Concrete Counters, Solar Panels and Stainless Steel...

Lots of different materials are being used in new and remodeled homes these days.  With them, come new home repair and maintenance guidelines.  The Oregonian's Homes and Gardens section recently had some good tips.

Limestone and Marble: Acid and grit are the biggest threats to these surfaces, so you might consider sealing them.  Use mild cleansers such as a soap stone cleaner or liquid dish detergent, but go easy.  And avoid cleansers with abrasives, or containing lemon, vinegar or other acids.

Vinyl Windows: Inspect these regularly and clean the window tracks.  Don't use abrasives and never lubricate with WD-40, use a silicone spray instead.

Crawl Spaces and Attics:  Over the years these spaces are sealed tighter and tighter. What used to be a part of your home's ventilation system may no longer be.  You'll want to make extra sure no moisture or water is building up, that will lead to mold.

Hardie Plank/Fiber Cement Siding: Lots of homes are sided with these products, which hold up very well in the Pacific Northwest climate.  But the joints and contact points with windows and trim do need to be caulked regularly to prevent water from getting behind the siding.

Stainless Steel: I love how this stuff looks, and it can be easy to clean, but boy, fingerprints and cooking splatters really show up.  Stainless steel cleansers and polish can help make a barrier against such things.  3M makes a decent product.

Composite Decking:  This stuff is WAY easier to maintain than wood decking, but does need a bit of tending to.  Sweep or hose debris off regularly, and wash at least once a year to prevent mold and mildew.  Power washing may not be a goo idea, and can void some warranties.

Concrete Counter Tops:  Wipe up spills as soon as they occur, use a light dish soap or detergent to clean, and avoid harsh chemicals, such as bleach.  Some consider using a wax to build up a protective film over time, which will create a slick, smooth, easy-to-clean surface. If your countertop begins to show signs of wear and dulling, reapply an additional coat of wax.

Solar Panels: While these don't NEED any real maintenance, a layer of dust and debris can diminish the productivity of your solar panels.  A spray with the hose a few times a year can really help.

Do you have some other tips for maintaining materials around your house?  Please send them my way.

The Real Estate Market is Weird

The S &P Case-Shiller Index, recently released for November 2011, showed a distinct and definite decline in home prices.  The S&P Case-Shiller Index looks at a 20-city "weighted average" as a gauge of the market (which also then gives us data on those individual cities).  As Portland is one of those 20 cities, we do get some interesting data and basis for comparison. As this data trails our local RMLS market data by a month, the S&P Case-Shiller Index tends to provide more context and less precision.

In any case, Portland showed a 4.8% decrease in home prices over a year ago, compared to the national decline of 3.7%.  Seattle, showed a 6.3% decrease and interestingly, Phoenix, Arizona, thought of as one of the absolute worst markets in the country, showed a 3.6% decline AND a slight increase from October to November.  hmm

Contrast this to a few local experiences; Ron Milligan, in our office, listed this three bedroom, two bath house in Sellwood on Friday.  Nice house, but not the cream of the crop.  He thought he priced it to sell, but not low by any stretch of the imagination.  This past Sunday's open house drew over 40 parties through, and by Monday he had five or more ( I haven't heard the latest) offers in his hand.

And Alexis Wolf, in our office, is about to list a condominium.  Again nice property, good value, but nothing incredible.  She has been chatting about it before it is listed and has generated quite the buzz.

And Jamie Orr, also in our office, has had this house listed for TWO YEARS.  Yes, the price has come down a lot and was probably going to come down again in the coming weeks.  Until this weekend...two offers!

I'm not denying the S&P Case-Shiller report.  At all.  But some combination of the low inventory of decent houses in Portland, combined with low interest rates and buyers tired of waiting on the sidelines  is equaling activity.

Read the most recent S&P Case-Shiller report

Sellers, we NEED good houses on the market.  If you've been waiting it out, now might be the time to get on with it and sell.  Call me if you need an updated market analysis.

Solar Power Update

Yesterday we had the guys from Imagine Energy in to give us an update on options for residential solar power installations in the Portland area.  Though it has been only 18 months since Don and I got ours installed, a whole new program has become available.  A California company, SunRun, has a lease program, driving the entry cost into such a project much lower.

SunRun leases you the panels for 20 years. You pay an up front, one time lease fee.  This fee can vary a bit by which is your power company, but is somewhere around $6000.  The system is installed.  As with ownership solar, there are certain requirements as to your electric panel and system, and the condition of the roof.  You get the Oregon State Residential Tax Credit of $6000, paid out in $1500 over four years.  You get any benefits of net metering; that is your power company buys any extra power you generate at the same rate at which they sell you power.

SunRun gets, and re-sells on the secondary market, the remaining tax credits and incentives.  SunRun maintains and monitors your system for the life of the lease.  At the end of the lease period there is a buy out option.  Preliminary calculations show this buy out will be low as Sun Run has little interest in paying to remove the panels from your roof, and ending up with a supply of used solar panels.

Wow.  What a deal.  You still get the same smooth, professional service from Imagine Energy;  the one point of contact we found so nice.  There are even some financing options available for that initial $6000 cost.  Umpqua Bank has a nice option through their Greenstreet program.  Get in touch with me, or Josh Halley at Imagine Energy (j.halley@imagineenergy.net)  for more information.

Oregon's Move Toward Foreclosure Protections

The Oregonian ran a pretty good article this past Saturday on measures the State of Oregon is taking to assist and protect homeowners facing foreclosure or trying to modify their current loans.  In the short term, Oregon Attorney General, John Kroger, issued some temporary rules, effective immediately, that include loan servicers under the unlawful trade practices act. 

Previously, banks, lenders and funders had operated outside these rules; giving them certain protections.  These new rules give homeowners and the state the ability to hold mortgage servicers accountable.  But, these rules really only help those who have already been wronged, and especially those in some sort of legal action; the minority of distressed home owners.  Yes, I suppose the rules also act as a bit of a hammer or deterrent encouraging loan services to behave. 

More interesting to the average distressed homeowner, are the homeowner protections one hopes the lawmakers will consider in the upcoming legislative session.  Mortgage reform and foreclosure protections are hot buttons that pit the strong banking lobby against home borrowers and distressed property owners, with the legislators in the middle; a place they don't relish.  This may at partially explain why some of the measures below, or their predecessors didn't get full consideration in the last legislative session.    In Saturday's Oregonian article, by Brent Huntsberger, lists the following bills expected to be considered:

" House Bill 4137 would add more specific requirements for servicers to follow, including deadlines to respond to borrower inquiries and limits on fees.

Senate Bill 1564 would bar lenders from putting a homeowner in a trial modification program and foreclosing on their home at the same time, the so-called dual-track process.

Senate Bills 1552 and 1576 and House Bill 4140 would require lenders to mediate with homeowners before foreclosing, as Washington, Delaware and Nevada do."

So I say "yay" for Attorney General Kroger for taking these short term measures by creating these temporary rules.  But the folks in Salem must not be intimidated into inaction by the power and emotion surrounding the foreclosure issues.  Get to work.

Oh,  and for some perspective, the Oregonian article cites CoreLogic's statistics that 2.88% of mortgages in Oregon were in foreclosure in October (the most recent numbers available) and 5.65% were considered delinquent.

If you have questions about the foreclosure process or short sales please get in touch.

The full Oregonian Article

Que Vision. Does your store have it?

I often shop at the Hawthorne Fred Meyer, and noticed several  months ago a large monitor at the front of the store named Que Vision.  If has a graphic of three yellow circles, labeled;  Open, Action Now and 30 Minutes.  Or some such.  The first checker I asked about the screen said , "Oh that.  Ignore it.  It is useless".  Still curious, on a subsequent trip I asked a different cashier and got a bit more thorough of an answer.  Apparently the system has sensors that measure how many people enter and exit the store and may even measure where we are in the store.  It then uses historic data to predict when we'll check out.  In theory, this system helps managers anticipate rushes and slow times, and allocate cashiers accordingly.  I think this is pretty cool, and an interesting use of crowd data for a practical use.  I also love the idea that I might screw up their predictors.  Ha!  The system thought I was headed toward checkout, but instead I veered a quick right to ethnic foods.

I did a bit of googling and happened on the Kroger employee bulletin board and a discussion of the system.  It sounds as though Kroger has an initiative to only have one person in line, in addition to the person checking out.  This seems to be a departure from their previous two people in line in addition to the person checking out.  To meet this goal, without having a bunch of cashiers standing around on the payroll, the employee discussion board says all departments are being cross trained to serve as cashiers.  So in a heavy period, folks from other departments help check out, and in slower times they work in their assigned departments.  I haven't noticed this at the Hawthorne Fred Meyer, in general usual cashiers are at their stations.  The employee bulletin board made it sounds as though Kroger designed this system themselves, rather than buying any of the already on the market products.

Does your grocery store have Que Vision, or a similar substitute?  Do you think your wait times at the checkout line have been reduced?

How's the Market? December's multiple listing stats are in!

Wow!  December's numbers are better than I expected.  The comparisons to last year continue to show lots of improvement in activity, while prices continue to decline.  I have seen a few forecasts showing rising prices, and we do see some tiny evidence of that below.

So, when comparing last year,December 2010 to December 2011,  the number of closed sales increased 10.3% and pending sales increased 11.7%.  Even month to month, closed sales rose 6% from November 2011 to December 2011.  Pending sales did fall, 14.4%, which we expect as fewer folks are looking at real estate and making offers in December (though I did get an offer on a listing on December 26th!).

In looking at prices, the average sale price was down 6.2% from December 2010 to December 2011, with an average sale price of $260,800.  Make note though, this is a 0.5% increase in the average sale price from November 2011 to December 2011.

Also of note, there are fewer houses on the market than there have been for a long time.  At the current rate of sales, it would only take 5.3 months to sell off what is currently listed.  Compare that to January 2009, when it would have taken 19.2 months to sell of the inventory at the then current rate of sales. 

While this makes me feel very optimistic, at least some part of the low inventory is due to the slow rate at which banks are foreclosing on loans in default.  Banks, in general, are slowly streamlining their processes for both short sales and foreclosures.  This has got to help get things moving.

As always, give me a call or shoot me an email if you'd like information about buying or selling in today's market.

Read the full Portland Area RMLS report for December 2011.

How Is Your Technology Confidence?

There are those of us who embrace new technology more easily than others.  It isn't that they already know how to use said new technology item.  But it seems they are predisposed to be enthusiastic about what the new thing might be able to do, AND they aren't afraid to give it a try; to play around with it. 

I'm pretty good with new technology; better with software than hardware it seems.  There is a ton I don't understand, believe me.  But I seem to have the propensity to give it a try; a baseline confidence that I won't screw it up and that there is probably some intrinsic value in the new technology.  How about you?  Do you get sweaty palms when encountering a new program or "device"?

A friend and I were talking the other day about how it seems you need a certain level of tech confidence and understanding to be willing to call into a tech support line.  Without the confidence, fears of not understanding their instructions or questions, along with the fear of seeming stupid, are overwhelming.  So the folks who need tech support the most, often avoid it. 

She also said something like, " People with low tech confidence need to get an iPhone".  That is, that the iPhone (and I think Droids also) help you to do so many techie things at the touch of a finger, you feel like a master, leading to that "bring it on" attitude we all need.

I think this predisposition to embrace something new isn't just tied to technology.  There are those who embrace new innovations of what ever their "thing" is.  My husband is one notch above a Luddite when it come to computers and such.  But he is way beyond handy when it comes to construction.  He can build, plumb, wire, and weld most anything.  If not, he'll figure it out.  And as you might imagine, he LOVES a new tool.  Is he afraid to try and figure out a new tool?  Not at all.  Put my iPhone in front of him, and all confidence, and logical thinking disappear.

And how far things have come.  So much is "plug and play" and most things have those handy pop ups that ask if you are sure you really want to completely wipe out your hard drive, before letting you do so.  So bring it on, give it a try and play around.  You may discover some cool new things and raise your tech confidence at the same time.