Portland, OR – Oregon real estate agent David Somerville, a REALTOR® who is an expert in Portland home values, has released the top five metro areas in his Portland Home Appreciation Report to help those following the market to understand trends in real estate market activity.

Somerville says the report, which is designed to be helpful to Portland real estate professionals but accessible to the average homebuyer, gives a broad overview of market health broken down by regions.

“I cover the twelve major Portland metro areas, including NW Portland and Washington County, Milwaukie and Clackamas, Lake Oswego and West Linn, NE Portland, Tigard and Wilsonville, Oregon City and Canby, North Portland, Beaverton and Aloha, West Portland, Hillsboro and Forest Grove, SE Portland.”

He says that the report is a very objective presentation of market information designed to help potential Portland home buyers make informed decisions about where and when to buy real estate in Portland neighborhoods.

“I just look at the facts of the market and report to my readers what the trends look like for the price of Portland real estate. Many home buyers have come to appreciate the actionable information in these reports.”
Top Five Metro Portland Areas

1. NW Portland / Washington County
2. Milwaukie / Clackamas
3. Lake Oswego / West Linn
4. NE Portland
5. Tigard / Wilsonville

The areas are ranked according to the amount of appreciation Portland homes experienced for each region during the previous year. NW Portland and Washington County experienced an 8.70% decrease in property values from a year ago, while Milwaukie and Clackamas experiencing a 9.50% decline. Lake Oswego and West Linn fell 9.8%, NE Portland fell 10.2%, and Tigard and Wilsonville fell 10.3%.

The full report can be viewed at http://www.maxwellsinclair.com/blog/tag/home-appreciation-report/

Search for Portland Homes on the Apple iPhone

Portland, Oregon – David Somerville, a Portland, Oregon area REALTOR® covering real estate in Portland, Lake Oswego, West Linn, Beaverton, Hillsboro, and Tigard, has launched an iPhone application to make it more convenient for buyers to search for Portland homes from their mobile phones.

The app, which is available for download in iTunes or from Somerville’s website, http://www.maxwellsinclair.com, is offered free of charge to home buyers to search Portland’s real estate listings by entering activation code 2370. He says users just need an iPhone and an iTunes account, and they can be browsing — and bookmarking — available real estate listings fast.

Somerville says that searching for Portland homes is made significantly easier with this new technology.

“The iPhone is naturally a perfect tool to search for homes online, because the browsing experience on the small screen is so near the desktop experience. The ability to take it with you when you’re out driving around Portland neighborhoods makes it very useful.”

The application makes this browsing experience even easier, because it provides an easy to use tool to help buyers drill down with detailed search criteria to find the perfect property.

With half of all mobile web browsing performed on the iPhone, he says it made sense to offer this application first to reach the most home buyers. But he said that plans are underway to offer more mobile real estate search applications to search for Portland homes on other mobile operating systems like Android and Blackberry.

“We’re very excited about this new tool to offer our clients. Purchasing a home can be a difficult process without the right tools and experienced, friendly people to make it happen. This is just one more way we’ve tried to use technology to make the home buying process a little easier — and more enjoyable — for our clients.”