patrick.net

what are rents in portland? what are taxes? are there hoa's? what's the job outlook? do you wanna stay there awhile?

Yeah, all that!

Basically, if you can rent cheaper than owning, I think you should rent.

Why not live in Portland for at least a year to get a feel for the place before even thinking of buying?

sybrib says

Why not live in Portland for at least a year to get a feel for the place before even thinking of buying?

Nice words of wisdom.

Leigh should be able to give him an advice or two.
Too bad we can't see her when she is needed.

Sulli, basically buying a home vs rent is business decision. You take it when it's worth taking it to you, otherwise, you don't, doesn't matter whomever say what.

To get some help from people here, I suggest you being little more specific. Give us what ellemae said, and take what patrick and sybrib said as a grain of salt. :)

bubblesitter says

sybrib says

Why not live in Portland for at least a year to get a feel for the place before even thinking of buying?

Nice words of wisdom.

Oh, yea - many times I've known people who moved to a place, bought a house and then a year later realized it wasn't what they wanted/needed. Wrong area, under the airport landing path, windier than other areas... bad schools, new housing project under construction...too far to drive to work... and so on.

There are so many reasons that you should rent unless you've lived there for a while.

I think you should recheck your figures. Assuming your putting nothing down and a 150k mortgage with no taxes or PMI at a 4 percent interest rate, fixed 30 year mortgage comes out to $716 a month. Portland, Ore tax rate is between $14.00 to $20.30 per $1000 which gives you $2,100 to $3,045 property taxes a year, or up to $253 a month, figure $1,000 a year home owners insurance (another $82 a month), PMI is typically 1/2% to 1% of the purchase price, that's another $125 a month, this gives you a grand total of $1,177 a month, not including a HOA fee if there is one. Even if your putting 20% down, with a low property tax rate your still looking at $974 a month Minimum.

If current monthly rent and monthly ownership costs are more or less equal, and if one were to sell their house for the same price they bought the house 10 years from now, would the renter or the home owner be financially ahead taking into consideration that the monthly rent and monthly home ownership costs remain pretty much equal in those 10 years?

I would say the homeowner would be farther head financially. While it true he didn't "make" any money on the sale he did still enjoy a tax write off every year and in ten years, on a 150k mortgage, the mortgage balance would be 125k. It costs you 5% in Realtor commissions to sell ($7,500), which means your $17,500 ahead not counting your tax write on income taxes over the last 10 years.

This is of course highly dependent on a few key issues. If there are HOA fees involved, this changes things, HOA fees can run anywhere from $100 to $700 a month, although at the 150k price range, I would guess it would be on the low end of the scale, that would add up to $12,000 over 10 years. So now the home owner is ahead $5,500. Also the age of the property needs to be factored in, one would assume a new house would need a lot less maintenance than a older home. So if the roof doesn't need replacing or the HVAC doesn't go, the owner would be ahead in the long run.

TechGromit says

...the owner would be ahead in the long run.

And if he/she didn't sell, but rented out the place for the same amount as his/her mortgage payment (see BobbyS's parameters), and was very careful in selecting his/her tenants, after 30 years s/he'd be even farther ahead. But you'd have to be very careful about the location.

I'd like to know what kind of house/condo you can get in Portland for $150k. I know it's cheaper than the Bay area but $150k? Them's Alabama prices.

I lived in Portland for a year, it's an interesting place. But it's definitely not SF, or the bay area.

It rains a lot. Far less than Seattle, but decent rain. It seemed fairly expensive to me in terms of goods and services. A huge amount of the economy seemed to be based on forestry, which drove costs up, but didn't seem to drive up wages for everyone else. I made good wages, so I was able to rent downtown. It was nice, but cloudy, rainy and not all the exciting.

As far as raising a family, it's probably a lot calmer and more family friendly.

I've been shopping for a house (2000+ sf, 3+/2+, lot at least 6,000 sf) on the east side of Portland for several months now. This area has been beaten down an average of 30% from the top. I haven't seen much worth buying for less than $230,000. The west side of town--Beaverton/Aloha-- is also down a fair bit, similar to the east/southeast. Lots of owners holding out for bubble prices. Inner neighborhoods (trendy bike commuter paradise/high walkscore) not down much at all. Don't ask me about condos; I'd rather cut my leg off w/ a chainsaw. Local wisdom is prices should start dropping again this winter (maybe scary fast) after minor spring/summer increases. As far as 150K goes, maybe a contractor special REO in a really crappy area, but I can't really see it.....and condos are generally in those overpriced inner areas. Love this site, been lurking for a while w/nothing to say.

I think TechGromit and pkennedy has a good point.
Two things I never wanted to have are pchycho neighbor and bad weather. :p

When Sulli said "a home" I automatically assumed a house. So, 1000 rent vs 700 mortage was kind of confusing comparison from the begining. Then TechG got the math I haven't thought of. Thanks for that.

fireweekgeek, I was looking for something like that for years. It would be over 600K assuming it is decent one in my area, so I was like that's freakin cheap. Lol. But I guess things are quite different from coast to coast. You're comment can be a help of fellow home seekers in portland area, so keep posted and, good luck with your search.

I hope we're not talking ourselves, and Sulli read this thread, throw a response or two.

East of 82nd ave has lots of bragains. It also has lots of meth and trashy people. It seems more and more, to live in a decent area of any given city, you have to pony up a great of money. It's a part of the internet's ability to facilitate self-selection. But from the many sites I have read, Portland is still overpriced. I'd wait a couple more years before buying there.

A few years ago, I read about Portland being the most expensive city in the US to live in. I'm not sure where it stands now, but I'm sure it's still up there.

But that says something about Portland! Wages vs Housing vs Goods!

Some people should not buy even if the numbers work out in favor of doing so. Owning a home is a substatial responsibility. Right now, I'm having trouble getting up the motivation to mow the front yard lawn! And the detached garage could us a paint job and the rain gutters are full of leaves...it's always something.

But if you don't keep up with the maintenance you not only devalue your own place, you take down the entire neighborhood. So, there's that.

In some responses you have already received they go into the math of the purchase but the first bit of math I would suggest you consider is this: Rent is not the same thing as a mortgage payment. Rent is the cost of housing; a mortgage payment is what you pay to acquire the asset a house represents. The value of the housing, in a mortgage situation, is realized as imputed income. I would suggest you factor that into your equation.

In your case, and assuming a market value of the rent as being 1% a month of the purchase price, then imputed income is $1,500/month. So, if you decide not to buy, it can't be based on the numbers; but as others have pointed out, there are other reasons to stay out of the market.

Thanks to all for your great information! Im hoping .. to buy a tiny house or 1 bdrmm condo/ max 150k in a safe area of Portland. Im in no hurry so maybe in a year or two. ok ... east of 82 trashy n unsafe. Any other unsafe areas of Portland? Best Regards!

Sulli says

Thanks to all for your great information! Im hoping .. to buy a tiny house or 1 bdrmm condo/ max 150k in a safe area of Portland. Im in no hurry so maybe in a year or two. ok … east of 82 trashy n unsafe. Any other unsafe areas of Portland? Best Regards!

Are you fully committed to Portland proper? Real estate in Clark county (Vancouver) right across the river has crashed totally. It's cheap and the (very small) downtown is pretty cool. The down side is compared to Portland, Clark county has a downright redneck attitude sometimes. Depending on where you need to get to in Portland it can be quicker to be across the river than in some parts of Portland (St Johns comes to mind) that just don't have any good access. There are plenty of nice area's east of 82nd, go out and look around. There's a web site called portlandbridges.com that has a lot of info about neighborhoods. I just checked, it's still around.

Soooo....Pulling the trigger on an reo property in P'Land. Great east-side neighborhood; looks like something out of Leave it to Beaver. It's a cape cod style, ~3,000 sf, 10,000 sf lot, 1 house away from school, 1 block from park, 1/2 mile from MAX line, shopping about 1 mile away w/ a pedestrian path in between.....Needs some work of course but nothing terrible; the previous owners took the stove, fridge, a bathroom sink faucet (WTF???) and left a big mess but the bank cleaned it up pretty good. Decent price, about 12 times rent and 1.8 times our yearly gross. The big question now is "what are the odds that our timing is EXACTLY wrong and we are stuck in this freaking mortgage meltdown mess?". Anybody want to venture an opinion on THAT? The bank is Freddie Mac, the servicer is Northwest Trustee Serv. Inc. and the previous note was held (whatever that means, anymore...) by Wells Fargo. Hanging' on for the ride.....

fireweedgeek says

The big question now is “what are the odds that our timing is EXACTLY wrong and we are stuck in this freaking mortgage meltdown mess?”.

Why do you care unless you are planning to move in less than 5 years (why would you buy?) or flipping. If you are buying a home it shouldn't matter.

Not flipping, not planning on moving in the foreseeable future, just concerned that the (seemingly) perfect home will get stuck in this huge mess (We can't establish who actually owns these homes so we can't actually sell them). I am not terribly concerned about the status of this particular home, I have done the due diligence and I think that the title to this place is reasonably clean. That said, it's looking like a mass lockdown of all REO sales could be coming down the pike. Honestly, unless you are saying that we have no worries if we are planning to own the place long enough for the dust to settle I'm not sure I understand your point. So.....do you think it being a Freddie Mac property matters, hopefully in a good way?

Yeah, all that!
Basically, if you can rent cheaper than owning, I think you should rent.

Patrick What are your thoughts on Portland real estate meaning how long will prices keep dropping? Will real estate prices continue to go down another 20% in next two years? thanks very much!

Hey Sulli
Sorry for kinda hijacking your thread....I'm new to this.
About Portland; two sites I check out every once in a while are Portland Housing Blog and Realty Times-Portland, Oregon.
Been working with a pretty good realtor--yes I know and have dealt with horrible loser cannibal realtors before. Sounds like there are very few solid buyers right now, about 11 months of inventory on the market, it is anticipated that prices will nose-dive over the winter. I don't know about buying a property for 150K but there are some good deals once you get out of the city center. Looking at the unemployment rate and the median house price/median income I have to believe that prices here will be going down for a few more years. Portland came late to the bubble, and is late working it's way out. I have concentrated my attention in the east side of town, along the 205 freeway corridor. Neighborhoods here range from solid, low-turnover "leave it to beaver" all the way to "my realtor won't let me buy here". If you are not in the area, check school ratings as you scan around (easy to do on Redfin). Good neighborhoods correlate well with school quality. That said, there is no substitute for driving/walking around and seeing if you're comfortable. Rush hour here sucks, same as everywhere, but the MAX line is an easy way to get around town. I wouldn't commute any other way, though I know people that turn up their noses at it.
If I were new to the area, I would certainly rent for at least a year (just what we did). There are lots of rentals (apartments, anyway) and they seem to be offering a lot of concessions. I have a feeling that the population here may be dropping a little--I've seen some anecdotal evidence in car licensing information.
Bottom line, this is a nice place to live unless a) you can't find a job, b) you hate liberals or c) cloudy weather makes you SAD.
If these things aren't you, then welcome to Portland.
(Popular bumper sticker--Keep Portland Weird)

fireweedgeek says

Honestly, unless you are saying that we have no worries if we are planning to own the place long enough for the dust to settle I’m not sure I understand your point.

Are you worried about being stuck getting in or out? I read it as you were worried about getting out and commented based on that. Clean title is the title insurance companies problem, that's what you pay for.

fireweedgeek says

Bottom line, this is a nice place to live unless a) you can’t find a job, b) you hate liberals or c) cloudy weather makes you SAD.

Luckily it's only a little over an hour drive to get east of the cascades which lets you away from point b and c if need be.

fireweedgeek says

Rush hour here sucks

Does anyone have a clue why people in Oregon can't merge without slowing to a crawl 2-3 miles away? Is it the meth or the granola?

bob2356
No, sorry, I'm only worried about the system jamming before we can close on this puppy.
Title insurance is only as sound as the title insurance company; but they'll probably just get bailed out like AIG--if things really go to hell. Of course, title insurance primarily benefits the little guys.....
Yeah, the coast a short drive one way and central oregon a little ways the other; you gotta like that.
I moved here from Las Vegas, where people generally view merging as a contact sport. I think that the early merging here is the result of excessive politeness, kinda "Oregon Nice".
Overall, not a bad place to be. I suspect things are going to be getting ugly over the next few years--and I think this is a pretty good place to ride it out.

Figure I would just post here instead of making a new thread. Wife offered a job in Portland making about what I make in LA but with better benefits. We bought a house in a nice part of Valencia right at the bottom of the market so if we sell we will be debt free with a good chunk of equity. Wife’s job will be ending in December so if we do nothing and stay here in LA either way our income is going to get cut in half but it would also be easy for my wife to get another job in LA. We have three boys 7 and under and if we went to Portland we could rent a nice house in a good school district and I could be a stay at home dad for a while, in LA we both have to work and I work nights while wife works days to keep child care costs down. I also help my dad a lot because he is severely handicapped and would have a lot more time to also help him. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous and scared about moving and not working, I’m 40 and have never not had a job since I was 17, but I am also enjoy being with my kids.

Wife wants to buy a house ASAP but I’m thinking we should just sit on our cash and watch the market because it seems overpriced again. I am not an expert on the market in and around Portland and wonder how is the market there?

If you like the idea of living in someone elses house, and the thought of paying $50 to $200 more in mortgage than rent a month, creeps you out. Then by all mean continue renting.

If you are ready to get on with your life, and not worry about what the market is doing. You want a stable house, to raise your kid in, and have a familiar home they can come back to as they grow into young adults, and need parents with stability and room for them, whether they need it or not. Then buy a house.

Owning a house, is more than just balance sheets and winning and losing a few points over one vs the other. It's not meant to be some slot machine where you put in $50K pull the lever and $500K comes out of the mail slot.

Adult children need their parents stability more than ever, as they enter the adult world. Even if they don't live at home,(and very shouldn't). They do need to know that their bed room that they grew up in, is still there and they can come home to visit on Holidays.

My Mom and Dad split up, moved away, got back together, split up, back together about ten times after we left the house. They were constantly moving from state to state then back to where we were. But they never had the room for all of the kids to comeback home for the holidays. I made out OK, but it really did suck at the time.

You should only buy a house if you can afford the payments. Pure and simple. Not only afford the payments. But ask your self what if I had drastic career changes, would I still be able to swing the mortgage earning considerable less than you are now?

And under no circumstances should you ever buy a house where a bubble is present. Like the BA. If you're on the sidelines waiting to buy a house, like I was in South Florida. If you're waiting for fair and reasonable prices then it will never happen. You'll just be setting your self up for months and years of despair trying to guage, time and pontificate the market.

I finally bought in South Florida, because I found a house I could afford. It's not the fanciest in the nicest neighborhood, it's not as cheap as I know in my heart of hearts that it should be. But it suits my needs and affordability criteria. Which was, my Mortgage is the same as my rent was, that I was paying for the last 11 years before I bought. While I was waiting out the bubble.

4 years ago Portland was reasonable, now I'd say it's just as bad as the bay area.

rpanic01 says

Wife wants to buy a house ASAP but I’m thinking we should just sit on our cash and watch the market because it seems overpriced again. I am not an expert on the market in and around Portland and wonder how is the market there?

I really, really like living in Portland and around Portland. I'd like to go back some day. But Portland is a very quirky city. There are huge differences between the different hoods. There are some flat out bad area's very close to good areas. A couple blocks can be critical. Industrial, commercial, and residential are surprisingly intermixed in some areas. Portland is also very light on malls if that kind of thing matters to you. Shopping is more a drive store to store thing most places. More than any city I ever lived in you really need to know your way around. It's also the most car hostile city in the country and can be really hard to get around if the metro doesn't go where you want. Jumping right in has the very real possibility that everything you want to do is in another area of the city and a daily struggle to get to. Something to consider.

Boise is one area I like.

What about the Coeur d'Alene area?

not sure. Boise has some nice energy. Coeur d'Alene does look nice, maybe i should take a ride up there.

They say that Coeur d'Alene is the Switzerland of America.

Anywhere near the center of of Portland is not cheap! West side close in will put you down 300k for a 1 bedroom, 500k for a 2 bedroom and 800k for a 3 bedroom. East side close in is starting to reach those prices also. There are a lot of trust funders moving to portland and buying up real estate. It's not what it used to be.

As for living in the suburbs... you might as well live in Eugene or some other town in Oregon.

What about Portland, Maine instead? All the lobsters you can eat.

Peter P says

They say that Coeur d'Alene is the Switzerland of America.

downside is winters up there are pretty nasty.

but generally i think the mountain region of the US is very promising. Having lived in Switz for about a year, there is really much more we can do to develop this region, we just don't.

CdA isn't what it use to be either. Lots of trash from Spokane spills over in the summer.

Also Boise ID is basically Bakersfield 1000 mi north with LDS. Boise neighborhood in Portland is pretty nice though.

Wife likes the look of West Linn and Oswego, maybe Happy Valley, and South West Portland. Her Main office is about 4 or so miles east of downtown on the other side of the river so she’s looking at a bit of a commute. I think it’s more of get her foot in the door work for a while and try to locate closer if it’s too much, it’s a state job with offices in all 4 quadrants of Portland and elsewhere in Oregon. We do have three small kids so schools are a high priority. I am into outdoors, snowboarding, and gardening so I think I will like it there. My wife I hope likes the gloom; I can always stick her under a sun light in the winter j/k. The more I think about it we just need to get out of LA I had a great childhood here but it seems to just be such a rat race, and the schools seem to be slowly getting worse. We are in a pocket of great schools but pay for it with a long commute, the houses are way over priced, and I could barely afford to buy my house if I was new to the market now. My oldest said he is ok as long as our yard is bigger; he has a bigger place to dig, and a tree house lol. I figure we could rent for a year get use to the area and scout out where to set down permanent roots. If it didn’t work out I could probably get my old job back or a different one and it would be same with wife, we would still have our equity from house.
I think if we don’t do this now it will get to hard later as my kids get older and we would always be wondering if we should have taken the chance. We originally thought we would just grow old and not move again in our current house and we do have a bit of attachment to it and our friends.