Portland neighborhood maps now available

I realized after talking about neighborhoods yesterday that I never added a link to the local Portland neighborhood maps.

When we were first looking for a place to live a few years ago these maps were very handy to help guide where we wanted to live, as these maps are dictated by school disctricts which is what most people with kids are concerned about.

Also, even though Realtors love terms like "Alberta Arts" that isn't a neighborhood, nor is "Hawthorne".

The link will live in the tools section on the right, and feel free to suggest other tools that you find useful.

How is your neighborhood doing?

Trulia is a wealth of information, and one of my favorite features is their pricing heat map.

You can see recent price activity for individual neighborhoods to see which 'hoods are still hot, and which are fading fast.

I've included the data by zipcode here, as I can't fit it by neighborhood, but if you go here you will see it.

Just be careful, the amount of data in these analysis is small, so the margin of error is high and the trends can change quickly.

Any comments on why certain areas are holding their prices while others aren't?

How Well is Your Neighborhood Holding Up?

While most people here are interested in the monthly RMLS reports and Case Shiller data, what they really want to know is "how is my neighborhood holding up?"

To answer this question I was able to get a year over year view of median prices for the Portland market by RMLS neighborhood for January 2009, and the results are interesting. (click on the chart for a larger view)

[edit] Tom at Agent503 has year over year data for a few zip codes here.

A few highlights:

For the 4 inner Portland neighborhoods, NE Portland is holding up the best with median prices down 1.8% from Jan 09 vs Jan 08.

Columbia County is faring the worst, with median prices falling 26% in Jan 09.

If you're interested in a beach house, coastal prices are down 17.4%.

The overall Portland market is down 10.7% year over year.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on the 'why's behind the differences.

Next up I'm going to look at why I belive the RMLS methodology for calculating growth rates is seriously flawed, and why you should ignore them - something I have mentioned repeatedly. I will also look at sales rates by neighborhood. Stay tuned!

Portland Gentrification Makes NY Times

My wife found this article on the front page of the New York Times today, under the Portland Journal section. "Racial Shift in a Progressive City Spurs Talks".

"PORTLAND, Ore. — Not every neighborhood in this city is one of those Northwest destinations where passion for espresso, the environment and plenty of exercise define the cultural common ground. A few places are still described as frontiers, where pioneers move because prices are relatively reasonable, the location is convenient and, they say, they “want the diversity.”

Yet one person’s frontier, it turns out, is often another’s front porch. It has been true across the country: gentrification, which increases housing prices and tension, sometimes has racial overtones and can seem like a dirty word. Now Portland is encouraging black and white residents to talk about it, but even here in Sincere City, the conversation has been difficult."

While it's obvious that the NE has changed, we missed the beginning of the change. We decided to rent a house in the NE as it was a less-expensive neighborhood, relatively convenient to downtown and also convenient to my job in Vancouver.

As we drove around looking for places to rent, some of the first things we heard were a blatantly racist real estate agent encouraging us not to live in certain areas of the NE (near Killingsworth), and our movers who told us "when we saw your address we were afraid to come out here."

I'll leave you to read the full article if you're interested, but this comment struck me as disingenuous.

"Ms. Laufer offended some, but she said in an interview a few days later that she had meant well, that she felt enlightened by what she heard at the meeting and hoped to be able to discuss her feelings about race honestly with blacks. Unlike some other whites new to the area, she was not aware of the city’s history when she moved there. The price was right, that is all, and Mrs. Laufer loved the front porch."

I find it hard to believe that nobody told her the history of the NE, we learned about it without even asking. And just looking around it's pretty obvious what's going on.

What Do Your Neighbors Think?

A friend sent this over, recent results of a neighborhood survey on the quality of life in Portland.

I haven't had time to dive through the results, but this one caught my eye:

Livability of Portland, by neighborhood.
The fact that Irvington is top of the list isn't surprising, but the fact that Elliot is near the top was a bit surprising. Good to see that happiness doesn't require lots of $$.

How to Pick a Great Neighborhood

I've been getting mail from folks looking to move to Portland and trying to pick a neighborhood, and with so many great neighborhoods to pick from, it's tough to recommend just one.

But I recently found a tool that makes it a whole lot easier. www.walkscore.com allows you to see what stores, schools, bars, restaurants and parks are within walking distance of any location.

Here's an example in the Alberta Arts district: http://www.walkscore.com/get-score.php?street=ne+going+and+29th%2C+portland+or&go=Go

Check it out, it's a great tool. And if anyone has any suggestions for Mark, please feel free to add a comment. They're coming to visit tomorrow to take another look around.

"Maybe you could help us with a new route. We are a 30ish couple that enjoy both the outdoors and urban environs. We would like to have a good grocery store and a good pub(I'm a homebrewer). Big bonus if they were in walking distance. Proximity to bike trails and public trans is vital to us at first since we're selling one vehicle to cut costs. We really enjoy eating out although we don't mind driving a little to do so. We love Farmer's Markets. We love the Portland vibe. Any suggestions for two days of exploration? Thanks in advance."