West Linn Real Estate Market Activity — November 9-15, 2009
Ron Ares November 16th, 2009
It was a quiet week in the West Linn real estate market–just 14 new listings, and 8 pending or sold homes.
Among the most interesting listings this week is the 1.6 acre, 6-bedroom, 11,000+ sq. ft. home at 21462 SW Saint James Place in the little-known Ashdown Woods neighborhood.
Newly Listed
| ADDRESS |
LIST PRICE
|
# BEDS
|
# BATHS
|
TOTAL SQ FT
|
$ PER SQ FT | TYPE OF HOME |
DATE LISTED
|
| 20070 LARKSPUR LN | $124,900 | 1 | 1 | 725 | $172 | CONDO | 11/9/09 |
| 6311 WHITE TAIL DR | $159,000 | 2 | 1.1 | 1,042 | $153 | CONDO | 11/12/09 |
| 20130 LARKSPUR LN | $169,900 | 2 | 2 | 1,068 | $159 | CONDO | 11/9/09 |
| 575 SPRINGTREE LN | $229,900 | 2 | 2 | 1,283 | $179 | CONDO | 11/12/09 |
| 19622 SUN CIR | $389,000 | 3 | 2.1 | 2,048 | $190 | DETACHD | 11/13/09 |
| 18220 UPPER MIDHILL DR | $437,950 | 4 | 2.2 | 2,822 | $155 | DETACHD | 11/9/09 |
| 2731 Ridge LN | $574,900 | 3 | 2.1 | 2,774 | $207 | DETACHD | 11/15/09 |
| 2057 WELLINGTON DR | $599,900 | 5 | 3.1 | 5,945 | $101 | DETACHD | 11/11/09 |
| 2173 RIDGEBROOK DR | $719,000 | 5 | 3.1 | 4,585 | $157 | DETACHD | 11/13/09 |
| 2610 LEXINGTON TER | $750,000 | 5 | 4.1 | 6,444 | $116 | DETACHD | 11/11/09 |
| 2727 BEACON HILL DR | $999,000 | 4 | 4.1 | 5,312 | $188 | DETACHD | 11/11/09 |
| 21462 SW SAINT JAMES PL | $999,950 | 6 | 5.2 | 11,237 | $89 | DETACHD | 11/14/09 |
| 1001 SW SCHAEFFER RD | $1,150,000 | 3 | 3.2 | 5,217 | $220 | DETACHD | 11/11/09 |
| 22911 S BLAND CIR | $2,495,000 | 4 | 3.2 | 6,470 | $386 | DETACHD | 11/9/09 |
| AVERAGES | $699,886 | 4,069 | $177 |
Pending Sales
| ADDRESS |
LIST PRICE
|
TOTAL BEDS
|
TOTAL BATHS
|
TOTAL SQ FT |
$ PER SQ FT
|
TYPE OF HOME |
DOM
|
| 6120 BARCLAY ST | $279,000 | 3 | 2 | 1,541 | $181 | DETACHD | 240 |
| 2922 Winkel WAY | $437,858 | 5 | 3.1 | 3,075 | $142 | DETACHD | 181 |
| 1761 Joseph Fields ST | $509,425 | 3 | 3 | 2,766 | $184 | DETACHD | |
| 3838 FAIRHAVEN DR | $539,900 | 4 | 3.1 | 3,800 | $142 | DETACHD | 717 |
| 19637 DERBY CT | $629,900 | 4 | 3.1 | 4,441 | $142 | DETACHD | 75 |
| AVERAGES | $479,217 | 3,125 | $158 | 303 |
Closed Sales
| ADDRESS | ORIGINAL PRICE | SOLD PRICE | % CHANGE | # BEDS |
# BATHS
|
TOTAL SQ FT |
$ PER SQ FT
|
TYPE OF HOME | DOM |
| 2937 WINKEL WAY | $419,564 | $330,308 | -21% | 4 | 2.1 | 2,400 | $138 | DETACHD | 79 |
| 441 MARYLHURST DR | $399,000 | $353,000 | -12% | 4 | 1 | 2,643 | $134 | DETACHD | 74 |
| 6147 CHURCHILL DOWNS DR | $559,850 | $465,000 | -17% | 4 | 2.1 | 3,167 | $147 | DETACHD | 26 |
| 19783 WILDWOOD DR | $648,000 | $525,000 | -19% | 3 | 3 | 3,334 | $157 | DETACHD | 133 |
| AVERAGES | $506,604 | $418,327 | -17% | 2,886 | $144 | 144 |
Criteria: Homes in the 97068 zip code, listed, ending or sold between the dates listed above as reported by the Regional Multiple Listing Service (RMLS ). DETACHD refers to Single Family Detached Residence, MFG refers to manufactured housing, and ATTACHD refers to single-family residences with some portion of the structure attached to another property, but not constituting CONDO ownership. DOM stands for days on market, or the number of days from when the listing became active and when it received an acceptable offer.
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Ron, thank you for the update. Do you know if there’s an “inside story” on 22911 S BLAND and 22903 S BLAND? These two mansions share a common entry gate. I find it quite interesting that they’re both for sale. The bigger 12K square foot one went on the market earlier.
David
Multi-million dollar mansions aside, it’s quite humorous to see homes like 2731 Ridge Lane stuck in a 2005 bubble time warp. Quite frankly, I’m not sure why Renaissance insists on pricing standard-fare McMansions on 7000 sqft lots for over $200/sqft (bubble pricing) when similar quality homes in established neighborhoods are selling for around $150/sqft. You would think that a company battling bankruptcy would be motivated to price these homes to sell. What perplexes me even more is that there are actually buyers out there that will pay the prices that Renaissance is asking. Sorry, but at these prices, these Renaissance homes are a really bad investment. Of course, if someone really likes the home then by all means go ahead and purchase it. But as an investment, they really suck, and it will take *years*, perhaps even a generation, before buyers of these homes recoup their investment. DR Horton got the message loud and clear and held a fire sale to get rid of their inventory on Winkel Way.
dj, I totally agree. The DR Horton homes on Winkel are priced for entry level buyers. I think homes in the 300-400K range are a good deal. Especially if they’re new!
I looked at all the new subdivisions in West Linn. Renaissance, Arbor, DR Horton. Renaissance is definitely higher quality, but they are way way overpriced. I think they’ll do quite well if they price their entry level home starting at 399K.
Arbor Homes do have homes starting around 350K. But the lots are really really small though.
David
I do not know of any unusual situation with the two Bland Circle listings. They just may coincidentally be wanting or needing to sell in a tough market for luxury listings.
Jumbo ARM’s have another wave of resets coming, and the alt-A and Option-ARMs are coming too.
The OptionARMs were popular among the “I’m even more financially sophisticated” types who continually preach the mantra of borrowing at 4% to 6% in order to get 12% on the stock market, or other even more risk-laden venture. You know, the guy who refinanced at every opportunity and put everything in the stock market.
http://www.forbes.com/media/flash/2009/10/mortgages_chart/mortgages.html shows another peak in June 2011, and these neg-amortization loans are going to suck, even if they reset to rates similar to what they were nominally at originally due to the accelerated amortization schedule.
Never have so many people ended up poor in the process of trying to look rich.
Stuart, thanks for providing the link to the mortgage reset wave chart. It looks very scary. One quick question for you or to the readers of this blog – I assume that the Alt-A and Option ARM loans were mostly in the extreme bubble markets like California, Phoenix, Florida and Nevada, due to rampant speculation and unrealistic price appreciation that forced buyers at the time to take on these exotic loans. Oregon in general was late to the bubble party, and also late when the national bubble deflated. Housing here has generally been affordable up until about 2004. Therefore, I assume that a lot of Oregonians did not fall prey to the Alt-A and Option ARM loans like the rest of the nation, but rather should have 5/1, 7/1, 10/1 ARMs, or 15/30 yr conventional fixed, with very few having jumbo loans. Again, this is an assumption on my part, but I could be wrong. The question is: do you or anyone else think that Oregon, and specifically West Linn, is going to get hammered when the next wave of Alt-A and Option ARM resets hit the nation ?
dj – yes, I think from anecdotal evidence that the “conforming” market (sub $500K) in Oregon has a small share of conventional ARM’s (which aren’t much of an issue right now) but it’s the high end that could have been playing fast and loose with the Option ARM’s and other esoteric financing. The “aspirational” market ($500K to $800K) may have had a bit of this, but it’s the $800K+ properties owned by “The smartest people in the room” (LOL) that may have a higher volume of this. Doesn’t affect many (although WL/LO have their share of high end properties) and the compression at the low end has pretty much hit a bump-stop (IMHO), but it will be interesting to watch the high end nevertheless.
But until somebody outlaws having to rent what you already own from the government, there’s not much to attract, even for those who could stretch.
Even if the reset wave do not hit Oregon, I think the local market will still be affected. Think of it this way, what has been driving the market for the past 10 years? People moving from CA or other states into Oregon. People in CA sell their little houses for 750K and end up with a pile of cash (tax free gain). And then buy a bigger home for the same price 750K.
Those people have pretty much disappeared from this market. That’s why the 500+K homes are in a world of hurt. You need out-of-staters coming in with big piles of cash in order to support a market of 750K homes. They got that pile of cash by selling their homes into the bubble market.
The bubble has burst so they either defaulting in CA or staying in their own homes. Or selling at current prices (low). They aren’t moving to Oregon with big piles of cash.
So the market in CA has direct consequences for prices in Oregon/Washington.
David
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmeBSWI9sF8 – old, but very explanatory video regarding CA alt-A and the trends of alt-A borrowings.
http://www.newyorkfed.org/regional/States_AltA.xls shows 32,000 alt-A loans in OR vs 604,000 in CA. so when you adjust for population, they have it about twice as bad as we do. Maybe. Depending on where our loans are concentrated.
http://data.newyorkfed.org/creditconditions/ shows a heat map with lots of drill down data and xls data that will be useful.
Oregon was not immune when it came to alt-A. The loans tend to be bigger and the borrowers were all predominantly high credit score, high income types. The big difference between OR and CA is that OR is not a non-recourse mortgage state. So while it can make financial sense to walk away from your underwater house in CA (as you’ve raped all the equity out long ago), the math isn’t quite the same for the wealthy in OR who stand to lose “everything” when they walk away from their “investment” that went bad.
Stuart, you’re an encyclopedia ! Thanks for the links to the data. I look forward to seeing more of your market analysis.