sellers

Sep 14 2018

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 4^th 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.

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 1^st and 3^rd 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 6^th and 29^th place in Q2. Still, not bad. And 97225 took 7^th 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 (cquoyeser@bhhsnw.com/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

Dec 19 2016

Made your resolutions for 2017? 5 reasons to trade in your home for a better one in the new year

Most people probably think of the decision to sell their home as a highly personal one. And of course, it is. But if you can choose the timing, it’s wise to look at your personal circumstances and beyond. Here are 5 reasons why early 2017 could be the right time to sell in the Portland market.

Your home is no longer a good fit with your needs and wants
You have significant equity in your home
Portland continues to be a lopsided seller’s market
Portland is expected to remain near the front of the national pack in home price gains next year and mortgage interest rates may rise
There are real advantages to selling in winter rather than waiting for spring

1. Your home is no longer a good fit with your needs and wants

It may be time to move if you’re facing a growing or shrinking family, a promotion with a bigger paycheck, a new job with a long commute, retirement or aging, divorce and so on. As your life changes, what you require in a home changes too.

Apart from the question of size – whether you need something larger or smaller – you may be looking for an upgrade in the quality of your home. For example, energy efficiency and low monthly utility bills, little or no need for renovation and improvements, an updated kitchen, age-in-place features, more privacy or lots of storage space.

In fact, these features were among the top 10 unmet housing needs in a national household survey by the Demand Institute last year. If your home doesn’t have these features, you may decide to move to get them. And if your home does have these features, it’s likely to be especially attractive to buyers if you have other reasons for selling.

2. You have significant equity in your current home

You may be lucky enough to have lots of savings and assets apart from the ownership you’ve built up by paying down your mortgage. But for most people, home equity accounts for the lion’s share of personal wealth. So they need proceeds from the sale of their home to qualify for a loan to buy a new one.

The good news? Equity is back. According to the Case-Shiller indices, the leading measures of residential real estate prices in the US, the market has fully recovered from the recession, with home equity doubling in the last five years.

In fact, Portland ranks #6 among 88 metropolitan areas for its share of equity-rich homeowners. Over 33 percent have a loan-balance-to-home-value ratio of 50 percent or less. The national average for equity-rich homeowners is 23.4 percent. Of course, you don’t have to be equity-rich to sell your home. Many Portlanders have the financial means to make a move, not just those who meet the definition of that term.

3. Portland continues to be a lopsided seller’s market

The Portland Metro market has favored sellers since March of 2012, but the trend has intensified over time. The threshold for a balanced market is 6 months of inventory, but we haven’t broken two months since February 2015. This year inventory peaked at 2 months in September and October, and then slipped to 1.8 months in November according to the Regional Multiple Listing Service. Meanwhile, the current figure nationally is 5.2 months.

In a seller’s market, where demand outpaces supply, homeowners have the best chance to sell quickly, at or above list price, and under other favorable terms and conditions.

4. Portland is expected to remain near the front of the national pack in home price gains next year and mortgage interest rates may rise

Realtor.com predicts that Western metropolitan areas will see much higher gains in prices and sales than the country as a whole next year. Portland is forecast to be among the top 10 markets, with price growth of 6.6 percent and sales growth of 5 percent.

Though interest rates remain at historic lows, they spiked after the election last month. And last week the Federal Reserve raised its key interest rate for the first time in almost a decade – by a quarter of a percentage point. Mortgage rates will likely rise in the coming year.

In an environment of rising prices and interest rates, it’s wise to buy a home sooner rather than later, especially if you’re trading up. You’ll get more for your money and a lower monthly payment than if you wait.

5. There are real advantages to selling in winter rather than waiting for spring.

The idea that winter is a bad time to list a home is a myth according to US home sales data for the past four years through August 2016.

In Portland, winter takes 2^nd place after spring for the percentage of homes sold above list price – 13.8 versus 15.2 or a percentage point difference of just 1.4. There is a bigger seasonal difference where the percent of homes that go under contract within 30 days is concerned. At 33.9 percent, winter takes 3^rd place after spring (38.6 percent) and summer (35 percent).

But other factors offset the advantages of listing in spring. As explained in Item 4, sellers who will buy a replacement home stand to get more for their money and a lower monthly payment by acting sooner rather than later. Furthermore, both sellers and buyers face less competition in winter, sales close faster or spend less time in escrow because the market is not as busy as in the spring, and buyers who are looking tend to be more serious.

Of course, given Portland’s very low inventory, what holds many local homeowners back is concern that they may not be able to find the right replacement home and uncertainty about whether to buy or sell first. But there are lots of ways to hedge your bets. Click here or on the image for a free tool that will help you develop a game plan.

Nov 18 2016

In the biggest transactions of your life, the price has to be right — get your head into the game with home sales data

If you’re a fan of HGTV’s Property Brothers, you may wonder how realtor Drew Scott can travel around Canada and the US confidently telling sellers and buyers what homes – theirs or others – will sell for. After all, real estate markets are highly localized, not only from city to city but from neighborhood to neighborhood. How does Scott wrap his head around so many of them?

The answer in three words is comparative market analysis (CMA).

Whether you’re considering putting your home up for sale or making an offer on someone else’s, a CMA enables you to estimate its fair market value. Using data and digital applications from the local multiple listing service, your realtor can make side-by-side comparisons with homes that:

Closely resemble the property in question in size, features and quality;
Are located in the same area; and
Have sold recently, are pending, or currently on the market.

Dollar adjustments up or down are made to comparable properties (or “comps”) depending on how they differ from the subject property. For example:

Do they have more or less square footage?
Are they older or newer?
Have they been updated or remodeled?

And so on. Then the adjusted values of comps are averaged to estimate the fair market value of the subject property.

A CMA is both science and art. On one hand, the math and some selection principles are objective. For example, recently sold homes take priority over other types of comps. Since their sale prices are unknown, pending and active listings play a limited or supporting role in the process. And distressed homes should not be included. Fair market value assumes that both buyer and seller are knowledgeable, willing and unpressured. In a short sale or the sale of a foreclosed property, the seller doesn’t match that description.

On the other hand, a realtor’s intuition and local market knowledge also influence the selection of comps and the adjustment of their prices. It’s impossible to assign an objective dollar value to a view, a fireplace or a pool, for example. A realtor can look to appraisers for help, but there’s always an element of by-guess-and-by-gosh in the process.

That said, CMAs are an indispensable tool in buying or selling a home. They not only help you to get or pay a fair price, but also save time and stress. If you list your home at a fair price, you’re almost guaranteed to sell it faster (and for more money!) than if you ask too much. And if you’re confident in the value of a home that you want to buy or sell, you can approach negotiations with greater strength and peace of mind.

Oct 28 2016

3 reasons to work with a realtor

cloak-of-invisibility I often wish Harry Potter’s cloak of invisibility would descend when I enter a store – giving me time to size up the merchandise myself before anyone offers their help. My kneejerk response is “Just looking, thanks.”

If you’re like me, you approach the biggest transaction of your life in the same way, taking virtual refuge in the likes of Zillow and Trulia. In fact, research shows that home buyers spend several months in the browsing stage.

And that’s all to the good. Learning about the market and reflecting on your needs and wishes will improve your decision making.

But when you get serious about buying a home, you have a lot to gain from working with a realtor you like and trust.

Realtors owe clients fiduciary responsibility, a legal term meaning that they must act in a client’s best interest at all times. This responsibility applies even if a buyer hasn’t signed an agency agreement with a realtor.
Full-service realtors escort buyers through every step of a complex process. They will help clients search for and view properties, estimate fair market value, write an offer, negotiate with the seller, oversee inspection and appraisal, coordinate any repairs, and see the transaction through escrow to closing – including a final walkthrough and delivery of the keys.
Spanning months or several weeks, a realtor’s many services are delivered without any financial obligation unless and until the sale closes. Even then, the seller pays the buyer’s agent as well as his or her own. Here in Oregon, compensation for the buyer’s rep is set in percentage terms in the seller’s agreement with the listing agent. Of course, sellers take these costs into account when setting prices for their homes.

The best brokerages hold realtors to high quality standards by soliciting anonymous client feedback. They also support brokers with training, services and oversight – so that clients benefit from the knowledge and experience of the entire team.

The bottom line: Browsing on your own is fine in the early stages, but there’s no substitute for a good realtor’s advice and services when you’re serious about buying a home.