Ummmm...WHY??

Real estate is changing. A lot. Buyers and sellers have more access to more information more quickly than most agents did ten years ago. Over seventy percent of buyers begin looking on the internet. Most major brokerages are setting up extensive internet search engines, and some internet search engines are getting into the brick and mortar brokerage business. Limited service discount brokerages are filling a need (much more on this in later posts), Zillow.com, though still basically a parlor game, is showing further potential by taking free listings from agents nationally, and GoogleEarth can get you an overhead snapshot of pretty much any property anywhere, in seconds.

And 2006 saw the explosion of blogs, now nearly 50 million. Leaving aside the forty nine million built on the MySpace narcissism model, a significant few are devoted to real estate, some excellent institutional, some excellent local, but most merely an extension of an agent’s web site, thus personal promotion with daily links to interest rates. Yawn.

That’s not this blog. The hope is not only to disseminate accurate, timely market information – a subsequent post will deal with the fact that the information you read in, say, The Oregonian is already sixty to ninety days old – but how to process that information. [Yes, the average price of closed sales in the Lake Oswego/West Linn area dropped in year over year comparison in December – the first time in at least two years – but…why? Anomaly or trend?]

We’ll also tackle the political: could the drop in Multnomah County population – compared to the substantial increase in the surrounding three counties – have anything to do with a nutty County Commission? How does that affect home prices?

The requisite disclaimer: We’re free with opinion, and are happy to argue a case if we’re right or admit a mistake if we’re wrong. (Comments, pro and con, welcome.)

But the opinions are ours, and ours alone.