Portland Blog - This Week in Portland March 6-12, 2010

Hello, Portlanders. It looks like another lovely spring-like Saturday outside, and there is lots to do in Portland this week from the looks of our event calendar. I was going to suggest if you do only one thing this week in Portland, it would be to go downtown to the waterfront and take in the pink cherry blossom trees. They are bursting into bloom and it is one of my all-time favorite Portland "events" to see each year. Take your camera! And, it coincides with this weekend's annual grand opening of the Portland Saturday Market--so you can enjoy the market and the spring blooming trees, and a gorgeous Saturday in Portland all at the same time! In addition to the Saturday Market, our members have loaded up our Portland events calendar with more events than I could possibly feature in one blog. So, a summary run down is listed below, but come check the Portland events calendar for even more events (or add your own!). Portland has a lot going on, so I can't possibly add all the events by myself each week so the community/member added events are a great help in getting the word out about events in your Portland neighborhood that you want to share.

Featured Portland Events

Sometimes I just crackle myself up.

March 6, 2010 at 7am to March 31, 2010 at 7pm – Sip and Kranz and Salon Thirty! I've got a show up at Sip & Kranz on 10th & Lovejoy - right next to Jamison Park. I'd love you to stop on by and check them out. Or, if you
find yourself in the NE - I'm putting up some new…

2010 Oregon Orchid Show and Sale

March 6, 2010 at 10am to March 7, 2010 at 4pm – Lloyd Center Doubletree The Largest Orchid Event in the Pacific Northwest, the 2010 Oregon Orchid Show and sale is the 65th annual show put on by the Oregon Orchid Society of Portland, OR.

SE Portland Art Walk

March 6, 2010 at 10am to March 7, 2010 at 5pm – SE Portland neighborhood - Hawthorne to Powell SE Portland artists show and sell their paintings, sculpture, jewelry, ceramics, pottery, yard art, metal work, collage, encaustic, glass and textile works in the Southeast neighborhood of Portland.

FREE Shred Event

March 6, 2010 from 10am to 2pm – Both Storables Locations - Pearl and Hall Blvd Bring up to three boxes of paper to be shredded - FREE!

Portland Saturday Market 37th Season Opening

March 6, 2010 at 10am to March 7, 2010 at 4:30pm – Waterfront Park + Ankeny Plaza Join PORTLAND SATURDAY MARKET for the kickoff weekend of the 37th season, March 6th & 7th. The tradition continues with a new look for the Market, under an 8,000-square-foot open-sided pavilion.

Get-together for Woodlawn artists and craftsmen

March 6, 2010 from 2pm to 4pm – Woodlawn Community Resource Center Woodlawn Neighborhood Association invites you to a get-together for Woodlawn artists and craftsmen. If you are an artist or craftsman living in the Woodlawn neighborhood.

Rossini's Stabat Mater

March 6, 2010 from 7:30pm to 9pm – Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall Rossini’s Stabat Mater Two works only, both rare and well done: The Oregon Symphony performs the Rossini-like Sixth Symphony of Franz Schubert for
the first time in its history.

Teada, Live at the University of Portland

March 7, 2010 from 6:30pm to 10pm – Buckley Auditorium, UofP Teada, with Oisín Mac Diarmada (fiddle), Damien Stenson (flute), Seán McElwain (guitar/bouzouki), Paul Finn (button accordion) and Tristan Rosenstock (bodhrán)!


Portland Photo of the Week

This week's winner of the Portland Photo Contest is: Chinese gardens Koi by AquaticSquirrel! Thanks for submitting your photos. Each week we select one image as the weekly winner and you get a bag of freshly roasted Coava coffee.

Spring Portland Photo Contest
With all the spring flowers and trees bursting into bloom, it looks like it's time for another Portland photo contest. Upload your best spring themed Portland images to our Photo page, and you'll be automatically entered at your chance to win a Portland gift certificate: your choice of a gardening gift card to a local nursery, or a brewpub gift certificate to enjoy spring like weather on one of Portland's outdoor beer patios. Contest runs through March.

Kerns Neighborhood Report
The Kerns neighborhood is located in central and southeast Portland, just on the east side of the Willamette River, north of Burnside Street. It is bordered by the Buckman, Lloyd, Sullivan's Gulch, Laurelhurst and Sunnyside neighborhoods. Click here to learn more: http://www.portlandneighborhood.com/kerns.html

In my monthly Portland real estate report, I always talk about how each individual neighborhood is a micro-market. If you are looking to buy or sell in a particular neighborhood, the most crucial information that you need to know is what is going on in that neighborhood. In this situation, the overall Portland market report is less important and the national real estate report is just about useless. This posting is a real estate report for the Kerns neighborhood of all homes in all price ranges. Feel free to request particular neighborhoods in which you are interested in buying or selling and I am be happy to do a report, just contact me on this forum or at: http://www.propertiesofportland.com.

If you are looking for homes in Kerns, visit this link where you can search for homes by particular neighborhood:
http://www.propertiesofportland.com/index.cfm/page/51539/parent/426...

The first thing you will notice about individual neighborhoods as compared to the overall Portland reports are that the numbers can be wildly different month to month. Basically, the bigger the pool of data you are working with, the smoother the stats become. As we focus on smaller areas, many different things can happen month to month.

On to the report:

Here is the overall chart of inventory, sold, and pending for the Kerns neighborhood from 11/08 to 01/10:

In January 2010, the Kerns neighborhood had 7 closed sales, 18 Pending Sales, and 68 on the market.

More stats for you from your friendly neighborhood real estate statistics nerd:

One year change from January 2009 to January 2010:

Inventory (how many homes on the market for sale): Up 13.3% Homes sold: Same as same month last year - 0% change. Homes pending sale: Up 125%

Chart for average price per square footage:

In the past 15 months, the average price per square footage in the Kerns neighborhood has been between $143 and $181/sq. ft. In January 2010, the average price per square foot in the Kerns neighborhood was $143.

One year change from January 2009 to January 2010:

Change in Price Per Square Foot:
January 2009: 153
January 2010: 143
Percentage Change: Down 6.4%

Days on Market, Sold/List Price:

This chart is showing us two things. First, how many days on the market that a home is spending, on average, before being sold. In January 2010, the average time on market for a home in the Kerns neighborhood was 59 days.
The second thing that this chart is showing you is what percentage of the listing price the owners actually are getting when the house is sold. This is a great indication of the pressure on prices. In January 2010, sellers in Kerns received, on average, 98% of their listing price.

More stats for you:

Change from January 2009 to January 2010:

Time on Market: Decreased 43.3%
Sold/List price % difference: Increased 5%

Average price for sale vs. average price of sold:

This chart shows us what the average listing was and what the average sale was. In January 2010, the average price of a house on the market in Kerns was $479,000. The average sale was $384,000.
More stats over one year:

Average active price: Down 5.7%
Average sold price: Down 11.7%.

Months of Inventory:

Months of inventory gives a time line of how long it would take for all of the current listings to sell. Anything above 4 months is considered a buyers market. This figure is a good indicator of supply and demand. January 2009 was a genuine buyer's maket with 9.7 months of inventory.

By the way, This does NOT mean that it will take 9.7 months for your home to sell. That figure was, on average in January, 59 days, remember? It is a figure that means that, if not another home were to come on the market in Kerns from this point forward, in 9.7 months there would not be another home to sell. They would all be sold.

Visit my website where you can contact me and search all Portland Metro Area listings from the RMLS: http://www.propertiesofportland.com

Best Real Estate Deals in Portland

Each week, Ross highlights a handful of great deals in Portland. Like this cute listing in Sellwood:
3. 1326 SE BIDWELL ST Portland, OR 97202 - Sellwood/Moreland - $429,000

See the listing here: http://www.propertiesofportland.com/9068027

And view the rest of this week's listings at: http://community.portlandneighborhood.com/forum/topics/the-best-dea...

Heard on the Forum

Come join the discussions in the Portland forums, blog, and groups.

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New Group - Solarize Portland

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New PortlandNeighborhood Members

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