Portland Rose Quarter

The Rose Quarter is Portland, Oregon’s sports and entertainment district. It features two multi-purpose arenas, the Rose Garden (opened in 1995 and home to NBA’s Portland Trail Blazers) and the Memorial Coliseum (1960) and is located in Portland’s Lloyd District on the east bank of the Willamette River, just east of downtown. The Rose Quarter also offers a box office, four parking garages, a convention facility, several restaurants and bars, as well as a large public space called the Rose Quarter Commons.

box office:
One Center Court, suite 100
Portland, OR 97227
(877) 789-ROSE (7673) or
(503) 797-9619

Portland Rose Garden

The International Rose Test Garden is a world-renowned rose garden found in Portland Oregon. The garden, located in Portland’s Washington Park, is a major attraction for both locals and tourists. The roses bloom annually from April through October with the peak coming in June, weather depending. New rose “cultivars” (plants which have been selected and given a unique name based on their desirable characteristics) are constantly submitted to the garden from all over the world and then tested for color, fragrance, disease resistance, etc. Founded in 1917, and now with over 7,000 rose plants (of around 550 varieties), the Rose Garden is the oldest public rose test garden in the United States–adding to Portland’s nickname of the City of Roses.

Home Prices Plunging, But is Portland Still Going Strong?

According to The Oregonian, Standard and Poor’s index is showing that there has been an 11 month straight decline in housing prices for 10 metropolitan areas in the US. November had the biggest drop, coming in at a 7.7 percent fall. But good news for us Portlanders, we were one of the two cities in the US still coming out positive, along with Charlotte North Carolina. Now we shouldn’t get all crazy just yet. According to David Blitzer, S&P’s managing director, feels that we too will feel the hit and take a dive in the next few months. I disagree. I am hopeful, that the great weather will arrive with some reasonable prices, and we will still have a flourishing market. Check out this article to see for yourself.

[image by misternaxal, flickr]

Technology in Real Estate

We love technology and we love Real Estate. In Portland there are several companies working on leading edge technology. The M Car The coolest is the M Realty technology research vehicle. It is probably the most advanced real estate car in the world. It has an intigrated touch screen laptop computer, printer and scanner build into the dashboard, high speed internet connection, GPS tracking unit that send it location to the M realty servers every minute, navagation system, even an intigrated video blogging system, and more.

“My goal is to have every bit of information at my fingertips and never get lost. we have been using the car with clients and it is almost completely sorted out. It works flawlessly and wherever we take clients out with it they love it. it work so well because it is connected to our home office and is running a specialized version of the Homequest system.” M Realty is in the process of building out the second “M Car” based on the success of the original. “I think this type of capability will be the norm for agents in the future” Video Blogs from the M Car

Portland Neighborhood Real Estate Trends

A new system is now available built by a local Portland company to track market trends for all area neighborhood. It goes far beyond previous available tools for buyers, sellers and Real estate agents. Stumptown info is proud to be adding a section of our site dedicated to Portland neighborhood statistics starting with real estate sales activity. The reports for each neighborhood and area are provided by M Realty utilizing RMLS data. All reports are powered by Homequest.

Below are a few examples of neighborhoods or groups of neighborhoods. The report shows number of available homes, number of sold homes and the rate of turnover.

Alberta Arts - Portland Neighborhood

For the Month of December 2007 there were total of 53 homes that were actively for sale. A total of 8 sales closed for the month resulting in a ratio of total active to Solds of 15.8%. This compares very well against December of 2006 with a turnover rate of 14.3%. This area has remained relatively strong as compared with other Portland neighborhoods.

Cooper Mountain - Portland Metro area neighborhood

For the Month of December 2007 there were total of 182 homes that were actively for sale. A total of 2 sales closed for the month resulting in a ratio of total active to Solds of 1.1%. December of 2006 his neighborhood was very robust with 29 sales against 116 homes for sales a turnover rate of 25%. This may be the most drastic change for any Portland area neighborhood. This is a very weak market for sellers and a very strong market condition or buyers.

Stumptown’s Home Tours of The Week

Alicia Paulson’s 2000 SF, Portland Home [apartment therapy]

Alicia’s Husband’s Hangout, Portland [apartment therapy]

SW Home Tour, SW Portland [images by denmyer, flickr]

Portland Colorful Homes [images by youngna, flickr]

PDX Homes Night Shots [images by Wonderland Park, flickr]

How’s the market in your neighborhood?

It is now now possible to track how the real estate market is doing for any neighborhood in Portland. You can even select groups of neighborhoods to see how areas such as inner NE Portland are performing. The display shows supply and demand and the turnover rates. The system is built by a local software company that produces Homequest, a system for agents that is used in 6 cities in the western US. A new Brokerage M Realty is leading the way in the adoption and development of the platform.

Proposal For Development Project in The Pearl

According to the Bureau of Development a conference will be held on January 3, 2008 to discuss some big plans for historic Meier & Frank Warehouse located in the Pearl District at 1417 NW Everett St. The conference will cover the renovation of the 160,000 SF warehouse into office space, commercial/ retail space, residential penthouses, and stacked parking.

Former Warehouse Now LEED Gold Certified

Located on the central east side of Portland, is the newly renovated warehouse. Now known as RiverEast Center. The $17 million dollar project is now a commercial space for 250 creative professionals, 7 businesses, 2 non-profits, and is also providing public use of an attached boathouse. RiverEast Center was certified LEED Gold. This means the building is completely energy efficient through recycled and reclaimed products, storm water systems, natural lighting, just to name a few requirements. Because of the hard and innovative work that was put into RiverEast Center, it was named “Best Green Renovation of 2007″ by NW Construction Magazine. Once again we see an example of how Portlander’s are taking the lead in being GREEN.

Stumptown’s Home Tours of the Week

Emily and Damon Cellan, SE Portland [apartment therapy]

Sabin Green, NE Portland [apartment therapy]

Artdsgnr’s Apt, Pearl District Portland [flickr]

Mikula, NW Portland [flickr]

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