All Forum Posts by: Brian Porter

If you want to bid on the courthouse steps in Oregon at a foreclosure sale. You show the barker or reader your cashier's checks before you can place a bid. And many of the properties going up for auction are former "short sales" so buyers can access these properties before bidding.

The real estate market in Portland is showing signs of life.

Closed sales in Feb. 2010 were up 18.4% compared to Feb. 2009; however this increase in sales came at a high price for sellers and property owners: a 9.3% decrease in the median price of a home over the past 12 months ($235,000 from $259,000).

Many people as starting to say that we have reached the bottom, and even the conservative economists like Karl Case, the co-creator of the S&P Case Shiller Home Price Index recently said, “I would bet even odds that we’re at a bottom and that we are going to see improvement in the coming monthsâ€. (Bloomberg).

Just to put a perspective on the market swings of the past few years, consider the following facts: The market in Portland peaked in about July of 2007 when the median price of a home reached $302,000. In other words, the market has pulled back about 22% from the peak, and we have not seen the median price of a home at this level since May of 2005 ($230,000).

So we are back to 2005 prices. The bubble has burst. The market has reacted.

Looking forward is always more challenging than looking back. However, one interesting statistic is that homebuilders are on a tear. The S&P Supercomposite Homebuilding Index is up about 14% this year, and the economy is projected to grow 3 percent this year (Bloomberg). These are positive signs for the real estate market; however, if interest rates spike, the apparent improvement in the real estate market could be short lived.

I have been a professional Realtor for 7 years and a real estate investor for 10 years, and I just recently discovered the secret to buying properties on the courthouse steps. You have to join a team. You can't do it on your own. Some of the team members track the foreclosures, others provide the hard money to purchase, others refinance you out of the hard money, you need contractors to fix up the property and a Realtor to sell it for you.