Quick & Associates Real Estate has created two community websites that make it easy to find your next home: PortlandWaterfront.com and LakeOswegoLiving.com. Here are some highlights...

• Easy, One-Click Neighborhood, Community and HOA Searches
• Sort by price, time-on-market, percentage price drop, bedrooms and more 
• Mouse over a home icon on the interactive map to see a summary of the listing 
• Property details include Walk Score, school and neighborhood info, Zillow Zestimates, Google Street View and much more! 
• Personalize your searches, receive listing updates, save your favorite properties, add notes to listings and share with friends 

Click on either of these links: PortlandWaterfront.com and LakeOswegoLiving.com

In a recent study conducted on behalf of CEOs for Cities, homes in more walkable neighborhoods fetch a bit more when it comes time to sell. Here's a snippet from the 30-page report:

More than just a pleasant amenity, the walkability of cities translates directly into increases in home values. Homes located in more walkable neighborhoods—those with a mix of common daily shopping and social destinations within a short distance—command a price premium over otherwise similar homes in less walkable areas. Houses with the above-average levels of walkability command a premium of about $4,000 to $34,000 over houses with just average levels of walkability in the typical metropolitan areas studied.

Of course this comes as no surprise to Portlanders, but it is an especially familiar notion for folks living on Portland's waterfront or near Lake Oswego. Owning a home or condo in neighborhoods like John's Landing, Riverplace or First Addition is rewarding not only because of the proximity to the Willamette River or Lake Oswego, but also because you can step out your door and walk to neighborhood shops, restaurants and other businesses.

So what has Quick & Associates done to help promote awareness of this good news? Each listing featured on our websites (Portland Waterfront Living and Lake Oswego Living) comes with a walkability measure. Click any listing and you'll see the WalkScore in the upper right hand corner of the listing detail as indicated by the walking man icon and a number.  Click on the WalkScore link to see what's within walking distance from that home.

Walkability is defined by the WalkScore algorithm, which works by calculating the closest amenities – restaurants, coffee shops, schools, parks, stores, libraries, etc. – to any U.S. address. The algorithm then assigns a “Walk Score” from 0-100, with 100 being the most walkable and 0 being totally car-dependent. Walk Scores of 70+ indicate neighborhoods where it’s possible to get by without a car.

Here's a link to the complete study in PDF form.

Each week, we try to post an interactive open house report on our Lake Oswego Living site: LakeOswegoLiving.com/TheJournal

Check it out!

Looks like inventories in Portland continue to decline to near normal levels, but unfortunately, prices are dropping as are sales, listings. Click the graphic below to download the Portland Metro Area report.

Click on the image above to download the complete report

Couple of new posts on each of our sites that are of some interest:

Lenders take control of John Ross and Atwater Place

Installation of Foothills Boat Dock Delayed

Reports on the past week's activities can be found on our websites: Lake Oswego Living and Portland Waterfront Living.

We just posted the calendar on our sister website Portland Waterfront Living.

In April of this year, a colleague observed that of the 5,500 homes for sale in Multnomah County, nearly 3,000 were vacant.  Those figures, combined with the subsequent and dramatic rise in unemployment and foreclosures in the Portland metro area, are playing out a predictable pattern that has repeated itself in hard-hit urban areas across the country.  

In an article on CNBC.com, analysts express their concerns over what is looking more and more like a jobless recovery:

In the 2001 slump, unemployment peaked 19 months after the recession ended, and it was another three years before the jobless rate came close to pre-recession levels. In the current recession, economists say high unemployment is likely to persist at least another four years.

The housing crisis has worsened the situation for job seekers because areas with high unemployment also have high foreclosure rates, making it hard to sell up and move on. Still, when local prospects are grim, sometimes the only choice is to leave.

Outplacement consultancy Challenger, Gray & Christmas said that 18 percent of those finding employment in the second quarter relocated, up 14 percent from the previous quarter and the highest rate since 2006.

If recovery in the job market is really four years away, then the Portland residential real estate market is in for a long, tough slog. 

Have posted a list with the open houses in Lake Oswego on our website LakeOswegoLiving.com under the the L.O. Journal tab.

Gone.  Dissolved.  Finis.  The Portland Business Journal reports:

The Lake Oswego homebuilder fell victim to plummeting demand for new homes, which in turn spawned a series of lawsuits and foreclosures, including a $10.7 million judgment in Happy Valley against Buena Vista and its owner, Roger M. Pollock. The company has been sued for defaulting on loans and for shoddy construction at a condominium it built in Southeast Portland. It also lost a series of semi-developed lots in Southwest Portland to foreclosure.

Buena Vista’s problems weren’t unique. Renaissance Custom Homes, Legend Homes, Marnella Homes and Pacific Lifestyle, four of the city’s largest residential homebuilders, have each sought protection from creditors under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code. Marnella has exited bankruptcy and the remaining three are in the process of reorganizing.

Update on Monday, August 3, 2009 by Kathy Quick

Pollock: 'We're still in business' ... see the follow-up article in the PBJ.

 

From Ryan Frank at the Oregonian:

The Waterfront Pearl is the first major condo building to go back to the lender. The 194-unit, two-building projected was deeded in lieu of foreclosure on June 30 to its lender, a subsidary of Australia-based MacQuarie Group. The filing in Multnomah County shows the deed went to the lender on a debt of $99 million. The Waterfront Pearl has struggled since the developer, Pemcor Development of Vancouver, B.C., ran into construction problems. President Paul Mayer said last fall that the project came in over budget partly because of flooding during high water. Mayer tried to seek more money from his lenders. Obviously, that did not work out. The Waterfront Pearl is among the projects highlighted in this year's Street of Dreams show.

That's Ryan's #1 story out of five.  Make sure to read the other four stories on his blog.

From today's Portland Business Journal:

Forty-one of the nation’s 100 major labor markets — including Portland — are now saddled with double-digit unemployment rates, according to newly released figures from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. That contrasts sharply with a year ago, when all 100 markets were in single digits. The highest jobless rate as of mid-2008 was 9.6 percent in Fresno, Calif. Portland is now up to 11.7 percent unemployment.

Lagging indicator or not, this pervasive increase in unemployment across the board is unsettling to the housing market.  No job: no house.  Lost job: loose house.  Job, but insecurity: no sell or buy house.  Secure job, but high unemployment: no 2nd home.

Can't you just hear Brittany Spears: "Oops, I did it again..." Despite the leveling off from the economic death spiral and supposed easing of The Great Recession, commercial real estate (CRE for short) is the next big bubble to go "pop". And you don't need a Master's degree in Macro Economics to figure out why: business profits down, workers get laid off (need less space) or simply can't pay their rent (renegotiate rents, move to cheaper digs, or go out of business) ... all which puts tremendous pressure on CRE ... which just happens to be a prime asset class in the portfolios of large investment funds (including PERS).

Ryan Frank has a great little synopsis on his Front Porch Blog for the O:

Commercial real estate next to burst: We've seen early signs of this in Portland with recent defaults from developer John Beardsley and the owners of the KOIN Tower. The chief problem is this: Property owners face maturing loans and have few options to refinance. Janet Yellen, president of the San Francisco Federal Reserve, explained the problem in an Idaho speech. HousingWire reports: Yellen said while there are signs that the economic growth is beginning to return, the recovery will be painfully slow and the Fed believes commercial real estate is the economy's next vulnerable spot. The problem, Yellen said, is maturing loans for commercial properties that lost significant value. "Borrowers seeking to refinance will be expected to provide additional equity and to have underwriting and pricing adjusted to reflect current market conditions," Yellen said. "In some cases, borrowers won't have the resources to refinance loans."

Think this isn't going to affect average Joe Oregonian? Think again. As Ted Sickinger at the O points out:

The implications are potentially ominous, not only for the Oregon Public Employees Retirement Fund, which has pumped billions of state employees' retirement dollars into a market that looks increasingly wobbly, but for the commercial property markets around the Northwest.

Last week, one of Portland's signature properties showed up on that radar when New York Life Insurance sued FPS KOIN Center LLC, owner of the fancy downtown office building, claiming the company failed to make its July mortgage payment on the building.

From Ryan Frank at the O:

Portland saw the number of filings rise 112 percent compared with the same period a year ago, Salem 101 percent and Eugene 100 percent. "While some of the markets that had the highest saturation of foreclosures over the past few years have seen declining rates, new markets like Provo, Utah, and Boise, Idaho, have seen large increases," James J. Saccacio, RealtyTrac's chief executive officer, said in a statement. "As unemployment rates increase in different parts of the country, it's very likely that we'll see similar patterns develop elsewhere." Oregon had the nation's third-highest unemployment rate in June at 12.2 percent.

Uh, hello.  Is this thing on? We need to get the jobs thing figured out ... sooner than later, if possible.  Higher unemployment = more foreclosures and fewer home sales... really? duh!  And this related article from CNBC:

A rise in foreclosure properties pressure prices of other homes for sale. "As unemployment rises, we are seeing a change in the financial profile of the people seeking our help," Suzanne Boas, president of Consumer Credit Counseling Service of Greater Atlanta, said this week. "We are serving an increasing number of people who work in professional services and skilled trades," she said. "These people have maintained solid incomes their entire lives, but are now in financial trouble and are reaching out for counseling to help avoid foreclosure."

As if we needed more bad news, unemployment claims were up this week, though things are "less bad" ... is that anything like "the new normal?"  See this MarketWatch article:

First-time claims for state jobless benefits crept up in the latest week, the Labor Department reported Thursday, but the trend of initial claims fell and fewer people were continuing to collect unemployment checks.Initial weekly jobless claims rose by 25,000 to a seasonally adjusted 584,000 during the week ended July 25, about in line with economists' expectations. These claims are getting back to more normalized levels after going through a period of volatility related to automobile-industry layoffs.

We posted this rant from The Angry Fat Bastard about the Sellwood Bridge Project on Portland Waterfront Living; and

The August 2009 Edition of Hello L.O. (courtesy of the City of Lake Oswego) is out and available for download on Lake Oswego Living

Click on the articles below to read:

Lake Oswego Market Activity for week ending July 27th

Portland Waterfront Market Activity for week ending July 27th

Portland-to-Lake Oswego Streetcar Plan Advances

Just posted last weeks stats to our Lake Oswego Living site.

We posted three good articles on Lake Oswego Living yesterday:

Lake Oswego Neighborhood News - June 2009

Oswego Village Townhomes Residents Live with Ongoing Repairs

Lake Oswego Makes CNN Money's Best Places to Live

Check 'em out!

Click here to download Portland Metro Market Action Report for June 2009