My buyer Theo wins the award for the single most expensive repair I have negotiated for a buyer. Theo was a first time buyer who was referred to me by a past client of mine who they work with. We met up on a chilly fall evening to talk about what they were looking for in a house and get the process started. Within a couple of days, Theo had their pre-approval letter in hand and we were ready to go. I sent them all of the available homes within the geographic boundaries, price range and features they were looking for. The list wasn’t very long and out of all of them, only 2 houses piqued their interest. We went to see one in NE, and that was a no-go. The second house we saw was bright blue 1920’s bungalow in the Brooklyn neighborhood. It had been on the market for about a month and had one sale fail. The home was lovely with a gigantic newly remodeled kitchen and a large upstairs bedroom with room to add a bathroom. The basement was decent enough with lots of windows and good ceiling height- a great candidate for future finishing. Theo slept on it and the next morning let me know they wanted to write on it. We put together a great offer and boom- got it accepted.
Most of the systems had been upgraded so I wasn’t too worried about the inspection. However, during the inspection our inspector did a few pokes at the foundation walls and the foundation just crumbled into sand. In the 1920’s during the huge housing building boom there were two concrete companies operating in Portland and those two companies provided all of the concrete for house foundations built during that time. One company had a better concrete formula and many of those foundations are still in reasonable shape. But the second company didn’t quite know how to mix concrete very well, and those foundations are showing their age as they reach the end of their useful life as seen in the crumbling foundation walls. This basement had been skim coated on the interior at some point, but in areas like behind a built in workshop and under the stairs, the tell tale signs of a rapidly deteriorating foundation were all there. For most buyers, that would have been the end of that and they would have terminated. But Theo really loved the house and location, so they took the next step and hired a structural engineer to come out to take a look so they could make a decision to either move forward with the transaction or terminate. I had a great conversation with the listing agent about the issue, and thankfully the sellers understood this wasn’t a repair they could put off if they wanted to sell the home. Thankfully the engineer was able to come out and made the determination that the foundation really was on its last legs. She told us there were 2 ways to approach a new foundation- one way was to lift the house and pour a brand new concrete foundation. This route is prohibitively expensive- costing in the $80k-$100k range. The other option is to have an engineered wood wall built. With this method, an engineer designs a wood wall that is built in the basement up against the old concrete foundation and embedded in a new interior concrete footing and attached to the framing of the house. As long as the engineered wood walls are kept dry, which involves rubber matting between the old concrete foundation and the new wood one and making sure the drainage system around the home is effectively channeling water away from the house, the new wood foundation can last indefinitely. And because it’s wood, it has give so also provides better seismic protection than old concrete foundations. The old concrete foundation stays in place, but it no longer functions as a support for the house. And the new foundation gives the basement an almost finished look.
We wound up doing 5 inspection extensions to get the engineer to have the drawings ready before closing, and to get a firm bid from a contractor to do the work after closing. Closing was delayed by 10 days- but we did it! Due to the whole supply chain, dearth of availability of contractors, etc., the work can’t be done for a while, but that’s ok because the contractor has already been paid and stated that they will complete the repair within the next year for the stated bid amount. The cost for something like this obviously depends on the total linear feet and some other factors, but in general, this type of repair will cost in the $35,000-$60,000 including drainage, which is a whole lot of money, but about half of what it would cost to replace the foundation with concrete.
Sarah and Tariq contacted me in early August after being referred to me by one of my favorite lenders. They used to live in Portland, and had moved to Los Angeles for work, and were now being transferred back to Portland. They were moving to Portland in mid-November, so they came to Portland in mid-October to find a home. Before they arrived, we had a flurry of emails back and forth narrowing down homes they wanted to see. They seemed to really hone in on mid-centuries and when we came up with our list of homes to see over the next few days, the majority were mid-centuries. They arrived on a Thursday evening, and we hit the ground running on Friday morning. We saw around 12 houses together over the next couple of days, and they saw even more homes on their own visiting open houses.
My buyers Annie and Ben were referred to me by one of the great lenders at Portland Housing Center. They were first time home buyers and during our meeting when we met to discuss their plan and get a feel to see if we would be a good fit to work together, we talked about the ideal house for them. They had a really clear idea of exactly what they were looking for and where they wanted to buy. Ben works in Vancouver and Annie works on the inner east side so their ideal house would be in North Portland in Kenton or near I-5. They also wanted something with vintage charm- preferably mid-century, and in good shape that would be easy to maintain. They also wanted a yard and their budget was $400k tops. They were still interviewing agents when a couple of days after we met, I got an email from my wonderful colleague Martin Cross here at Living Room with info on an open house a great listing of his in Kenton was having the next day. On paper that house seemed to meet all the criteria that Annie and Ben had, so I forwarded the email along to them. They responded that indeed, the house looked like it was great and they could tell I had a really good sense of what they were looking for, and that sealed the deal for us working together.
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Four years ago I helped my client Matteo purchase his first home in Portland in Rose City Park after he recently moved to Portland from New Orleans. As an artist and stylist, he has a habit of buying and renovating homes, using his house as a palette for his talents. After four years living in his Rose City Park home, he was ready for a larger home with adequate studio space and further east to be closer to his job as a paintings teacher. He loves mid-centuries and we spent a few months looking at possibilities. He came so close to putting an offer on a home with a pool in Ventura Park, but decided at the last minute that he was basically buying a pool that came with a house, rather than the other way around.
If there is one part of the Portland market that’s not hot right now, it’s condos downtown and in the Pearl District. The Covid buying frenzy really focused on detached single family homes with yards. Communal living where you have to walk into an enclosed building and then take an elevator to your front door was the exact opposite of what the majority of buyers have wanted over the last year and a half. So for those folks who DO want to own a condo in the Pearl, the neighborhood is a pool full of fat oysters where buyers can take a while to look around be picky about what type of unit they want.
My buyer Clayton was referred to me by some of my favorite past clients ever, so I knew he was going to be great to work with. His ideal home would be in North Portland where he has lived for a long time as a renter, and would have the space and bedroom count to be able to comfortably rent out a room or two to roommates. He lost out on 2 houses, but they were not the best houses for him anyway. And when a great 4 bedroom house (2 beds on the main floor and 2 beds upstairs) came on the market he went to the open house and met the listing agent who was super impressed by how kind Clayton is and how through of a job he did looking at the house (he even went into the crawl space!). He loved the house and we wrote up an offer, and thanks to his letter and the listing agent explaining to her seller how awesome Clayton is, the seller wanted to sell to Clayton, but with another offer on the table that was over $100,000 over list price, the seller went with the crazy high offer.
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Sarah and Craig were referred to me by a dear longtime client. They just had a baby and were ready to buy a house to settle into and raise their kid in. When we first spoke this past spring, they had not yet spoken with a lender and didn’t really have an idea of how much they could qualify for. I gave them some names of great lenders I work with including the Portland Housing Center. After meeting with Portland Housing Center’s loan officer, they found out they qualified for a $15k grant if they bought something in the City of Portland, so that sealed the deal for them on which lender to use.
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.
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.
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.
