eli.cotham – Page 4 – Movin' On Up

Charts and Graphs! July Market Report

By eli.cotham August 5, 2022Real Estate

All real estate is local, and this monthly report is a resource for those buying or selling on the Portland metro’s west side. The data below is for the areas including but not limited to NW Portland, SW Portland, Beaverton, Bethany, Hillsboro, Tigard, and Lake Oswego, and includes all residential resale transactions (new construction not included). A funny thing happened with the idea that mortgage interest rates would keep rising through the rest of the year: it hasn't been happening. They…

What is That House Worth Right Now?

By eli.cotham July 26, 2022Real Estate

In the housing market, knowing where you are in the lifespan of a trend is both very important and slippery to capture. Most of the data you have available with which to analyze trends is backwards-looking. If you're trying to figure out what the housing market looks like right now- at the moment you're deciding which house to buy and how much to pay or how much to sell your house for- you have to know what the market looks like…

Charts and Graphs! June Market Report

By eli.cotham July 6, 2022Real Estate

All real estate is local, and this monthly report is a resource for those buying or selling on the Portland metro’s west side. The data below is for the areas including but not limited to NW Portland, SW Portland, Beaverton, Bethany, Hillsboro, Tigard, and Lake Oswego, and includes all residential resale transactions (new construction not included). Well, it finally happened: prices dropped. What goes up must come down (which isn't actually true, at least the "must" part), but nevertheless the June…

Machines Don’t Know What Your House is Worth, So Stop Asking Them

By eli.cotham June 29, 2022Real Estate

In a previous life, my job was to pick the best release dates for movies. Now if you're releasing Marvel or Pixar movies it's pretty easy: Christmas for this one, Thanksgiving for that one, first week of May for the other, and I'm going on break. However, I did not work on Marvel or Pixar movies. For the others, there's a whole lot more research and analysis that goes into it than people think. Being that there's plenty of data available…

Finally, Some Good News for Sellers AND Buyers

By eli.cotham June 12, 2022Real Estate

The Word of the Day is correction. What needs correcting, you say? Home prices, which have risen around 15% over the past year. Nobody who has been paying attention ever believed that kind of growth was sustainable, and the Fed certainly saw it as a problem when they made moves that caused a rapid rise in interest rates. Those rate increases- mortgage rates are now about double what they were last year- are starting to do what they were designed to…

Charts and Graphs! May Market Report

By eli.cotham June 3, 2022Real Estate

All real estate is local, and this monthly report is a resource for those buying or selling on the Portland metro’s west side. The data below is for the areas including but not limited to NW Portland, SW Portland, Beaverton, Bethany, Hillsboro, Tigard, and Lake Oswego, and includes all residential resale transactions (new construction not included). Hey, good news! Home prices are no longer going up 4-5% every month. The rapid rise in interest rates that occurred in March and April…

What the Hell Are You Talking About, Part 2

By eli.cotham May 19, 2022Real Estate

A while ago I wrote about the real estate industry's penchant for overused words in home descriptions, typically written by someone who is too busy selling houses to crack open a thesaurus. Recently I was going through listings and saw three in a row that started with the word "beautiful," which is enough to make me crazy so for my own catharsis, I'm revisiting this topic. Consider this a glossary (in random order, deal with it) of terms you'll encounter often…

Charts and Graphs! April Market Report

By eli.cotham May 7, 2022Real Estate

All real estate is local, and this monthly report is a resource for those buying or selling on the Portland metro’s west side. The data below is for the areas including but not limited to NW Portland, SW Portland, Beaverton, Bethany, Hillsboro, Tigard, and Lake Oswego, and includes all residential resale transactions (new construction not included). So, if interest rates are doing this: Why are prices doing this: I'm no economist, but even I understand that at some point the cost…

Mortgage Interest Rates: Oof.

By eli.cotham April 29, 2022Real Estate

Since the start of the year mortgage interest rates have risen about 60%, and they’re widely expected to continue rising. That is a very sobering thought for those searching for a house. In essence, it means a homebuyer’s purchasing power has dropped 20% since New Year’s Day. That $600,000 budget now looks more like a $500,000 budget. The idea is that the rising interest rates will act as a fire extinguisher for inflation in general and the hot housing market, slowing…

Made in Oregon: Not Just a Gift Basket You Buy at the Airport

By eli.cotham April 3, 2022Moving to Portland

Upon moving to Oregon, I discovered something interesting: people here generally don't care one whit about the entertainment industry. It took me about a minute and a half for that first epiphany to lead itself to epiphany 1B, which is that most people everywhere don't care about this and that I was, all along for all those years working in that business, in a bubble. I Kind of knew it then but it became crystal clear. I was no longer among…