Landlords’ group testified… A panel convened by Multifamily NW is urging the Oregon Legislature to vote against a rent control bill and in favor of making Portland's inclusionary zoning voluntary and addressing staffing shortages at permitting departments. Notably, the group — composed of residential property managers, owners, and vendors in the Portland area, Southwest Washington and down the I-5 corridor — testified against lowering the state's rent control rent cap. Senate Bill 611 was introduced in January by Sen. Wlnsvey Campos (D-Aloha). It would limit annual rent increa ..read more

Oregonians of color… The racial gap in homeownership in Oregon is very real but noticeably less than the gap in the country overall, according to a February 21 study released by construction consultancy Construction Coverage. The disparity between white and nonwhite homeowners in Oregon was the sixth smallest in the nation, beating Colorado, Washington and California. In 2021 minority-homeownership rates in the United States exceeded 50% for the first time since the 2008 financial crisis. In Oregon 67.3% of whites were homeowners, compared to 52.3% of Oregonians of color. The 15% gap in home ..read more

Often empty, used… Mike Moore does not hold back when describing the Lamb-Swansen Building, a downtown Klamath Falls property he and his wife, Rachel, bought in 1998. “It was the ugliest building in town,” he says about the 100-year-old, two-story structure. The Lamb-Swansen Building, owned by Mike and Rachel Moore.  Photo by Jason E. Kaplan  Mike, who is from Bend, and Rachel, who grew up in Klamath Falls, started making expensive improvements. The pair gutted the ground floor, added the second exit required by modern codes and built out two retail spaces: a Subway sandwich shop o ..read more

Three real estate… Last year’s real estate market blindsided brokers, says Phyllis Ghazi, Principal Broker at More Realty, who sells homes in the greater Portland market. The Federal Reserve raised interest rates to counteract inflation – going from 2.8% in January of 2022 to 6.36% in October — causing potential buyers to leave the market, and creating relatively high backlog of housing inventory. On Wednesday the Fed raised interest rates for a eighth time, despite inflation slowing down. According toRE/MAX National Housing Reportreleased in January, the Portland housing mark ..read more

RE/MAX’s latest housing… Portland saw a decline in both the number of homes sold and the number of new homes listed last month versus November of the previous year — outpacing metro areas across the country — as the real estate market returns to what some in the industry are describing as “ a more normalized market.” “We’ve been seeing a return to a more balanced market, where not just sellers are in the driver’s seat. Sellers and buyers are each able to negotiate, with neither having a built-in upper hand,” said Nick Bailey, RE/MAX President and CEO, in a report issued by the real ..read more

After nearly a… For Lynnea Miller, principal broker at Bend Premier Real Estate, declining home prices were nothing to be afraid of. A licensed broker for 22 years, Miller began her tenure as principal broker in 2011, at the tail end of the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis. Unlike the last housing bubble, she expects this price decline will even the playing field between buyers and sellers, leading to a healthier housing market overall. “It used to be that the asking price was the floor of what would be the agreed to sales price. Now the asking price may be the ceiling. We're having buyers nego ..read more

Experts say the… A new survey ranks Multnomah County as the number one county for incoming investement for the first time in six years — and another shows a 126% increase in year-over-year sales for multifamily units in 2021 and the third highest population growth of any city in the Northwest region that year. A Smartasset survey released last week ranked Multnomah county as the number one Oregon county for incoming investment for the first time in six years. And in March, the commercial real estate services firm Colliers released the Northwest Region Multifamily Market Report, which showed ..read more

A law banning…   A federal judge has ruled that Oregon’s ban on homebuyer “love letters” violates the freedom of speech rights of both prospective homebuyers and real estate brokers. In 2021, Oregon became the first state in the union to ban the controversial practice of homebuyers sending sellers letters pleasing with them to accept their offer. But just as set to take effect, the ban was challenged in court by Portland-based Total Real Estate Group. In March of this year, a federal judge issued a preliminary ruling preventing the state from enforcing the ban. That ban is now permanent ..read more

Housing prices across… For Mandy Jarrell, bartender at the Bohemian Club — a wood-furnished, saloon-style tavern in the city of Sweet Home with nearly 100 years of history — the last two years have brought a lot of new faces. Mandy Jarrell, bartender of the Bohemian Club.  Photo by Jason E. Kaplan. “We get a lot of retirement folks — people coming up from California who like the slower lifestyle and the smaller community,” says Jarrell, who attributed some of the bar’s recent financial success to the new arrivals. “Things are definitely starting to pick back up from the COVID era.” She ..read more

Oregon’s first-in-the-nation ban… A federal judge has overturned Oregon’s ban on prospective homebuyer “love letters”  — written materials attached to a homebuyer’s offer explaining why the seller should select them.  In 2021, Oregon became the first state in the union to ban the controversial letters by passing House Bill 2550. The bill banned the use of love letters to “help a seller avoid selecting a buyer based on the buyer’s race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, national origin, marital status or familial status as prohibited by the Fair Housing Act.”  Rep. Mar ..read more