Mayoral Candidate Jules Bailey Knows First Hand How Hard it is to Buy a House in Portland
Thursday, March 03, 2016
Portland Mayoral Candidate Jules Bailey has a new housing plan. It is designed to help make Portland real estate more accessible.
He personally bid on ten different properties. “When my wife and I began to search for a home last spring in the SE Portland neighborhood where I grew up, we experienced first hand how difficult the housing market is. We made offers on 10 different homes and were outbid by offers that were tens of thousands of dollars over the asking price,” said Jules Bailey. “We just couldn’t keep up. We finally realized that we could no longer afford a home in that neighborhood. After months of searching, we finally found a home in Multnomah Village, which we love.
Bailey told GoLocalPDX in an email that he bid on the following properties:
NE 28TH Ave - we actually won the bid on this one, but they sold to a lower bid because we were using a mortgage and the other people had cash. I don’t know if it was all cash, but it was a lot more than we had.
SW TEXAS St
SE LAMBERT St
SE FRANKLIN St
SW 41ST Ave
SE FRANCIS St
SE 29TH Ave
SE 17TH Ave
SW STEPHENSON St
Our house SW 36th Ave - We actually lost out on this one to a bid way above asking - but that person backed out their earnest money and we ended up swooping in and getting it at asking, which is why I include it.
And we are fortunate - we have two good incomes and can afford to look for a home. Many others still can’t find a safe, affordable place to live in our city. Others are pushed into places where they must deal with long daily commutes and being uprooted from their community, while still others are forced into the worst situation of all: homelessness.”
A press release from the Bailey campaign said that he still believes “that the American Dream is still possible in Portland, and that together we can make our city work for everyone.”
“Our city is at a turning point. Portlanders love our city, but we’re starting to feel that the city we love is beginning to slip through our fingers,” says Bailey. “From real estate speculators buying up large numbers of homes in the market to people simply moving here and looking for a home, the need for housing is only going to continue to grow. This plan starts us on a path to having enough traditional and multi-family housing to address our needs now, and for what’s to come.”
The Bailey Plan, which does not include a budget or timeline, proposes to:
• Create one-day permitting for affordable infill development to reduce costs of development for responsible projects, and create more housing available for working families.
• Create a new funding source for housing to increase investment in affordable housing that is available for people with the lowest incomes.
• Create pathways to homeownership both for traditional housing and co-op style models of multifamily housing so that the working class can build wealth.
• Establish a Community Preservation Program to keep long time residents in their communities and bring those that have been displaced back to their neighborhoods.
• Bring back neighborhood-scale density like duplexes, triplexes, and garden-style apartments that are currently prohibited.
• Enact “inclusionary zoning” as permitted by state law so that affordable housing is integrated throughout the city, not pushed to the edges.
• Accelerate the process of identifying surplus public lands and dedicating them for affordable housing.
• Work with County and Metro to purchase and set aside land along soon-to-be developed "transit corridors" for affordable housing, before speculation drives prices sky high.
• Conduct rigorous oversight of urban renewal areas to ensure that displacement doesn't happen.
Related Slideshow: Portland’s 20 Hottest Neighborhoods for Real Estate
What are Portland’s hottest neighborhoods for real estate? The 20 neighborhoods below are ranked by the number of sold homes over the last 90 days. The information, along with the median list price and median price per square foot, comes from the real estate company Redfin. The population is from 2010 census data.
The sale to list percentage, also from Redfin, is the final selling price over what the listed price was, to show how close sellers came to their asking price. In cases where it is over 100 percent, the seller got more than then listed price.
Find out what the hottest real estate neighborhoods in Portland are:
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