Moving To Portland - Susan's Online Guide to Portland Oregon - The City of Roses

Subscribe to the Moving to Portland Newsletters

SP Weather

Cloudy

50°F

Sunday

Few showers

52°F / 63°F

Susan's Online Guide to Portland Let me Help You Find a Home and a Neighborhood
Welcome to my Web site about the Portland, Oregon, metropolitan area. It's my way of helping you become acquainted with the neighborhoods and communities of the Portland metro area and to inform you about the Portland area housing market. Your comments and suggestions about my Web site are always welcome. If you have questions or if you are interested in buying or selling a home in the Portland area, contact me online or call me at (503) 497-2984. Susan Marthens Principal Real Estate Broker/CRS GRI __________________________________________________________________________________________________

Real Estate Market

Homes for Sale: Click on a green icon (zip code) to view photos and details about the homes for sale U.S. home sales jump to 42 month high May 22 — Sales of previously occupied U.S. homes ticked up last month to the highest level in three and a half years, helped by a jump in the number of houses for sale. The National Association of Realtors said Wednesday that sales rose to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.97 million, up from 4.94 million in March. Home sales have risen 9.7 percent in the past 12 months. Still, sales have changed little since November. The supply of available homes remains tight and many would-be buyers aren't able to get loans. The number of homes for sale jumped to 2.16 million, up nearly 12 percent from the previous month. But inventory is still almost 14 percent lower than a year earlier. Many Americans remain hesitant to put their homes on the market. The Realtors group notes sales typically pick up in spring. Read more... Portland-area mortgage delinquency falls below 5% May 24 — The share of Portland-area homeowners behind on their mortgage payments has fallen below 5 percent for the first time since 2009. The Portland-area delinquency rate among mortgage holders fell to 4.96 percent in March, according to according to the real estate data firm CoreLogic Inc., down from 5.55 percent a year ago. The delinquency rate, which represents borrowers more than three months behind on payments, has fallen steadily since July, a sign the housing market and broader economy is stabilizing. The rate is now at its lowest point in the Portland area since September 2009. The area foreclosure rate also fell, to 2.47 percent from 2.65 percent a year. That figure has been more volatile and is influenced in part by changes in how lenders process foreclosures. Read more...
Homes, Health & Neighborhoods
The suburbanization of poverty May 21 — There is no word more evocative in the urban vernacular than "suburb." For most of us, those two syllables conjure a very specific type of place, with a specific kind of people comfortably living there. "We think about suburbs in one way," says Elizabeth Kneebone, a fellow at the Brookings Institution's Metropolitan Policy Program. "We have a very stereotypical view of suburbs as middle-class, affluent, Leave-It-To-Beaver type places. And yet, over the last decade, suburbs have increasingly become home to America's poor. Between 2000 and 2011, the population living in American cities below the poverty line increased by 29 percent. During that same time, across the country in the suburbs of metropolitan areas as diverse as Atlanta and Detroit and Salt Lake City, the ranks of the poor grew by 64 percent. Read more... Quantifying the cost of sprawl May 22 — Sprawl is expensive. It costs more money to pave a road and connect a sewer line to five families each living a block apart on wooded lots than to build public infrastructure for those same five families living in a condo. It costs more money (and takes more time and gas) to serve those families with garbage trucks, fire engines, and ambulances. And in return – as we've previously written – those five sprawling single-family homes likely yield less in tax revenue per acre than the apartment building that could house our fictitious residents downtown. This municipal math is a core tenet of smart growth. But the argument is even more convincing with actual numbers. A new report out today from Smart Growth America, which surveyed 17 studies of compact and sprawling development scenarios across the country, sizes up the scale of the impact this way: Compact development costs, on average, 38 percent less in up-front infrastructure than "conventional suburban development" for things like roads, sewers and water lines. Read more... America's biggest and fastest growing cities May 24 — According to new population numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau, Texas's cities are expanding -- fast. The state houses eight of America's 15 fastest-growing cities. San Marcos, Texas, had the largest percentage increase, at 4.91 percent. This map plots the top fast-growing large cities (any city or town with 50,000 people or more) between July 2011 and July 2012. The release also charts the biggest cities in the country. There's not much change between 2010 and 2012 -- the top-10 cities remained the same, in the same rank-order. The remaining 15 cities on the list were also the biggest in 2010, but changed order — like Austin, which jumped from the 14th-biggest to the 11th-biggest. Read more...
News
Region's growth is a study in contrasts May 24 — Portland is “Portlandia.” Washington County is a magnet for families with young children. And Clackamas County really is different than the rest of the region. These are some of the conclusions to be drawn from a recent analysis of economic trends in the Portland metropolitan area conducted by Christian Kaylor, a work force analyst with the Oregon Employment Department. Kaylor has been presenting his findings to regional government and business leaders in recent weeks. The information is expected to help serve as the basis for development, transportation and land-use decisions as the economy improves. All of the counties in the region added people between 2006 and 2011. But they grew in significantly different ways, Kaylor says. He calls the changes “geographic sorting” and predicts they will continue for years to come. Some of Kaylor’s findings confirm the premise of “Portlandia,” IFC’s comedy that portrays Portland as a mecca for young hipsters. According to Kaylor, Multnomah County grew by 55,375 people between 2006 and 2011 — and almost all of that growth came from young people. His figures show the county added approximately 45,000 people between the ages of 20 and 39 during that time, with most of them concentrated in Portland. “One demographic is driving growth in Portland, and that is young college graduates,” Kaylor says. Read more... Oregon's teen birth birth rate drops to new low May 24 — Oregon’s teen birth rates are at a new low. A new government report indicates that the number of Oregon teens giving birth dropped by twenty-five percent over a four-year period. The report’s figures are based on birth certificates for 2007 through 2011. They come from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Those latest figures show that Oregon teens, ages 15 to 19, had 26 births per 1000 in 2011. Read more... Rain and cold smash 100-year-old records, but expect warmer and drier conditions Memorial Day weekend May 24 —After a dry, summery start, May’s weather took a sharp turn last week and then an even more dramatic turn this week, dumping winter-like rains and well below average temperatures on Northwest Oregon and Southwest Washington. Wednesday’s whopping 1.19 inches of rain at Portland International Airport not only set a record for the date, it was the rainiest day of 2013 and the wettest day in the Portland metropolitan area since last November 19. That day, 1.86 inches fell, all part of a massive fall storm that damaged buildings on the Oregon Coast. Read more... Rose Festival 2013: CityFair offers urban flair May 24 — As sure as flowers bloom, late May marks the return of the Portland Rose Festival. It's such a big party of parades, races and special events that organizers are calling it just that with this year's theme: "Portland's Party." Part of the festival's biggest events is the riverfront carnival CityFair, which continues to evolve after being rebranded three years ago. "It's a huge piece of our business," says Jeff Curtis, chief executive officer for the festival. "We wanted to adapt the waterfront to a more contemporary Portland event. We wanted it to be a more urban-centric event with things you'd never find at a county fair." At CityFair this year, festival-goers will notice a few changes, including the anticipated return of a favorite ride from past Rose Festivals, expanded music options, more fireworks and some new ways to experience it all while saving money. CityFair wouldn't draw gigantic crowds without thrilling carnival rides. But Curtis says the challenge for the festival is to make sure those rides continue to feel fresh. Read more... Beaverton couple brings board game museum to public May 24 — Just as in music and movies, the world of board games includes plenty of titles beyond the obvious, mid-20th century selections most everybody of a certain age remembers: Monopoly. Life. Clue. Sorry! Chutes and Ladders. Trouble. Operation. But what about “Mid Life Crisis?” Geared toward, as the box indicates, “2 to 6 players in their prime,” the game encourages players to accumulate and negotiate “debt, divorce and stress.” “Jurisprudence,” meanwhile, titillates players with the promise of an “exciting law game that teaches American Justice.” On the zanier end of the spectrum, cards from the 1979-vintage “Mad” magazine board game cajoles players into moving one chair to the right or surrendering your pile of money to the person next to you. Read more... TriMet's $485 million budget includes money for new buses, exhausted drivers -- but no fare hikes May 23 — Trimet board of directors unanimously approved a new $485 million operating budget on Wednesday, dedicating funds to, among other things, buying new buses, hiring drivers to comply with new work rules and relocating portable restrooms. budget for the fiscal year starting July 1 also offers a bright light for riders still smarting from last year's historic fare increases and service cuts: A ticket to ride is expected to stay the same, while TriMet will partially restore schedules that were slashed on 18 bus lines. of the biggest controversies surrounding the budget adopted last year didn't surface until two months ago, when The Oregonian discovered that General Manager Neil McFarlane had quietly handed out raises to management and other non-union employees from a contingency fund. Read more... Kaiser Permanente says its new Hillsboro hospital is a model for future facilities, touts LEED Gold certification May 23 — Kaiser Permanente is months away from opening the first new hospital in Washington County in 40 years, but the health management organization leaders gathered in Hillsboro to celebrate a major milestone on Wednesday. Westside Medical Center, the $344 million facility set to open in August, is a certified LEED, or Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, Gold building. Officials said it's the first hospital in the Portland Metro area to achieve LEED Gold status. "Hospitals use a tremendous amount of energy," Willy Paul, executive director of Kaiser's national facilities services northwest, said. Kaiser officials said the new building will save 6.5 million gallons of water per year and cuts energy costs by 27 percent. Kaiser is extremely proud of its complex, Paul told a gathering of company employees and people associated with the construction of the 126-bed building. Paul rattled off various design features: low-emitting carpeting, wood composite insulation, on-site renewable energy components such as water retention tanks and a completely energy independent parking facility. Read more...