Portland, Oregon 2011 Real Estate Market in a Nutshell
Simple and sweet statistical overview below:
Inventory levels in the overall Portland Metro area are at a 3+ year low with just a 5.3 month supply in the month of December 2011. The Portland Metro area had 1,612 closed sales last month and 1,443 accepted offers. For the entire year of 2011 there were 19,682 closed sales!
So... the business is out there, people are still buying and selling homes in this market. Are you positioned to take advantage of this?
For a more in depth view, click on the link below to read the December 2011 RMLS Portland Metro Area Market Report for yourself.
Metro Portland, Oregon RMLS Market Action Report - December 2011
As always, feel free to contact me at DonnRasch@comcast.net or 503-658-5000 if you have any questions or if I can be of service to you.
Cheers,
Donn
Rehab Your Home Before You Move In!
To learn more about FHA Loans, click the link below or give me a call.
http://portal.hud.gov/hudportal/HUD?src=/program_offices/housing/sfh/203k/203kabou
Realtor.com - Smart Phone Application Review
The "Realtor.com" app is a useful house hunting tool when you are out on the road. Because of the GPS feature of smart phones, you are able to pinpoint your location and search for nearby homes for sale with this application.
It takes a little getting used to and you need to play around with it a bit. But I was finally able to get it to do a decent job of searching and viewing homes for sale. It has some pretty cool features that really allow you to get a fair idea of each homes general overall features, location and curb appeal.
Of course, the best way to view a home is in person. But with this tool, you can do an "on the fly" search and recon mission. You can identify homes that warrant further research after a quick look with your smart phone.
One of the nice features that the application has, that is worth familiarizing yourself with is the "Scout" button. It basically allows you to scroll around on the map to locate all listings in a given area. It seems to "lose" listings in a given area sometimes, so you may to have play around with it a bit and zoom in more to show all the listings available in a given area. Find something interesting and click on its map icon to bring up more details. Click again and you get even more details and photos. Don't forget to scroll on the various screens as you may miss features on some pages that are hidden further down or to the right.
All in all I would give the application, a score of 8 out of 10. Of course as with any computer application. The more you play with it the better you become using it. You will find "hidden" features that are not readily apparent the first couple of times you use it.
Bottom Line: A useful tool for the general public looking for a home while they are out in the field. Great back-up tool for the Broker on the road as well. Well worth loading on to your smart phone. And best of all it's FREE! So what have you got to lose?
Yelp! I Need Somebody. Yelp! Not Just Anybody.
Confession time.
I wasn't hip. I didn't have the latest greatest phone. I was cruising along with my semi-smart phone for the last two years thinking what's the big deal?
Well, I have a whole different attitude now. What was I thinking? How could I have survived without this modern technological marvel for so long?
I had watched from afar as people around me were Yelping & Grouponing their way through life on little computers that fit into their pockets. I always told myself "You don't need that, you've got your laptop. It's portable, you can take it anywhere you go."
When we visited with our daughter she would always have her I-Phone and would constantly be using it to find nearby stores, places we needed to go & get reviews on services / restaurants. I thought "that's pretty cool, but do I really need it?".
Then last Monday I did a survey in our "Mastermind Group" we have at work. It's a core group of approximately 8 Real Estate Brokers that I work with at RE/MAX Equity Group. We get together every Monday morning to discuss ways of improving our businesses and support each other in our day to day industry challenges.
The results of the survey were a little shocking to me. I was the only one without a smart phone. How could this be? I've always considered myself fairly technologically savvy. Apparently I had been asleep at the virtual wheel.
Well not any longer! As soon as I got out of the meeting I marched across the street to Costco and upgraded my phone to a "Bionic Marvel". I decided on the "Droid Bionic" and I am "VERY APPY" (pun intended) so far. The available "apps" and what they do are nothing short of amazing.
In fact, I've decided to share with you in my future blogs, reviews of the various "apps" I install on my new phone in the coming days / weeks.
Stay tuned, it will knock your socks off. That is if you haven't already taken the plunge for yourself!
Donn
Just Sold In Eagle Creek, Oregon. Closed Escrow 12/16/11
27902 SE Gerber Ct., Eagle Creek, OR 97022 - Sold for $362,000.
For a free, no obligation consultation, please give me a call at (503) 658-5000.
I can get the job done!
