Keith's Blog

Spring has almost sprung! If you are listing your home, it's a good time to think about CURB APPEAL. All those wonderful plants in the front that you love so much because they are lush and provide shade, may look like a jungle to the prospective buyer. They may also shade your house from valuable...

This year more and more brokers are reporting that when their listing expires, the owner rents the property. This happened to me last year, so I know how frustrating that can be. In my case we even got an offer the week it expired but the owners were already in the mindset to rent. Who can blame ...

The news is our inventory is at 13 months, but we still had 1.8% appreciation going into February, 2008. Not bad! Open house traffic remains high, so we're expecting a good Spring. Keith Berne, Broker, Re/Max Equity Group, 503-734-6646Comments not intended to solicit currently listed properties

This year many home sellers find themselves CHASING THE MARKET DOWN. That means you price your home 10-20% over the best comp (comparable size, price, condition, of homes in your area that have recently sold)... then your house sits and sits with no offers. In a panic you start lowering the price...

Portland, Oregon's real estate market is still healthy compared to much of the nation, but in the last several months, my buyers have benefited from the market shift with big discounts! In one of my recent transactions the buyer got $145,000 off the original price tag and everyone was happy. The ...

At this week's sales meeting a smart colleague put it succinctly: "You're in a price war and a beauty contest, baby!" She used this line to inform a seller what they needed to do to get SOLD in today's real estate market. Your listing will sell but you must come out of the shute at the right pric...

February 13, 2008. I have held open houses three out of the last four Sundays (one in Lake Oswego and two in NE Portland with sale prices between $520k and $725k) and have had at least 10 groups of people through on each open house. Last Sunday was so busy I could barely spend time with anyone. S...

Hi folks. when buying or sellling real estate consider attaching a home warranty to the listing. This way if a covered system goes bad in the first year of ownership, the new owner simply calls the home warranty folks and gets the problem fixed! There is usually a small co-pay attached to each ca...

As of February 12, 2008 the Portland, Oregon real estate market continues to be one of the strongest in the nation. We have a reasonable inventory of homes under one year while other great American cities have "years" of inventory. "Inventory" means that if another home was not listed following t...