner says, is that the housing bubble made us wiser—and long-term investments may begin to trump opportunistic buying.

“Your decisions about owning a home should be about the neighborhood and the size of the home and whether that fits what you need. It shouldn’t be about whether it’s going to appreciate in value quickly.”

Finding that perfect neighborhood is tough—but we’re here to help.

Download neighborhood and suburb stats on everything from the number of renters and frequent bus lines to school report card grades and park sizes.

Methodology & Sources

Distressed properties refers to the percentage of total homes sold that were short sales and bank-owned properties. Violent crime is defined as rape, murder, robbery, and aggravated assault. Crimes per 1,000 figures are based on reported incidents of violent crime as well as larceny (theft), burglary, arson, and motor vehicle theft.

Neighborhoods Portland neighborhood boundaries represent the records maintained by Metro as of December 2011. Neighborhood boundary conflicts were resolved (for statistical purposes only) using data from the City of Portland Bureau of Planning and Sustainability. Due to overlap between certain neighborhoods, boundary definitions vary occasionally across categories.
Real Estate Information was provided by the Regional Multiple Listing Service, with analytical consulting from the Center for Spatial Analysis and Research at Portland State University’s Department of Geography. All figures were rounded for legibility.
People 2010 US Census data was compiled and analyzed by Esri, US Census Bureau, and the City of Portland.
Crime Portland crime statistics are courtesy of the Portland Police Bureau and contain 2011 data. Suburban crime statistics were obtained from the offices of the Clackamas County sheriff and the cities’ respective police departments. Many factors can influence the crimes-per-1,000 calculation and can complicate meaningful comparisons between neighborhoods. Because the rates are based on residential population data, the large workforce in areas like downtown and the Pearl District can distort the rates in those areas.
Parks Data was provided by Metro and the respective city parks departments.
Transit Information on MAX light-rail and WES commuter rail, Portland Streetcar, and TriMet bus routes was provided by TriMet. Additional suburban transit information was provided by C-TRAN, CAT, SMART, Columbia County Rider, and Yamhill County Action Partnership.
Walkability Data provided by the City of Portland Bureau of Planning and Sustainability. Scores are on a scale from 1 to 100, taking into account walkable access to commercial services and amenities, as well as the number, quality, and slope of sidewalks, street connectivity, and topography. Different neighborhoods can have similar scores due to a different combination of inputs.
Walk Score Suburban data provided by walkscore.com. Score reflects, on a scale of 1 to 100, how easy it is to live in a neighborhood without a car, based on the number of nearby amenities like grocery stores. A score of 100, for instance, indicates that all daily errands can be completed without a vehicle. In cases where a citywide average was not available, scores for the city center were used.

Special thanks to David Banis and Nadia Jones of Portland State University’s Center for Spatial Analysis and Research

Progress Report 2012: Our Schools

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 12:00:00 -0800

YOU CAN MEASURE A SCHOOL by graduation rates, SAT scores, student-teacher ratios, or the now federally mandated score for Adequate Yearly Progress. But other facts tell a more nuanced story: How many librarians? What percentage of the teachers have masters’ degrees? How diverse is the student body? We’ve combed through mountains of state and local data, scoured reports, and gathered dozens of surveys to bring you all of the information in a comprehensive listing of 631 public and private schools in Multnomah, Clackamas, Washington, and Clark Counties.

Of course, measurement is only one way to discover whether a given school will make your grade. Visiting the campus, interviewing administrators and teachers, and talking to other parents are still the best ways to ensure a good fit for your child.

We’ve pored over piles of state and local data to bring you the 2012 edition of our annual assessment of the region’s schools. Compare notes on more than 600 public and private options for your child.

Oregon Public Schools Data

Washington Public Schools Data

Oregon/Washington Private Schools Data