Everything. Portland. Real Estate. Blog.

New Listing on Fircrest in SE Portland Hills, Bordering Happy Valley

Scott McDonald — Sat, 20 Apr 2013 02:11:59 +0000

Come take a look at this new listing on Fircrest in SE Portland! Craftsman style home with tons of custom trim work, tile & wood floors, large deck and yard, 4 bedrooms, plus a main floor office, granite counter island kitchen, 3 car garage and more offered for $359,000! Open Sunday April 21st 2013 from [...]

Foreclosure List for January 24th 2013

Scott McDonald — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 19:12:06 +0000

Here’s the list of foreclosures for today January 24th 2013. The first link goes to new foreclosures listed within the last 24 hours, the second link is to all foreclosures currently on the market in the Portland metro area. To see the newest matches from RMLSweb click here. For a complete list of available matches [...]

On the verge of another real estate boom? The numbers we’re seeing are suggesting it’s possible

Scott McDonald — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 19:08:16 +0000

The National Association of Realtors (NAR), just released an article detailing some of the numbers for the national 2012 real estate market and they are very encouraging. First off, total home sales in 2012 were the highest we’ve seen in 5 years, and the annual rise in home prices was the highest since 2005 (that’s [...]

Positive signs on housing market everywhere, even in my daily Google alerts

Scott McDonald — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 18:41:58 +0000

I have various Google alerts setup for keywords like housing market, sellers market, buyers market (and a lot more) specifically looking for news articles related to the real estate market, using Google alerts just saves me a bunch of time as I don’t have to go find the articles, they come to me. Normally each [...]

Today’s Foreclosure List for January 16th 2013

Scott McDonald — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 02:29:35 +0000

Here are the new foreclosures listed for sale within the last 24 hours. To see the newest matches from RMLSweb click here. For a complete list of available matches click here. If you are not already working with a Realtor and would like to see any of these homes please feel free to contact me anytime at [...]

New home listings increasing in the new year pending sales flat lining and closings dropping

Scott McDonald — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 21:57:26 +0000

So we’re just two weeks into the new year and we’re seeing some trending happening with the daily tracking of RMLS data that I do and it’s a bit mixed. First off, inventory is still declining for the most part, down to 4,478 homes currently listed as of today which is well off of the [...]

New Foreclosures for January 15th 2013

Scott McDonald — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 03:07:26 +0000

Here’s today’s foreclosure list for January 15th 2013. Don’t forget, if you are looking for a Realtor to assist you in finding and buying a foreclosure, please give me a call! Also, this list is emailed out daily, if you would like to be included in that list, please send me an email at Scott [...]

New to the area? A Realtor may not be your best source for some information

Scott McDonald — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 03:04:38 +0000

I’ve had this happen, believe it or not, more times than I can count…Pick up a client from the airport or hotel and after initial greetings I get “the question”. I’ve heard it in many different forms, but in the interest of being politically correct and avoiding a potential license violation, I’ll sum it up [...]

Sellers do not have to sell at list price and in fact, they don’t have to sell at all

Scott McDonald — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 02:36:42 +0000

In reading through some of my daily articles on real estate I came across a Q&A about a foreclosure where a buyer was countered by the bank well above asking price and was asking if that was legal or not. I’m not going to bother linking to the site here as it was more of [...]

Portland sees big jump in real estate home sales for 2012, RMLS Market Action Report for December 2012

Scott McDonald — Sat, 12 Jan 2013 19:42:11 +0000

RMLS just released the end of year December 2012 Market Action Report and it confirms everything we’ve been talking about in terms of the real estate recovery happening here in Portland Oregon. Homes sales in Portland Oregon jumped 19% in 2012 compared to 2011, from a total of $5.2 billion in sales in 2011 to [...]

Foreclosure list for January 12th 2013

Scott McDonald — Sat, 12 Jan 2013 19:19:01 +0000

Here is today’s foreclosure list showing all new foreclosures on the market in the Portland metro area listed within the last 24 hours, as well as a link to all foreclosures currently on the market: To see the newest matches from RMLSweb click here. For a complete list of available matches click here. As usual [...]

New year market activity for Portland metro and surrounding areas

Scott McDonald — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 01:45:21 +0000

I’ve been a bit behind in getting my daily tracking numbers together but I just hammered them out to get them up to date and here are the highlights. As usual for the end of a calendar year the canceled / withdrawn and expired category saw a huge spike on the 31st of December going [...]

As the economy picks up mortgage rates will begin climbing

Scott McDonald — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 22:53:15 +0000

Mortgage rates are still low compared to last year, however with the economy beginning to recover they are starting to climb again and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. As cited by Inman News rates last week were 3.34% for a 30 year fixed mortgage and are now at 3.4% – not a [...]

Housing affordability on the rise, 2012 may be a record

Scott McDonald — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 20:48:05 +0000

The National Association of Realtors (www.realtor.org) index on affordable housing is arranged such that a score of 100 essentially means that a median income is exactly enough to afford a median priced home, the higher above 100 the number is the more affordable a median priced home is on a median income and at a [...]

Foreclosure List for 1/10/2013

Scott McDonald — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 20:32:18 +0000

Here are the new foreclosures listed for sale within the last 24 hours as of today January 10th 2013 To see the newest matches from RMLSweb click here. For a complete list of available matches click here. If you are not already working with a Realtor and would like to see any of these homes [...]

Foreclosures to rise again? Foreclosure backlogs shrinking as processing of foreclosures ramps up

Scott McDonald — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 02:22:27 +0000

With the changes in foreclosures processes brought on by the robo-signing issues a backlog of foreclosures was created while banks figured out the new processes and/or changed their policies to adhere to them; additionally states that were previously non-judicial foreclosure states that are moving to judicial foreclosure states created their own backlogs in the process. [...]

Foreclosure list for December 17th 2012

Scott McDonald — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 01:45:49 +0000

Here are the new foreclosures listed for sale within the last 24 hours as per your request: To see the newest matches from RMLSweb click here. For a complete list of available matches click here. If you are not already working with a Realtor and would like to see any of these homes please feel [...]

“Buying a Listing”, what sellers need to know about this practice

Scott McDonald — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 00:40:01 +0000

It’s really common for a potential home seller to feel their home is worth more than it really is for a number of reasons: Sentimental value Work/money they have put into the home that the market, frankly, doesn’t care about What they paid for it before the market slid off a cliff Features they feel [...]

Sellers: Beware of this sales tactic “I’ll sell your home or buy it myself” – Time to say it folks

Scott McDonald — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 23:57:37 +0000

I first started hearing this ad from a local Realtor maybe 1-2 years ago (longer?) and I’ve heard it catching on recently with other agents promising the same. Here’s the truth of the matter folks, any Realtor can make this “guarantee” even if that Realtor is dead broke, bankrupt, going through foreclosure themselves and can’t even [...]

Foreclosure List for 11/12/12 – No Foreclosures listed yesterday, first “zero” in over a month

Scott McDonald — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 23:04:16 +0000

Here’s the new listing foreclosure list for 11/12/12: To see the newest matches from RMLSweb click here. For a complete list of available matches click here. There’s only one in the “new” section and it’s not a new listing, it’s only a listing that had a data change in the existing listing as there were [...]

Supra Lockbox Activity once again a mixed and fairly negligible bag

Scott McDonald — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 22:50:54 +0000

Today RMLS sent out the Supra Lockbox Activity for the week of 10/29/12 – 11/4/12 and well, not much to report here as Oregon activity was up 0.4% which is good, it’s up, but negligible. SW Washington on the other hand was down 2.3% approaching the “interesting” perspective, but still, fairly negligible. Only drops/increases of [...]

Get ready for your Realtor “Friends” on Twitter and Facebook to start posting listings, that aren’t even theirs! New NAR policy approved

Scott McDonald — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 22:30:43 +0000

The National Association of Realtors (NAR) has just approved a new policy regarding social media that will allow cooperating brokers to post other agents/agencies listings on their Facebook and Twitter sites. The other cooperating brokers and the MLS’s they belong to must adopt and move forward with this policy on their own and approve it [...]

Single buyers having a more difficult time obtaining financing NAR says, but zero down loans still exist!

Scott McDonald — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 01:45:04 +0000

With the meltdown over the last few years in the real estate market, lending, in case you haven’t heard, has been significantly more stringent and it’s hurting single buyers more while married buyers are having better luck qualifying as a whole. Before 2010 market shares between single buyers, married buyers, men, women etc moved only [...]

Slight increase in distressed homes activity in the Portland real estate market

Scott McDonald — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 01:01:18 +0000

This last week in the Portland real estate market we’ve seen a number of things. First off is that the slide in inventory seems to be leveling off and likely to stay right around 5,400 homes listed. New listings saw a tiny uptick for the week ending with 72 newly listed homes on Friday the [...]

Foreclosure list for November 11th 2012

Scott McDonald — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 00:11:34 +0000

Here’s the foreclosure list for today: To see the newest matches from RMLSweb click here. For a complete list of available matches click here. As usual, if you’re not already working with a Realtor and would like to see foreclosures, new construction or resale homes (or have a home to sell) please feel free to [...]