I have the best neighbors ever in Ladd’s Addition. We moved into our home 17 years ago, and had our first kid 11 years ago. Within 5 years of us moving in, most of our block turned over from old and aging folks to younger families with small kids. At one point, there were seven families with kids all within a five year range from youngest to oldest on our block. Our kids have grown up together, played together, laughed together, had block parties together, cried together and all the in-betweens. When they were younger, in the ages 4-8ish range, they would spend summer days moving back and forth between houses as a roving gang. Us parents never worried because we knew the kids were at someone’s house on the block. Only 2 families have moved over the last 10 years, and one didn’t move far. Throughout this whole time, the adults on our block have spent countless hours over the years doing impromptu happy hours, block parties and backyard hang outs.
Daniela is one of my longtime neighbors and her parents are getting older and have lived in North Portland for almost 15 years. Daniela’s family is very close, and for several years Daniela and her husband Alex have talked about buying a house near them for her parents to move into. This past spring, Daniela and her parents decided the time was right to make the move. I was thrilled and honored when they asked me to represent them on both listing the North Portland house and representing them for the house purchase. The plan was to sell her parents home and buy a new home for them within 5 minutes walking distance our houses. Daniela was so sure this was going to happen- even the within 5 minutes walking distance part, that I never questioned if we could pull this off.
In late April, Daniela’s parents North Portland house was just about ready to list, and one month later in late May, we put that house on the market. Right before we listed that house, Daniela’s parents flew to Florida to stay with their other daughter for a few months while we worked on selling their longtime North Portland house and finding them a new house within 5 minutes walking distance from Daniela. Meanwhile, just days before her parents house went live, one of our other neighbors shared that a neighbor across the back alley from us was going to be putting their house on the market within the next couple of weeks. It sounded too good to be true, so the next evening Daniela, Alex and I marched over to the across the alley neighbors house and knocked on the front door. These other neighbors opened the door and first words out of my mouth were, “Daniela wants to buy your house.” It took a few minutes for the seller to get what we were saying, but once we explained it, he loved the idea. He said they had already signed a listing contract with an agent and the house was scheduled to go on the market in a couple of weeks, but I could contact his agent for more information. A couple of days after that visit I spoke with the sellers listing agent and the gist of it was the house was going on the market in a couple of weeks, and once it was on the market, we could submit an offer.
Back in North Portland, her parents house received a couple of fantastic over asking offers with great terms, and that house went pending with a great buyer. As it happened, the neighbors listed their house while I was on vacation in Mexico City, so one of my colleagues brought Daniela and her husband to see the house and it really was perfect for her parents. Because it was a cute true 3-bedroom house in Ladd’s Addition, it received multiple offers. We came in strong on price and terms, and because the sellers loved the idea of keeping the house in the Ladd’s Family, they accepted Daniela’s offer. The home inspection turned up some unfortunate issues and thankfully the sellers were understanding and agreed to a price reduction and a significant closing cost credit so Daniela and Alex could get work done on the house after closing. A couple of weeks ago Daniela’s parents house closed right on time, and then a couple of days ago, Daniela closed on the house behind her. The sellers are staying in the house through July, and in early August Daniela and Alex will have work done on the house so by mid-May when Daniela’s parents return to Portland, they can glide right into their new home.
Since Daniela won’t get the keys to the new house for a few weeks, to celebrate, I did what we always do, I threw a little back yard party for Daniela which she hosted in her own yard and most of our neighbors joined in for a toast. Thinking back on it, the plan was so precise, that had I questioned whether or not it would work, I would have lost so much sleep worrying over whether a house would come on the market that met the criteria to make the plan happen. Thankfully I never questioned any of it and just as Daniela predicted, it all worked out just dandy.
I couldn’t be more excited for my very dear longtime clients Emily and Ben. They outgrew their vintage cream puff bungalow in Foster Powell that I helped them purchase 7 years ago, and despite the horrors of the current market, they were able to sell their very much loved home and get under contract and close on an even better and bigger house that hit nearly every single one of their check-list items before they have to be out of their bungalow.
One of my favorite parts of my job is helping families come together to live in the same town. About 7 years ago I helped one of my very favorite clients R & P buy their home in the Woodstock neighborhood. Then last summer R’s sister and brother-in-law moved to Portland from the Bay Area and I helped R’s sister D and her husband G buy their first Portland home in Irvington. The plan all along is for the whole family to live in Portland, so a couple of months ago R and D’s parents sold their long-time home in Ohio to join their daughters here in Portland, and I was lucky enough to get to work with them and help them buy a home in Bethany. Now the whole family is here!
Congratulations to my buyer Brooke on beating out 10 other offers to snag this perfect home in the Richmond neighborhood. Brooke found me because her sister’s kids attend the same school as my kids in SE Portland, and they were looking for an agent familiar with the area. Brooke is from Seattle and recently went through a divorce and sold her longtime home in Seattle with the intention of moving to Portland to be closer to her sister. Brooke has a daughter that has some disabilities and is mobility challenged, so the home she knew she wanted to purchase would ideally be near her sister, and have the right set-up for her daughter to be able to get around on the ground floor, and have a flat backyard. We spent a good 2+ months on the hunt, which meant nearly every weekend for 2 months Brooke drove down to Portland from Seattle to check out houses. She wrote offers on 3 homes and while it was brutal to go through rejection after rejection, in the end it was all good because like most buyers, the best house was the last house we saw and she wrote on.
My buyer Alison got in touch with me over 3 years ago after she was referred to me by her close friends, who are old clients of mine. Alison thought she wanted to purchase a condo at a complex in the Brooklyn neighborhood because she had a friend who lived there, and the idea of easy maintenance seemed appealing to her at the time. For what turned out to be a blessing in disguise, none of those units came on the market while she was looking. She then decided to go to grad school and put her house hunt on hold while she went through school and figured out the next phase of her life.
Back in November of 2018, Kelley and Satomi were referred to my by one of the lenders I work with. They had just been given notice that they needed to be out of their rental home soon, and they were in a bit of a pickle. I met them for coffee and I think within 48 hours later they had an offer accepted on a skinny house over in Mill Park. When they bought that house, they were using the Oregon Bond, and they were literally the last buyers to lock in a low rate- within an hour or two of the lender locking them, the Oregon Bond rate went up enough so they would not have been able to afford to purchase the home. They loved their home, but when their daughter was accepted into a magnet school in Portland Public Schools, they decided they needed to move to a house within PPS district, so we started planning to get their home ready to list.
My clients Jake and Greg purchased a blah mid-century rancher in St. Johns in 2017. Over the last four years they worked tirelessly to turn the bland into beautiful. While they loved their home, they really wanted a larger mid-century with a basement and in their dream world, they would be able to move in inner-SE Portland. The first time I visited their St. Johns home I was totally wowed by their home and what they had done to it. Like a lot of would be sellers who want to buy a move-up home in Portland, their biggest obstacle was the uncertainty that goes along with putting a house on the market without knowing where you are going to move. They ran all the numbers with their lender, and to get the kind of house they wanted, they realized that they would have to sell their home first before they could buy. In years past, this would have been the type of situation where getting a contingent offer accepted would have been the path. But it’s 2021 and contingent offers are just not a thing with the incredible demand. We looked at a couple of houses that came on the market, but those homes were receiving multiple offers and with the need to write a continent offer, they knew they had no chance.
Back in 2015 I helped one of my very favorite people Tiana purchase a home in Cully on a large lot with her then wife. Back then, the market was competitive, but not so competitive that a buyer with only a small down payment couldn’t get a house on the first offer they wrote. Two and a half years ago life circumstances changed and Tiana and her ex-wife broke up and I helped them sell the house. At that time in late 2019, the market had pretty much flat-lined, and when we sold that house, it did take a few weeks to go pending. Ever since then, Tiana has talked about getting back in the market to buy another home.
My buyers Alexandra and Ray are first time home buyers and just scored on a great ranch house in Fo-Wo section of Woodstock- between Foster and Woodstock. They were fantastic to work with because they knew what they wanted and they were prepared to jump head first into this nutball of our early 2021 market where there is 1 house for every 20 buyers. After walking into what would become their house, the first thing they said was- we could be friends with this seller. The seller had quite the display of rocks, gems and minerals and before we got very far into the house, my buyers were ooohhhing and ahhhhing over the sellers collection- admiring and even naming some of the rocks. Once we got past the rocks we explored the house, a mid-century 900 sf with 3 bedrooms and 1 bathroom on an oversized lot graced by a front yard tree with a trunk the size of a truck. I could tel as we walked around that this was “the one” for them. They are also woodworkers and one of their strong wants was a home that had a great space to build stuff in, and this house has a newer oversized garage/ shop that is perfect for woodworking.
(maybe less than excited about that but they’re still cute), and HOLY JEEZ POSSUMS Y’ALL. I’ve got the possum sweats y’all. I’m ready to be their queen in my castle AND CREATE A KINGDOM. Bring it.”
Dave used to live across the street from me until about 2 or 3 years ago (who can keep track of time these days?) when he and his partner divorced and he moved into an apartment a few blocks away. His oldest kid and my oldest kid have been besties since before they could walk or talk, and it was Dave and his 2 kids who we had our last out of our family bubble non-socially distanced get together with on March 14th, 2020 at my older son’s 10th birthday party. When we parted ways that day, we didn’t know when we would be able to get together again in such a carefree way because the following day we all went under lockdown. And nearly a whole entire year later, we are still waiting for that day.
Who doesn’t love getting an email from new buyers letting you know they want to work with you because you could be their dream agent. And that’s exactly what my buyers Liz and Alex wrote to me when they first got in touch. After we had a Zoom meeting, I could tell they were going to be dream buyers. Liz and Alex were looking for a home where they could start a family, live as close-in as possible on the east side, and wanted vintage charm out the wazoo.
My sister Jamie moved from our hometown of Portland to New York City to pursue a career in visual arts in 1999, before Y2K, before 9/11, and during the last year of the Clinton era. Along the way she met my now brother-in-law Paul, bought a townhouse in Brooklyn during the height of the recession for a rock bottom price, had my now 8 year old niece and adopted the sweetest little mutt who they named Zucchini- an homage to our childhood dog Squash. For the past 21+ years Jamie, and then Jamie and family, have spent extended amounts of time in Portland, usually at least a couple of months over the summer. They had vague plans of moving to Portland “some day” but no super motivating factor to do the hard work of packing up, figuring out where to live in Portland, and all that goes along with moving across the country. Then 2020 came and like millions of other folks, they re-evaluated where they lived, and the motivation to live closer to family (us) and to get out of the suffocating humdrum of life in New York during the pandemic became stronger with each passing month. We had fantasies of them buying a house in my neighborhood, Ladd’s Addition, and being walking distance from each other so our kids could easily go back and forth between houses.
Seven years ago I helped some of my favorite buyers ever, Hanna and Kylan, buy their first home in Foster Powell. From the moment I started working with them, I fell in love with them- they are so on it and we spent so much time laughing together. Not long after they bought that home, they had their first kid. Two and a half years later in the summer of 2016, Hanna was pregnant with their 2nd kiddo and with new adventures out of state awaiting them, I helped them sell their first home. A couple of years ago, they moved back to Portland, and Kylan started working in Tualatin. Not wanting to spend hours in traffic every day commuting, they rented an apartment within walking distance from Kylan’s job in Tualatin. A couple of years of living in an apartment with 2 rambunctious boys and 2 dogs was starting to wear on them, especially as the pandemic raged on and everyone is home all the time.
My clients Elizabeth and Tom contacted me in early October. They were getting all their ducks in a row to start the home buying process within the first 6 months of 2021. After we spoke, Elizabeth got in touch with a great lender and it was after she spoke with the lender that they realized they were actually a lot closer to making home ownership a reality then they had anticipated. Once pre-approved, they realized that with rates below 3%, buying a home sooner then later to take advantage of the low low low rates was within their reach. Besides staying within their budget, location was the most important feature, and they knew they wanted to be as close-in as possible, preferably west of 82nd and within walking distance of places you would want to walk to and near transit so once the pandemic ends Elizabeth could easily get downtown to her job at Mercy Corps.
My clients Laura and Umar contacted me in mid-October because they had just been approved to purchase a home at 
Nowhere in Portland proper on the east side is competition for what few decent homes are on the market fiercest then in N/NE Portland, and in particular Kenton, Overlook and Arbor Lodge and Concordia. Any decent home listed under $500k WILL get multiple offers. Going into the house hunting search, I warned my buyers Josie and Brandon of what to expect if they wanted to buy a house in those parts of town. First weekend we went out looking they found a house that was full of charm and had a great location. After seeing it, they went home, slept on it and decided to put in an offer. It was an a cute house but had an awkward layout, so they were only willing to offer so much. And unsurprisingly, they lost out on that house. And then a couple of weeks later another sweet vintage home in Concordia came on the market that checked most of the boxes. After we saw that one, they went home, slept on it and decided to put in an offer. And same story on this one- they were not willing to pay as high as it was going to go, so they lost out on that one.
About 5 years ago I helped my clients Tim and Elizabeth purchase their first home in the Cully neighborhood. It was an older home on a nice sized lot with a lot of old house quirks. Earlier this year in the year (though it feels like it was 10 years ago) they contacted me because a new co-housing development was about to break ground right in the heart of the Cully neighborhood called Cully Green. Built by Orange Splot, who is well known for their green building, use of whimsical features and lots of real wood in their buildings, Cully Green is a community of 23 homes- 22 newly built townhomes and 1 home from the 1920’s that is original to the space. Tim and Elizabeth heard about this new community and had gone to a couple of meetings to learn more, and realized this was going to be exactly the kind of community that they wanted to be a part of. Featuring a community building, gardens, and even a sauna- some of the highlights of physical features of living in a co-housing situation along with the opportunity to build a new community from the ground up was super appealing to them. The buildings in the development are built around several courtyards with large covered front porches designed to invite neighbors to pull up a chair and chat. We wrote up an offer on a yet to be built unit in early March,and at the time we wrote up the offer, the expected completion date was around January/February of 2021.
A little over 4 years ago a most fabulous lady named Claire contacted me to help her purchase her first home. At the time, she was working for a non-profit and while she didn’t have a lot of funds or a high paying job, she did have fierce determination to buy a home. It took a while, and included several grants and first time home buyer programs, but she wound up purchasing the most adorable condo ever that I was listing. My seller on the condo had purchased the condo a couple of years before, and then met the love of her life and they sold the condo to buy a bigger home. Claire wound up buying the condo after a break-up with a former partner. Fast forward 3 years and Claire contacted me again because she had met the love of her life Timothy. Claire had moved out of the condo into a larger apartment with Timothy, and she was ready to sell the condo. I listed the condo and within a couple of weeks got a great offer and a month later she closed on the condo and that chapter of her life. Timothy is a veteran and eligible for a VA loan. I hooked them up with Jennifer Leon over at Umpqua who is fabulous with VA loans and they got pre-approved for a nice sized loan. Off we went to go look at good sized detached houses with 3 and 4 bedrooms in great parts of town.
