Matthew's Blog

The daffodils are starting to bloom and so are the stats.  According to RMLS the month of February was promising for Sellers, and still great for buyers.  Inventory is at 10.4 months, 2.4 months lower than our record high of 12.8 in January.  This means at the current rate of sales it would take ...

RMLS posted its newest stats on Friday and they were definitely different from the rest of the Fall and Winter.  We tend to see a natural slowing of the market because of the Winter and the Holidays, but we have seen a significant drop off in the market in the month of January.  RMLS reported an ...

On the sixth of February I started a 16 hour course with Earth Advantage to learn about Sustainable and "green" building.  At the end of the course I tested and was certified as an EA S.T.A.R agent.  S.T.A.R stands for Sustainability Training for Accredited Real Estate Professionals.  As one of o...

Things are looking up my friends, at least for buyers.  If you looked at a newspaper this month you know that the Federal Reserve has made some cuts in the prime rate, looking to jump-start the economy and avoid a recession.  What does this mean for you?  It simply means that interest rates have ...

A future client of mine has been doing a little bit of cleaning up in the garden lately in anticipation of listing her home in early Spring.  This morning, over her coffee, she discovered this:There used to be a beautiful plant here that she painstakingly selected from a local nursery and planted...

Does this surprise you?  It's always cold in December both in the weather and the Real Estate Market.  Nothing is different this year, although the weather forecasters would like to make you think so.  Same storm, different terrifying name.We have a smaller inventory again this month, according t...

I recently finished working on a transaction for one of the first Vargas Greenan homes in Portland, OR.  Why is this so special?  Well, sustainability is a big buzzword in home construction these days.  I have been interested in sustainable building since my wife and I purchased our home in the H...

Here is another piece of good news regarding the Real Estate Market in Portland, OR from CNN Money.  This was brought to my attention recently and it helps in the battle against the bad news.  Every market has an opportunity, you just need to be knowledgeable about the conditions and know where t...

This week I woke up to the headline in The Oregonian that  Portland's Real Estate Market is stable and still appreciating!  This is a direct contrast to the doom and gloom that we have been reading about for months.  Thankfully, I don't believe everything that I read in the paper.  This means I d...

Six years ago my wife and I decided to move to Portland, OR.  At the time my wife was finishing medical school and was looking for a residency program to attend, and I was teaching high school Spanish in a public school in Tucson, AZ.  We were looking for an urban setting with plenty of close out...