Downpayment Assistance Event for New Homeowners Dec. 13, 14

Will you be one to win $15,000 of downpayment assistance from Wells Fargo to get into a new home?

Top 11 Reasons to Sell Your Home During December

Even the plainest home looks welcoming decorated in winter.

11. By selling now, you will be a non-contingent buyer when you purchase, in the Spring. In the Spring when you'll have your choice of homes, your offer won't be knocked back as easily, because the seller won't have to wait for your home to be sold for the contract to go forward. Non-contingent offers are much more attractive to sellers.

10. Even though your house will be on the market, you can always restrict viewings during the six or seven days during the holidays!

9. January is traditionally the month for employees to begin new jobs. Since transferrees cannot wait for Spring to buy, you need to be on the market to capture those buyers!

Holiday-decorated homes illustrate family and warmth.

8. Some people must buy before the end of the year, for tax reasons.

7. Buyers have more time to look for a home during the holidays than they do during the work week!

6. Buyers are more emotional during the holidays, so they may be more likely to pay your price.

5. Houses show better when decorated for the holidays!

Job transferrees to Oregon have to find a home now.

4. Since the amount of listings will incrementally but dramatically increase after January, there will be less demand for your home as time goes on into the spring. Less demand for your home means less money for you!

3. Serious buyers have fewer homes to choose from during December. Less supply of homes in general means more money for you!

2. December tends to be a good sales month for realtors, because buyers feel sentimental about home and hearth: buyers make offers in December!

And, the number one reason to list your home for sale in December:

1. People looking for a home now aren't just wishers, and they aren't taking their time. They have to find a home NOW--December buyers are serious buyers!

Dozens of Hillsboro Homes Soon Needed for Transferred Intel Workers

The Oregonian reports on Intel workers to be transferred to the Portland area.

This News Tribune reports says up to 380 people could be needing somewhere to live.

They'll be needed homes in the Hillsboro area. Some reports have mentioned 380 people, some have mentioned about 40. Do we currently have homes enough for them, for sale now? No. No, we don't.

Do you have a home you wanted to sell last summer or fall, and are waiting for the spring to re-list?
In the spring, you will have to compete with all the other houses coming on the market. 

If you sell now, you'll catch those serious buyers who are getting transferred. 

Call or e-mail me. I can help you get your home listed for sale, same day as you sign, and get you offers right away. 
(ninesevenone...toosevenwon...twelveOHseven.)
neighborlyportland (-at-) gmail.com

The Five Types of Money Spenders - which kind are you?

When you are preparing to buy a home, you are best positioned to become as aware of your money spending habits as possible. Especially if you are part of a couple, going forward into home ownership, because couples usually express more than one kind -- often opposing -- spending styles.

When you realize your Spending Style, you can apply logic to pure impulse, and go against your grain, in order to experience new things with money. To shake it up, and make life interesting now and again. Rebelling from your natural spending style doesn't have to mean losing your balance. In fact, it can mean bringing some balance to your habits with money, if they are too polarized.

For example, if you are extremely frugal, you might recognize that in yourself, and purposely go get a massage or take a hot air balloon ride--just to mix it up, and realize the world won't come to an end if you spend money lavishly once in a while.

Likewise, if you are impulsive and self-indulgent with money, you might challenge yourself to commit to a savings plan so that you can experience an enduring ability to reach long term goals -- such as homeownership.

Which of the following Money Spending Types are you?

The Super Saver
The super saver will drive across town to shop with doubled coupons at the grocery store. Will not buy anything unless it is marked down or on sale, or the best bargain. Keeps a chilly house in the winter, and a warm one in the summer. Holding on to money makes them feel secure, and spending money makes them feel anxious. Theirs is a fear-based relationship with money.

The Conservative 
The conservative doesn't enjoy shopping as a past time. Saves 10% of paycheck, and brings a lunch from home to work most days. Never buys something new when an old one will do. Is nervous paying on credit, prefers to save up for purchases. This relationship puts satisfaction into the future. The conservative wants money in order to have things in the future--not now.

The Free and Easy
The carefree spender wants nice things, and thinks about them until she can get them. Always has one major debt to pay off, but always pays bills on time. Buys what he can afford, within reason - spending habits fluctuate with income. Has little or no savings, but enjoys spending the money she worked to earn. The free and easy spender has a positive relationship with money, but can lack the focus and perseverance to achieve long-term goals.

The Big Spender
This spending style takes lots of vacations, buys clothes in the latest styles, and loves to treat his friends and leave big tips. Spending is a way to show her power and effect in the world, as well as a way to make herself feel good. Often borrows up to his credit limit, paying interest on purchases. Doesn't mind working to pay for things, but wants them now.

The Overspender
Is always hoping to win the lottery. Has had to put all her debts together and turn in her credit cards. Owes money to the IRS. Moves to a more expensive place when he has more money, and moves to a less expensive place when he has less. Agrees to buy things even if she doesn't have the money for them. Will over-buy things, and then take them back to stores for refunds in order to keep checks from bouncing. Spends money to make himself feel important, and pretends not to have money problems.

So...which of these remind you of yourself? You may recognize family and friends and your partner in some of the other profiles as well. Are you satisfied with how you deal with money? What would you like to change?

Is a house worth altering your natural spending style?


Adapted from the NeighborWorks America homebuyers manual, 4th edition.

Rhododendrons Light Up Portland Gardens

Vivid rhodi bush lights up a 4-square off SE Belmont

Those vivid rhododendrons are in bloom again. 
Rhodies come in: orchid pink, bright magenta, scarlet, pale pink, cream, and a rare apricot yellow, an unusual peach-orange, and their bushes are packed with tightly spaced, scentless blossoms. 

These bushes will be lighting up Portland neighborhoods for about the next few weeks or so. Their display is short lived, but breathtaking.

To anyone outside of Portland, the density and hue of their blooms is hallucinogenically thrilling. Like the purple jacarandas of Australia, or the lightning yellow forsythia, these blossoms crowd out all the green leaves, and all you are left seeing is a blaze of enchanting color.

To Portlanders, they are common enough as to be ripped out if inconveniently located, however, these gorgeous bushes signal that spring is here, like no other plant does! 

Portland Monthly Defines "Microhood"

Portland Monthly Magazine expands the definition of Portland's "20 minute neighborhoods" to include smaller areas united by a specific theme, calling them Portland's Hottest Microhoods. 

A microhood is an area of town, off the main beaten path of our well-known and beloved walkable neighborhoods, but still with a characteristic theme in place, which creates a hub of offbeat interest for the locals. And: generates interest in little-watched areas of the city which may be "up and coming."

Also:

"Prices in Portland are up 6 percent over last year, home sales are up 20 percent, and time on the market is down to 64 days."

(Prices are up 9% all in all, since the lowest days of the crash)

Portland Neighborhoods: Brooklyn, Sellwood & Moreland

Running from Division southward to Milwaukie, bounded on the west by the river and on the east by 82nd Avenue, Sellwood and East and West Moreland and Brooklyn contain Reed College and a few very pleasant neighborhood hubs.

 Sellwood 100 years ago

The Brooklyn neighborhood's mostly 1800's/early 1900's homes are interspersed with industrial and commercial buildings clustered along Milwaukie Street, south of Powell. The vintage-kitsch Aladdin Theatre hosts legendary music acts, and is the visual cue that you are entering Brooklyn.

Driving further south, Sellwood homes range from the late 1800s to the 1950s, with build-ins and apartment buildings from the 1960s onwards, built on the grid. At it's birth in 1883, Sellwood developers hosted a free Willamette River ferry to shuttle potential home buyers from Portland to Umatilla (pron. you-ma-tilla) street. The neighborhoods running off Milwaukie Street, the main commercial band that runs through Sellwood, tend to have slightly larger lots, with more spacious mid-century developments. Parking can be tight in this area near the thoroughfares, but streets are well planted with trees and landscaping, and have a classically American, beautiful neighborhood look to them.

1930's Spanish Colonial home in Eastmoreland

The Moreland neighborhood homes near Reed College have larger lots, and more spacious, stately homes: mostly Bungalows, Tudors, Cape Cods/Colonials up to WWII, and ranches from mid-century, with more attention and care paid to yards.

Nearby Reed College can be said to be the Bennington of the West Coast, with a progressive tradition and an inventive course structure. Academics are at the heart of this college, which has no sports teams or fraternities which so often impact the campus environs and nearby homeowners. Of course, local renters are college students and employees.

Moreland with it's Art Deco movie theatre

Westmoreland tends to be slightly more modest and commercially located, while Eastmoreland, as per it's proximity to the Waverly Country Club, has sweeping and curving streets and large, immaculately landscaped lots. Eastmoreland is bounded by Woodstock Blvd, Johnson Creek Road, McLoughlin Blvd, and Steele St.

Since it's 'rediscovery' in the late 1990s, Sellwood/Westmoreland has a slightly more upscale and family-centered feel, clustered around independently and locally owned antique malls and shops, Mediterranean/Asian restaurants alongside upscale national chains one sees in trendy University towns, which are clustered along Milwaukie Street.

River front park in Sellwood

Sellwood perches a top a bluff over the Willamette River, with some of the nicest views in the city, seen from some of the least-likely to be sold houses in the area, on the meandering street that goes past Oaks Park, a former amusement  park. Farther down, the waterfront River Park is popular with walkers and dogs, and is a verdant place to get some fresh air near the river.

Sellwood Bridge undergoing transformation

Currently, the Brooklyn/Sellwood area is going through some growing pains, with elaborate road construction in the industrial areas, as well as the replacement of the Sellwood Bridge (which makes Beaverton and Lake Oswego easily accessible over the river). Local opinions can run high over taxes and traffic inconveniences, yet over the long term the changes appear to be for the good of these Portland neighborhoods.

Handy Online Budgeting Apps and Tools

Mint


Free and online. Free phone apps, too. Almost everyone recommends Mint first and foremost.

"(Mint) shows me how much I’ve spent as compared to the average amount I spend (as calculated by Mint based on an analysis of my spending patterns) each month. Based on the day of the month, Mint determines if I’m on my way to spending more or less than I should. In just a few seconds, I can check the status of the spending categories I’ve chosen to keep an eye on."
                                                                               -- Rob Berger at Doughroller's 
                                                                               "Ten Online Budget Tools."

Personal Capital

Recommended for people with investments to keep track of, as well as day-to-day expenses.

Manilla

One-stop budgeting control. Pays your bills as well.

Step Two: Preparing for Buying a Home: Knowing Where Your Money Goes

You've established a good year or two of steady employment. You are beginning to look like a good risk for a mortgage lender: somebody they can count on to show up and pay off the debt. It looks like you can handle the financial responsibility for buying a home.

The next step, and this is something you can do at the same time that you become a steady employee, is to get a clear understanding of where your money goes, and how you spend it.

Some people enjoy this; they like to create budgets, write everything down, and it satisfies the organized part of their soul to have a working knowledge of where their resources go. If this is you, great for you: you don't have any resistance to taking responsibility for how you use your money. Count yourself lucky, and realize that your talent doesn't always come naturally for others. Are you partnered with someone who spends just like you? (That would be a miracle!)

Random types enjoy having places in their experience, even significant, important sides of their life, for which they have blind spots. I say they enjoy this, because part of their spending habit is the pleasure derived from making impulsive purchases without anyone else, er...breathing down their neck.

They enjoy the momentary freedom of buying, and then, remarkably, they might actually forget how they've spent their money. These folks might be able to recite minutiae about which hops create the best IPAs, or could patiently teach a left-handed, hyper five year old how to crochet...but they don't even know how much money they spend per week, nor what they spend it on.

 This feels like freedom for some folks, as if not watching their money allows it to magically appear and recede within the floaty consciousness of a mirage. As if not knowing how you spend it, makes those purchases...not really count. I know of couples who deliberately keep their purchases secret from each other, if only to have a part of their lives that is not overseen and judged. If nobody knows about the extra stuff you bought, then it remains in a liminal space of nonexistence; and it feels liberating to spend money without having to justify it to anyone. Having your mate or friends berate your spending choices is a major buzzkill, but it also can lead to you even hiding your own spending habits from yourself.

If you want to buy a house, you need to have a good overview of where your money goes, period. Because whether you get this overview or not, the lender certainly will. And not understanding your own patterns, habits and needs, makes you vulnerable to your own blind spots. You need to know: if you spend seventy dollars every month on coffees, that is seventy dollars each month you could spend on taking care of your house, instead. You need to know how much more freedom you have by knowing what to cut back, and where you can save. Knowledge is power, here.

In this age of online banking statements, and mobile budgeting apps for your phone, it is more convenient than ever to keep track of your money. Take that statement and break it down into what you spend money on; know and understand each part of where your money goes. This can be a challenge. Wow, did we really spend $178.00 eating out last month? Was the pleasure or the convenience of that activity worth it? Prepare to both question your decisions, and to come to terms with them.

Step two: watch your money, look at it, track it, take it in, and be honest with yourself about it. Planning and keeping a budget: this is the next step to moving toward home ownership.

Very First Step to Buying a Home

At some point, our exhaustion with paying rent turns into a desire to own property. 

So we need to know the very first step to take to buying a home. I talk to people all the time who have a wistful cast to their voice when they mention buying a home. It seems to them to be part of the distant future, a future where they have somehow increased their income, gotten a handle on their living expenses, and, sometimes: started acting like a grownup. Owning a home becomes a dream in the fantasy sense: maybe someday...

The very first step toward buying a home is to personally establish a pattern that is a good investment for a mortgage lender. 

If they are going to lend you tens of thousands of dollars to buy your home, they need to know that you can be counted on to pay if back.

Establish a solid, two year history of taxable employment.  

Ideally, you work for two years with one employer, but a lender can also work with someone who has two years with two employers, but in the same line of work. (So if you start in Winnebago sales and move to Harley Sales, that would be good. If you switch from wig sales to Bikram yoga teaching, that would be not so good, in establishing a consistent two year pattern.)

Making the Leap from Renting to Home Owning in Portland

At some point, we get tired of paying rent. 
(Honestly, this is most of the time.) Don't even dare to add up all the money you've spent over the last year paying for the right to call a place your own, but not to truly experience as your own. It's where you keep your stuff. It's where you park your shoes. Add up what you've paid in rent over the past year, and it will shock you: realizing you won't ever see that money again--it's as if you paid for a year-round hotel with no vacation.

Sometimes renting doesn't make sense

Rent payments pay off a stranger's mortgage and build equity in somebody else's property profile. You went to work and worked hard every day and Memory is your sole witness.

You start to long for the freedom and autonomy you would have over your own property: if it was yours, you could change out the cabinets, paint the wall yellow, switch the cheap beige carpeting to warm cork. If it was yours, you would have chosen differently: you would have chosen a garden out the back and a place without popcorn ceilings. Renting can feel like settling for second best--every single day.

It's not only personally limiting to rent, but also it's spiritually exhausting to keep paying for something that has no long term value to you. It becomes demoralizing to pay a significant amount every month for a place which you can neither cultivate and alter to reflect your expression, nor call YOURS. MINE. This is MINE. I OWN IT.

A child's iconic vision of Home

It takes a leap of courage to take on the attitude of one who can care for property: Because it is a metaphoric commitment to caring for yourself. Showing up every day and taking care of your own self is akin to taking care of your home. Every child goes through a phase of drawing houses: the box; the tree next to it, the windows and the door, and the family standing outside--because Home is archetypal, the home is the primary metaphor for ourselves and our place in the world.

Taking care of a home takes perseverance, commitment, planning, focus, and execution. If that sounds like work, it is. It can be the greatest leap we make, from "going with the flow" to showing up everyday, with an attitude and habits that cultivate our place in the world...our investment in ourselves.

There is no other investment as rooted in something real, like Real Estate. It is real ownership of a tangible thing: your home. And when you live in it, wake up there, play and relax there, laugh with friends and family there, be alone and quiet there, surround yourself with your chosen objects there--AND you OWN it, your investment is a Living thing. Your investment is Where You Live.

Illustrator Roger DuVoisin's image of Home

In exchange for the commitment, you receive a couple of things back. Sure, you get tax advantages: you can claim the interest you paid on your mortgage off on your taxes. (You don't get to claim anything for the rent you've paid--no tax benefit there.) Primarily, you have a real piece of property that you can pay off, month by month, year by year, and live in and on.

You decide what to do with it. Pass on to someone else. Sell it in years to come, use the proceeds to buy a smaller home, and keep the rest of your profit. Move elsewhere and rent it out and receive that check every month. (Now the experience as renter flips to the experience of landlord. How different the view seems from here!) After you have paid for your home for a while, you earn the ability to decide what to do with it. It expands your options. It advantages you.

It's no accident that home ownership is the centerpiece of our cultural Dream, which balances stability and freedom, responsibility and self-autonomy. You prove your commitment to your self, in taking on homeownership. You prove your own worthiness: you are worth investing in. Your home is your self. Imagine you can take care of a home with the same love and attention that you take care of yourself. If you don't take care of yourself, START THERE.

Remember: How you do one thing is how you do all things. 
If you would like to shift from renting your life to owning your life, I'd love to help.

Top 10 Remodeling Projects That Offer the Biggest Returns

Top 10 Remodeling Projects That Offer the Biggest Returns

From Realtor Magazine Blog section...

Help for Homeowners

Oregonhomeownersupport.gov

A government resource for foreclosure prevention. For homeowners falling behind in payments and/or at risk of losing their homes: visit the link, follow the contact information to get a hold of a local counselor (dialing 211 for help.)

What Homebuyers Want Right Now

How to get a Super Low Interest Rate without Moving

Take advantage of recent low interest rates (before they climb up again) by refinancing your FHA loan. Ask your lender (or mine!) about an FHA streamline refinance.

If you bought when interest rates were higher -- and many people have, since interest rates at the moment have not been so low since 50 years ago as they are today -- you may be keen to refinance and free up your monthly income. This refinance simply results in a lower interest rate.

Here are the details:

-- you don't need an appraisal
-- you don't need to verify income
-- you will pay a couple of hundred dollars for the service
-- you can't refinance a 30-year term into a 15-year term, you must trade apples for apples

Here are the basics:

-- your mortgage must already be FHA-insured
-- you, the borrower, must be current on payments
-- the refinance must result in a lowering of your monthly payments  and/or a conversion of an adjustable rate mortgage to a fixed-rate mortgage
-- not possible to do a cash-out refinance

Make sure to go with a lender who, first of all, doesn't play possum when you mention an FHA streamline refinance. Sometimes you may even find a lower interest rate when you refinance with a non-FHA (conventional) loan, instead.

No matter what kind of loan you get, always go with a lender who is willing to do the work for you, and who will exactly to the penny explain how, and to what extent, a refinance will advantage you: know all the details about the interest rate, costs to refinance, length of the term of the new loan, and whether it has a fixed or variable rate.

Tiny House Love in Oregon and Local Portland Consultants

Imagine a city where some people live in small dwellings with minimal belongings, making a minimal impact on the earth and resources. They share their tools, share their garden spaces, share their community buildings, mix and mingle in the greater world, but still have their own space. The tiny home is a refuge from the whole wide world, and yet there are numerous places out in the world to make connection. On a small slice of land, you can still live an entire lifestyle of privacy and contentment.

If that's not your scene, then imagine a small space, a tiny place near your own home: a cottage, a dwelling, a secluded room all your own...a separate couple of rooms, or a small unit where your family comes to visit, or a friend stays for a time. You go there to write, make your art, visit with clients, have a cup of tea and read a book. It is your own private place. It's small and you needn't take a lot of time cleaning it or filling it. A haven. A refuge, a place in between.

PAD: Portland Alternative Dwellings
runs workshops about all the issues you need to know about creating such a space...

Tiny House Blog: Living Simply in Small Spaces
discusses recent developments, shows what is being done and what is possible in small homes today...

(You may hear of a Tiny House being called an "ADU." In real estate and housing code parlance, an ADU is an accessory dwelling unit, a granny flat, a mother-in-law apartment, et cetera.

In order for it not to be classified as a duplex, it must have a separate meter box from an existing structure's meter box. An ADU can be physically inseparable from the existing dwelling, and be in its basement or attic, but its utilities must be separately measurable. An ADU built on a parcel of land can even be larger than the existing house that occupies it.)

How FHA Loan Terms Change this Spring

Changes to FHA loans this spring and summer will make their terms more expensive, so time is of the essence to apply soon to keep your payments low.

Starting this June, FHA loans will require mortgage insurance to be held for the entire life of the loan, so if you're interested in getting an FHA loan at a lower cost to you, act now to start the process!

With an FHA insured loan, you (the buyer) pay 3.5% down, as opposed to the traditional 20% down on the cost of a house. In exchange for this low down payment, you must pay mortgage insurance. This monthly payment usually phases out when a buyer reaches a secure level of equity in the house. But all that will change June 3rd of 2013.

Instead, for loans begun with less than 10% down payment, the mortgage insurance premium will be required to be paid during the entire life of the loan, becoming a permanent part of the loan. 

There is still time to get an FHA mortgage (where the insurance premium gets phased out) before the June 3 rule change, by applying for an FHA loan and having the lender assign a case number for your loan before the deadline. But: in order to get a case number, which is assigned to a particular property, you must have an accepted offer on that property.

The closing date in this case is irrelevant, but the issuance of the case number is decisive.

In addition, the annual mortgage premium on new FHA loans (those with case numbers issued after April 1, 2013) will rise from 1.25% per year to 1.35% per year. 

How this all washes out is: the can't-get-out-of-paying-it mortgage insurance on an FHA will more than double over the whole term of a thirty year loan...if you apply (and don't have an accepted offer on a house) after June 1st, 2013. 

(But remember, a 10% or more down payment means you don't have to pay mortgage insurance at all...)

If you're interested in starting the process and finding a home, get in touch with me and I will set you up with a terrific lender who can pre-qualify you.

East Side Portland Parks get Better

Earlier this month, Portland finished improving several east side parks, changing their rusty and dated equipment to bright, big play structures and soft surface ground, fixing up trails, and adding water fountains.

The newer, better parks are here, all east of Highway 205:

East Holladay Park at 12999 NE Holladay St.
The East Portland Community Center at 740 SE 106th Ave.
Gilbert Primary Park at SE 134th Ave.
Lynchwood Park at SE 170th Ave and Haig St.
Parklane Park at SE 155th Ave and Main St.

More parks that have been fixed up are:
Argay Park, Cherry Park, Ed Benedict Park, Glenfair Park, Midland Park, Ventura Park, and West Powellhurst Park.

In November 2011, Portland Parks and Recreation got the National Gold Medal Award for Excellence in Park and Recreation, given for the city's well-managed park system.

Use Portland's park finder to see which ones have the features you are looking for.

Portland Southeast Neighborhoods: Montavilla & Tabor

Mt. Tabor's volcano top features a green park

The area of Mt. Tabor encompasses the streets on or near Mt. Tabor itself, under their various names: Tabor, Taborside, Tabor West, North, or East. Montavilla is roughly bordered by Halsey in the North, a few blocks east of Hwy 205 in the East, Division in the South, and about 60th Avenue or so to the West.

Stark St and 80th looking NW in 1939

An inactive volcano, Mt. Tabor formed a minor physical barrier to the original developers of the late 1800s east side Portland, and Tabor hill was used mostly for winter tobogganing by the neighborhood kids for decades. Now the hill and all it's sides are built in, and chunks of the ancient volcano's dried lava innards end up in local yards.

Homes directly near or on Mt. Tabor tend to be more upscale than those found in Montavilla, and folks placed along the peripheries will claim to be in "Tabor," (Tabor Park, Taborside, East Tabor) regardless. The top of Mt. Tabor is set aside for a walkable park commemorating the volcano, and the homes built onto it's top and sides have some of the finest views in all of southeast side Portland. Some of these homes are from late 19th Century, while most were built in the mid-20th century and have a coastal/Hollywood feeling, making the most of the views from their extensive patios.

Stark Street in Montavilla feels like a 
vibrant small town mainstreet

Montavilla's homes are more diverse in size, condition, and upkeep than those of Tabor, yet Montavilla's great advantage is having a westward running "main street" (Stark Street), which lends the area the feeling of a small midwestern town. Right now it's amenities are all independently owned and designed businesses, reflecting the undiscovered and unexploited nature of Montavilla: the Country Cat, Ya Hala and Flying Pie Pizza restaurants provide the food, while the rest of Stark street hosts eclectic shops, antique stores, bars and coffeehouses, 
wellness and service businesses, among others, and the Academy Theatre.

Montavilla bungalow

Montavilla was once it's own separate town, and the most eastern one nearest to Portland. Though Portland has grown out way beyond the Highway at 205, Montavilla remains one of the few outer eastern areas with an actual neighborhood heart and a walkable center. 

A classic Montavilla 
house with porch

Homes here are a mixture of the decades of the 20th century, all mostly modest and small in scale: with one and two bedroom working class Edwardians, bungalows, Cape Cods, Tudors and ranch homes.

Retro Academy Theatre 
shows 2nd releases

Empty lots or scrapable houses continue to be filled in with new building, and large lots are often carved into sections, encouraging denser populations so close to Portland's center. Rentals are well represented. Some homes are placed along unimproved roads running east and west, linked to the paved numbered streets. These give the neighborhood an especially country-town-in-the-middle-of-the-city atmosphere, although these dirt streets are currently on track to be paved (without storm drains or sidewalks), under future improvement plans initiated by former Mayor Sam Adams.

The iconoclastic Bipartisan Cafe 

Montavilla also has it's own recreation center and a variety of parks nearby, and runs a warm season Farmer's Market the whole area supports and enjoys. This Portland neighborhood is ideally situated between the funky and eclectic Southeastern inner neighborhoods and the suburban box amenities east of Highway 205: it has the best of both worlds.

Every few years Montavilla is "discovered" as the next hip and walkable neighborhood, but it continues to hold on to it's independent hometown character, which is exactly what it's habitants like about it.

The Potlatch Tradition in Modern Portland Lives On

The coastal and river-living tribal people of the upper Northwest lived in such a superabundant place that they were one of the most materially blessed tribes in North America. They traded with the Russians for textiles and fripparies, caught no end of bounty in seafood, and carved both household goods and immense, totemic art works from fallen cedars and redwoods.  

Pacific Northwest design
representing a Potlatch

Every school child learns about coastal tribes' potlatch ceremonies: a tradition of throwing a big party and giving away one's own overabundant material items, both to secure local relationships and to spiritually challenge the giver to live more authentically with less stuff. It's a way to redistribute wealth.

The inner Southeast neighborhoods are all about living authentically with less. Some folks make an art of it. When my son and I moved here, we grabbed a disco-era oak shelf sitting out by the road, and it was our first piece of furniture before we were able to U-haul the rest of it to Portland. 

A structure outside the hostel on Hawthorne
like those used for give-aways

Settling in, we noticed several cob-style, rounded, covered structures in and around the Hawthorne area, where people leave behind their unwanted gear. The Portland give-away tradition, it is, an unconscious carry over from the native Potlatch, a tradition imprinted on the whole region surviving in its own, modern, transformed way.

Here's what we've found (and taken home!) from our local Potlatch Station:

• a glass jar of apricots canned in the summer, handwritten on romantically in French
• a hardcover book about the river Ganges 
• a shockingly hip olive green dress with a maroon velvet ribbon
• a nearly new snowboard.  You heard me: a snowboard. Right about the time the boy had been wishing to find a way to go try it out with no particular means to do so. That's called magic.
• a child's tatty antique sticker scrapbook about Hawaii
• a sheer, hot pink curtain
• a hemp messenger bag
• a small ivory and black painted wood dresser (wait until you see how I transformed it)
• a stainless steel Dualit toaster (Those things cost a fortune, just ask Williams Sonoma.)
• a whole pound of rich ground coffee, just as I was about to run out
• a guidebook for travelers to Japan--the girl will be visiting there next year!
• a sewing table from the 1920s
• 38 new, flocked clothes hangers--when it was what we most needed
• 2 enormous potatoes

And, we have left plenty behind, as well: flannel shirts and balls of yarn, magazines, and skinny jeans. Nothing quite so costly as a snowboard, though.

This gives a feeling of connection with those who have left something behind, and with those who take my things home. We not only eat and live in this area, but we, even anonymously, leave our mark whether in acquisition or in culling our own plenty. The place has the magical ability to provide things at just the right moment in time. 

The Potlatch Station is one of the pleasures of living in our inner Southeast Portland neighborhood.

Portland Neighborhoods: Hawthorne / Belmont / Sunnyside

Welcome to my weekly run down of the character of Portland's neighborhoods. Meet me here every Thursday through February to catch the flavor of Portland's inner Southeast. 

Southeast Stark Street, Hawthorne Street, Belmont Street, and Division Streets, from approximately 12th Avenue to about 60th Avenue in southeast Portland, is the range of neighborhood we're talking about today. 

To the south is Division St, and to its north is Stark St, containing Hawthorne and Belmont Streets, and this quad of East/West running streets forms the locus of one of Portland's most eccentric and trend-reflecting areas of town--while still, overall, having a feeling of intimacy and inclusive community. 

Belmont and 50th in the '20s

East of the river began to be settled in the late 19th century with large, impressive farmhouses, and gradually filled in with simple, middle- to working class homes from the '10s through to the '50s, with the last bits of free space taken by mid '60s apartment buildings, all built on a grid street system. 

Apartments on Belmont

By the 1920s and '30s the main arteries of Hawthorne, Belmont and Division were established as the commercial areas, and they still haven't lost their importance in the daily life of these Portland neighborhoods, as they are still where people shop, meet, eat, and get their needs met. 

New construction today tends to be either scraped-off, newly constructed condominiums, or modern design apartment buildings along Belmont and Division. As the city has not been requiring developers include on-site parking lots for all the people living in these structures, streets nearby them are or will certainly be filled in with cars to their very limits. 

Close-in, Southeast Portland neighborhoods are generously landscaped: trees were important in the early days, and they shade nearly every street or yard, even when structures are newer. Some streets are lined with huge trees planted last century, especially those taken up with large Edwardian or Craftsman style homes, while others reflect 1920s developments with cute brick Tudors, while still other streets are an eclectic mixture representing a range of yard-design trends in the 20th century.  

Typical '20s Tudor with few large trees

The bone structure of the areas closest to the business areas is delicate, with narrow streets lined with parked cars. Drivers must be especially mindful of numerous bicyclists in every kind of weather and season. Many houses have their own driveways, yet finding parking can be a challenge here. On the other hand, this area is imminently walkable, with a near European feeling of pedestrian-friendliness.

Sunnyside bungalow in iconoclastic colors

The urban farmer is well established in these neighborhoods: some backyards have chickens, or front yards given to sprawling permaculture, neat rock gardens, or planted-in retaining walls. 

House colors reflect the inner character of their owners: you will find a bright lilac Victorian with prayer flags hanging off the porch and a buddha surrounded by plastic animals as an altar in the front yard, just as you will find a restrained, oyster hued, late 1940s Cape Cod with a stately burgundy door and nickel fittings planted in the center of a neat grass yard. Diversity of expression rules, here. 

Stately Stark St Cape Cod 

Twenty or thirty years ago, Hawthorne street was inhabited by scruffy hipsters. The houses have now gone to working professionals, while the rentals may still be hipster inhabited. The boomtime of the '90s to about 2005 added multi-unit housing to Belmont street, upscale organic grocery retailers, and university-town style chains (Laughing Planet Cafe) or independent coffee/cupcake/ethnic gift/trendy clothing shops, along with national franchises (Ben & Jerry's ice cream, Starbuck's, Zoom Urgent Care) to Hawthorne, replacing some of the independent run businesses, but generally expanding the diversity of commercial amenities, while strengthening the position of independent run businesses.  Alongside big box grocery and drug stores live the regular-joe or distinctive places of character like The Horse Brass Pub, Nick's Coney Island, The Waffle Window, and The Bread and Ink Cafe, as well as shops: Memento, Powell's Home and Garden bookstore, and Presents of Mind. 

Hawthorne's Bagdad Theatre at dusk

McMinamin's neon-lit Bagdad Theatre anchors mid-Hawthorne with its movies, restaurant, bar, and author's nights. The economic base of this area is diverse: from well-to-do Ladd's Addition and Laurelhurst Park surrounds, to the eco-interested families and working partnerships that define the blocks surrounding the Sunnyside Environmental school. Apartments are well dispersed within these neighborhoods, too.

Multnomah County's beloved and well-used Belmont library branch is located between Belmont and Hawthorne on Cesar Chavez Blvd.

Division is well known as a hub of independent restaurants and food carts. Another food pod lives on Belmont at 42nd Avenue, and another at Hawthorne and 20th Ave.  Food cart eating is an essential part of the inner Southeast lifestyle, and has made Portland, Oregon America's preeminent independent food city of the moment: Portlanders eat well, here.

Local Stumptown Coffee on Belmont

This is an area of Portland with a sense of initiative and humor: besides having many of the most unusual and notable restaurants, shops with clever and inventive inventory that showcases local artists and illustrators live here.

What makes this area so desirable is its proximity to a wide range of human expression: everyone is welcome in inner Southeast Portland. You might see a dreadlocked cellist or a bearded man in purple tights making balloon creatures, couples or families shopping, professor-y old friends meeting to talk, or skinny-jeaned hipsters bent over their computers, writing, in coffee shops. It's a wonderful neighborhood to live in.

Jan. 12 - Buying a Home in 2013 Seminar

I'm hosting a free seminar for people interested in looking into the home-buying process this year.

 January 12th, Saturday, from 9am to noon.
 1639 NE Weidler, at the Prudential NW Properties office. 

Coffee and muffins for breakfast. Be entertained and informed.

Einstein said imagination is more important than knowledge. So true, if you've been dreaming of owning a home: your imagination paves the way to creation. But maybe you haven't even allowed yourself the dream, assuming you don't have the money, credit, or income history to own a home. A bit of knowledge can help turn hopeful dreams into actual reality, or at least let you know where you stand, and how you might take action to get where you want to be.

If you're renting and tired of popcorn ceilings, smelling other people's pizza, not being able to have a pet or garden, come to this seminar! I will be sharing scads of special loans and grants and programs that make it easy for the first time home buyer to afford a home at the same or less than they pay for rent. Hard to believe, but true: and no tricks. 

My mortgage representative can pre-qualify you during the same session, and help you get on track to restoring your credit, if that is a concern. 

Come meet your allies in buying a home in Portland!

Debt Relief Pulled Away from the Fiscal Cliff

The final act by the 112th Congress to avoid the fiscal cliff was a significant victory for homeowners.

As a part of the legislation that cleared the U.S. House of Representatives late last night, Congress extended the cancellation of the mortgage debt relief provision for one year, through the end of 2013.

What does this mean? If a lender forgives some portion of a homeowner’s mortgage in 2013, either as part of a short sale or foreclosure, or in a loan restructuring that reduces principal, the owner/seller will not be required to count that forgiven amount as income for tax purposes.

Why is this important? Homeowners shouldn’t be forced to pay a tax on money they’ve already lost with cash they never received – and will never receive.  More than 20% of current homeowners with a mortgage are in a distressed financial situation and owe more on their homes than the current market value. The housing market, while recovering, is still fragile enough that this tax relief is necessary to provide stability in the coming year. To learn more, please visit www.realtoractioncenter.org which provides a summary of all notable real estate-related provisions that were included in the legislation to avoid the fiscal cliff.