Homing In On Portland

Helping you home in on your best life in Portland

Tis the season for…housing market forecasts! Whether you plan to buy, sell or stay put next year, watch Episodes 5 and 6 of Homing in on Portland to get the jump on the Metro market now

After a remarkable year despite the pandemic, what lies ahead for Portland’s housing market in 2021? Based on a review of some of the best research and forecasts, my 2-part market preview offers insights for homeowners planning to stay put as well as prospective buyers and sellers. Click the play buttons below to watch Episodes 5 and 6 of Homing in on Portland. Once you reach youtube, click the “Show More” links in the descriptions below the screens for timed outlines that enable you to cherry pick content.

Can I help you make real estate plans for 2021? Call or email me at (503) 705-5725 or catherinequoyeser@kw.com

Are you a fan of Portland walks and walkability? Here – in 6 buckets – are tips and resources to learn and enjoy more

Episode 2 of my vlog counts the many ways Metro area walks and walkability enhance our lives. In case you didn’t catch it on Youtube or Instagram, you’ll find the video at the bottom of this blog post. The written tips and resources below are a companion piece. I hope they deepen your understanding and appreciation of where you live.

Bucket 1: Get walk scores

Find the walk score of your home or a listed property if you’re looking to buy. Just enter the address in the search window on this home page

Bucket 2: Learn how walkability affects home values

You’ll find Portland-specific data in the graphics of this Redfin article

Bucket 3: Join a Meetup walking or hiking group and let someone else plan your next outing (outdoor groups remain active in the pandemic)

Bucket 4: Buy or borrow guidebooks to memorable walks in Portland and Oregon, some tailored to active seniors and kids

The links below the images will take you to amazon.com, but you may be able to find the e’books on the virtual shelves of your neighborhood public library.

Click hereClick hereClick hereClick here

Bucket 5: Brush up on walkability, the 15-minute city, and Portland’s complete neighborhoods

Bucket 6: Last but not least and because a picture’s worth 1,000 words, here’s a slide show of the nature walk just steps from my door – meant to inspire you to get more joy out of your neighborhood or to visit mine

  • Have seen a Snowy Egret & a Great Blue Heron in this spot!
Homing in on Portland, Episode 2

Are you planning to buy or sell a home in Cedar Mill or Cedar Hills? First take the temperature of these neighborhood markets with my quarterly newsletters tracking hot and cold prices, activity and speed!

As Oregon enters a new Coronavirus “freeze,” I’m more determined than ever to provide valuable content across all channels, including Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and this website. Public health concerns limit opportunities for face-to-face communication. But video can help to offset social distancing, offering a more personal and compelling alternative to the written word.

So going forward, my blog will do double duty as a vlog. Click the play button below to view Episode 1 of Homing in on Portland. (It’s short and sweet at just under 1.5 minutes.) Then subscribe to either or both of my quarterly newsletters by sending your name and email address to catherinequoyeser@kw.com

Homing in on Portland’s neighborhood housing markets – They’re not easy to track but here’s your guide to Cedar Hills and a leg up on the rest of the west side

Portland Business Journal tracks the Metro area’s hottest zip codes quarterly

The Portland Business Journal has good news for lots of homeowners on Portland’s west side. The zip code 97229 (Forest Heights, Bethany, Cedar Mill) continues to be one of the Metro area’s hottest neighborhoods and 97225 (Cedar Hills & Raleigh Hills) broke into the ranks of the top 10 in the 1st quarter of this year.

I feel fortunate to have had a front row seat on the trends. I recently listed homes in the areas (two in Cedar Hills and one in Cedar Mill) and repped buyer clients in the sale of a 4th in Cedar Mill. On average, the three listings sold in 2.3 days at 99.5 percent of asking price.

One of my Cedar Hills listings – a detached home at 11445 SW Lynnvale Dr

I aim to be a realtor of choice for area residents. So last month I created a quarterly newsletter on real estate activity in Cedar Hills. Market data is readily available for cities, towns and zip codes. But that’s not the case for neighborhoods, though they’re probably a more meaningful affiliation for most people.

So my work was cut out for me. I did my best to copy by hand the intricate boundaries of Cedar Hills from the map published by its homeowners association in a small search window on the Regional Multiple Listing Service (RMLS) website. I decided to include two small islands surrounded by the neighborhood (Forest Hills Village and Lynnridge) and two areas on its fringes (Belvidere and 2015-13 Partition Plat). I delivered or mailed Homing in on Cedar Hills to about 300 homeowners and linked it to a Facebook ad for digital access.

My Facebook ad for the newsletter – click here to get your free copy

While working on the newsletter, I consulted Q2 neighborhood rankings for context. I wondered if 97225 had kept its spot among the top 10. But it proved impossible to track that trend because at the time Portland Business Journal published the so-called “Heat Index” – overall rankings based on equal weighting of volume of sales, speed of sales, and average sale price – only in the 1st and 3rd quarters of the year.

I reached out to Brandon Sawyer, the journalist on the hottest neighborhoods beat, to ask if he could share the info and to suggest that the Heat Index be published every quarter. He not only obliged on both counts, but wrote me into his August 21 article.

It turns out 97229 and 97225 slipped in the overall rankings, taking 6th and 29th place in Q2. Still, not bad. And 97225 took 7th for average sale price – 2 places ahead of 97229.

If I can answer any questions about your neighborhood market or you’d like to “subscribe” to Homing in on Cedar Hills, dear readers, drop me a line (catherinequoyeser@kw.com or 503-705-5725). The next issue comes out in October and I’m thinking of launching a counterpart for Cedar Mill.

My wall house listing at 11470 SW Lynnvale Dr
My Cedar Mill listing at 9883 NW Nottage Dr

If it’s Tuesday this must be broker tour – An inside look at Portland’s best “Hemenway Colonial”

 

Every Tuesday, Portland Metro realtors open the doors of newly listed homes to other members of the trade. The idea is to attract agents with clients looking for a property like the one on tour, and to offer the chance to preview it. I don’t have any buyers with a $3.75 million ceiling at the moment, but I was excited to see 2728 SW Greenway Ave on this week’s west side tour list.

According to the Oregon Historical Society, the house is one of the finest examples of Roscoe Hemenway’s work. A graduate of Grant High and the U of O’s School of Architecture, Hemenway designed some 300 buildings over his 36-year career in Portland. He became best known for homes in the Colonial Revival style.

Dunthorpe neighborhood has the most “Hemenway Colonials.” But as I say, Portland Heights has the best. Built in 1951 on two-thirds of an acre, 2728 Greenway bears all the hallmarks of the style. Well-screened from the street by thick shrubs and tall trees, the façade – and its key architectural elements – are shown in the exterior photo.

Hallmarks of Colonial Revival style

Inside is just as grand. The house runs to over 12,000 square feet with 6 bedrooms, 5 full baths, 2 half baths, 3 stories, a home theater and library/bar on the top floor, a wing for live-in staff served by back stairs, and an elevator. The master suite is the size of an average 1-bedroom apartment (625 SF). The living room is the size of a small starter home (1000 SF). And at $58K per year, property taxes are also outsize – just $10K less than the average Portlander’s annual income. Utility costs must be formidable too. Newly required as part of the city’s effort to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by 2050, the energy score for the house is 1 on a 10-point scale.

The master suite
The sitting room
Dentil moulding & doorway pediment in the dining room
Roses etched in glass & brass hardware
Barrel vault skylight in the sunroom

Back at my desk, I wondered who lives in such luxury. The owner is normally shown on the listing, but not in this case. So I looked up the tax report for the property in the Regional Multiple Listing Service. Turns out, he is just as prominent in today’s civic life as the architect was generations back.

Co-founder of the ad agency that began as a start-up and is now a global brand in its own right, Dan Wieden has called the property home since 1993, when he bought it for $1.225 million.

Industrial style with wildly creative touches – PDX office of W+K

It’s a far cry from the Wieden+Kennedy headquarters in the Pearl – a once abandoned 1908 warehouse with an atrium carved out of its middle, modern industrial finishes, and some wildly creative touches. But the two buildings have historic character (and preservation) in common. As the listing notes, the house has been “meticulously cared for.” Still a young 67, it may eventually join the warehouse on the National Register of Historic Places.

For now, 2728 Greenway needs a new owner. A 25-year appreciation of 300 percent seems reasonable, but it will be interesting to track the listing, which is on my RMLS watch list.

Postscript: As I was putting the finishing touches on this blog post, OregonLive published an article about the house. You can read Janet Eastman’s take here.