The Grover Team Helped our client Sarah sell her cute, unique three bedroom home in the Montavilla neighborhood of Portland OR. 
The Stats: 
9151 SE PINE ST, Portland OR, 97216
SOLD: $342,000
3/2019
Three Bedroom, Two Bath
1553 Square Feet
Built in 1908

Our listing at 3733 N Williams went pending this week. We are so excited for our sellers! Stay tuned for more updates. 

The best part of our jobs is getting people into homes they love. Congratulations Naomi! Your classic North Portland home is a real gem and we're so grateful for your business! 

For the last forty years United Van Lines has been keeping track of where people move and why. This data is not only fascinating but it gives us a way to track migration over time.
No surprise, last year Oregon ranked second for inbound moves. And if you look at the graph, Oregon has ranked among the top ten states for inbound moves pretty consistently since the late eighties. Read the whole article for more information about migration patterns.
www.unitedvanlines.com/contact-united/news/movers-study-2017

Seattle Skyline, photo credit - Zoe Grover

As we always say in Real Estate, NOW is a good time to buy, as long as you are planning to stay in your house for at least five years.
According to Forbes Magazine, housing prices across the country will continue to rise..."Rents and home prices will continue to move ahead at a good clip. There is a shortage of housing in America due to significant underproduction of new homes over the past decade. In normal times, around 15 to 17 million new housing units would be built over a decade to accommodate rising population and to replace obsolete units. In the last 10 years, only 8.8 million new homes were built. This shortage cannot be fixed quickly. That means rents and home prices will easily continue to rise by at least 3%, as has been the case over the past five years (technically, home prices are not part of the Consumer Price Index, as homes also represent a financial investment. What is included is something called a “homeowners’ rent equivalence” that attempts to measure what a homeowner would pay in rent for their home).
Read the full articles here: www.forbes.com/sites/lawrenceyun/2018/03/12/five-reasons-for-a-higher-inflation-forecast/#691c62263bbd

Did you know that seventy percent of Portland's Housing Stock is comprised of single family dwellings? This is a big problem as we seek to provide housing for people moving to our city. Utilizing the backyards of pre-existing lots to build Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) is one way to tackle the problem.

As realtors, The Grover Team has worked with many clients that have either thought about building an ADU on their property, or have sought out properties with an ADU in mind.
 
In order to promote the construction of ADUs, The City of Portland has eased barriers to building ADUS on properties within the city limits by waiving the hefty impact fee. Unfortunately, even this has not been enough for some home-owners to be able to afford the costly investment of building an ADU from scratch on their property. 

However, a new Portland Startup called Dweller has an intriguing new concept: provide pre-fab ADUs and split the rental income with the property owner. 

Read an article about the issues here:www.citylab.com/equity/2018/03/portlands-granny-flats-get-an-affordable-boost/555083/?utm_source=twb

Visit Dweller's Website here : www.dweller.com/about-dweller/

Unfortunately, racial segregation has a long history in Portland. The real estate industry often was a key player in enforcing that segregation. This April, The Oregon Historical Society is hosting a lecture shedding light on how segregation was perpetuated by real estate and lending laws and likewise, how it was often resisted.  The lecture will be held at OHS on April 8th at 2 pm. 
Link here: www.ohs.org/events/housing-segregation-and-resistance-in-portland.cfm
From the OHS website: 
"Inspired by the fiftieth anniversary of the federal Fair Housing Act and the publication of Richard Rothstein’s The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America, local researchers are uncovering and analyzing new sources related to the history of housing segregation — and resistance to that discrimination — in Portland, Oregon. Through a roundtable of short presentations, the audience will learn about the Black community’s creative tactics in resistance to housing discrimination, how the City of Portland used zoning to promote segregation or integration, ways Portland laws and policies created and enforced de jure racial segregation, and how private homeowners, developers, and realtors supported segregation through restrictive covenants in housing deeds."

The pressure of population growth and lack of housing stock has impacted our cities and more rural settings in Oregon; it's a simple matter of supply and demand. However, many communities that depend on tourism and seasonal visitors, see much of the new construction go to vacation homes rather than so-called "workforce housing".  Of course, this only makes buying a permanent residence in these communities all the more challenging. 
The Grover Team has extensive experience working with rural buyers and sellers. This article from Oregon.Gov does a great job of explaining all the factors that have contributed to the lack of affordability in such communities as Astoria and Hood River. 
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Click here to read the article.