By Alyssa Isenstein Krueger, March 12, 2019
My buyer Bev moved to Portland two years ago, and at the time she moved here, she wasn’t that familiar with Portland so when she decided to buy a condo, she bought a sweet space in Gresham tucked alongside the Springwater Trail and some parks. After a year of living in Gresham, she decided that she would rather live in Portland because the drive for work, friends and everything else was getting tiresome. Last summer she contacted me after being referred by a friend. She had found a cute little 1 bedroom house on a flag lot in the Foster Powell neighborhood. She wavered on putting in an offer, and even came into my office where we sat down to write the offer. As we started to go through the paperwork, she hesitated and decided that she wasn’t ready to buy yet. Four months later she contacted me again because she was now ready to buy a house.
In order to buy a new home, she would have to sell her Gresham home. It’s always way less stressful to buy first then sell, and thankfully Bev was in a position where she could manage to swing two mortgages for a little while, so she was able to take the less stressful option of buying first then selling. In January she wrote an offer on a house that was almost too-good to be true, but felt like if she didn’t actually submit an offer, she would kick herself. And when that offer wasn’t accepted, she just shrugged and moved on. She looked at a few houses over the next month, but nothing quite caught her fancy. And then as she was scrolling through listings, she came across a little bungalow in Lents. Based on the photos, it was hard to tell if the house was going to be cute or what the layout was. The seller is an amazing woodworker and most of the listing photos focused on the extensive crown molding and kitchen cabinets- both of which are beautiful, but you couldn’t get any feel for the house and the exterior photos were really blah. The house was just a few blocks south of Eastport Plaza and on a pretty nice block, and it was priced under $300k. We made an appointment to take a look and when we entered, we discovered a sleeper of a house that somehow fell between the cracks. The inside is lovely with lots of windows, beautiful wood work everywhere, a nice flow and a huge backyard. It’s small, but in great shape overall. After spending about a half hour there, it was clear that this was a perfect house for Bev. We wrote an offer, the seller accepted and the transaction went off without a hitch. She moved in and now we await Part 2- selling her condo in Gresham.
Alyssa Isenstein Krueger
Broker | OR
She/Her
I am living the dream. Working as a real estate broker in my home town brings this native Portland gal joy beyond measure.
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I took the round-about-road towards this career. After graduating from Sarah Lawrence College in NY two decades ago with a degree in liberal arts/creative writing, I returned to my hometown of PDX and got a job in a legendary record store of days gone by, worked as a music and culture writer for Portland’s oldest weekly publication while pursuing a graduate degree in Urban and Regional Planning at Portland State University. Armed with my masters degree, I moved into the realm of affordable housing, community development, and urban planning, and then rounded the corner with a long stay in arts management then back around the bend when I got my real estate license and went to work for a non-profit housing builder at the cusp of the market crash in 2007.
In the time between that market crash and the ensuing madness, I’ve stayed on top of the market like a dog guarding a bone. Using a magical combination of experience, instinct, and market data, I know what homes are worth, I know how to write a terrific offer, and I know how to help a seller market a home and receive and accept a great offer.
Mutual trust and tender relationship building is the basis and foundation of my real estate practice. I use my skills as an active listener, creative solution finder and ace negotiator to get my clients the best price on a home, win the multiple offer roulette, and have as smooth and easy transaction as possible. Timely and responsive communication is the most important aspect of building trust and I don’t take that part lightly. I am a stickler for details and nothing pleases me more than guiding a client through the home buying or selling process (and sometimes both at the same time). My role is one of advocate, advisor, partner, transaction organizer, and counselor. I am a partner broker with Portland Housing Center and relish the opportunity to work with eager first time home buyers.
I have a knack for seeing the potential in almost any home and love to help clients see past what is and help them envision what can be. I have a decade of first-hand experience renovating and caressing my bungalow in Ladd’s Addition and had the honor of having my own home featured in a story in the Oregonian’s Homes and Gardens section. I can feel the love for any and almost all homes, but my heart goes all aflutter when entering a museum quality time capsule house -- the solid mid-century ones with the original pink or green tiled bathrooms, those charming early 1900’s farmhouses with the original kitchen cabinets and fir countertops, the cozy bungalows with the built-ins still intact.
When I’m not working with clients, you’ll find me hanging with my two boys, Kalman and Saul, and my husband Robert, a Fine Art Conservator with his own business, Cascadia Art Conservation Center. Retired racing greyhounds have been my constant companions since 1997, and our family includes Peanut the greyhound, Pinto the South Korean Italian greyhound, our 2 cats Spaghetti and Will, and our chickens, Rosie, Lil' Peck, Penelope and Nugget.
I am an obsessive gardener/plant fiend and love that we live in a climate where I can grow eucalyptus trees (I have 3 in my yard including a couple I started from seed) alongside blueberry bushes (6 in my yard). Given some free time, you’ll find me junking at an estate sale, dreaming of high brow junk, low brow art, making things, sewing, reading and dreaming of tropical locales.
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- T: 503-724-6933
- PDXHappyHouse@gmail.com
