By Alyssa Isenstein Krueger, March 12, 2019
My buyer Bev moved to Portland two years ago, and at the time she moved here, she wasn’t that familiar with Portland so when she decided to buy a condo, she bought a sweet space in Gresham tucked alongside the Springwater Trail and some parks. After a year of living in Gresham, she decided that she would rather live in Portland because the drive for work, friends and everything else was getting tiresome. Last summer she contacted me after being referred by a friend. She had found a cute little 1 bedroom house on a flag lot in the Foster Powell neighborhood. She wavered on putting in an offer, and even came into my office where we sat down to write the offer. As we started to go through the paperwork, she hesitated and decided that she wasn’t ready to buy yet. Four months later she contacted me again because she was now ready to buy a house.
In order to buy a new home, she would have to sell her Gresham home. It’s always way less stressful to buy first then sell, and thankfully Bev was in a position where she could manage to swing two mortgages for a little while, so she was able to take the less stressful option of buying first then selling. In January she wrote an offer on a house that was almost too-good to be true, but felt like if she didn’t actually submit an offer, she would kick herself. And when that offer wasn’t accepted, she just shrugged and moved on. She looked at a few houses over the next month, but nothing quite caught her fancy. And then as she was scrolling through listings, she came across a little bungalow in Lents. Based on the photos, it was hard to tell if the house was going to be cute or what the layout was. The seller is an amazing woodworker and most of the listing photos focused on the extensive crown molding and kitchen cabinets- both of which are beautiful, but you couldn’t get any feel for the house and the exterior photos were really blah. The house was just a few blocks south of Eastport Plaza and on a pretty nice block, and it was priced under $300k. We made an appointment to take a look and when we entered, we discovered a sleeper of a house that somehow fell between the cracks. The inside is lovely with lots of windows, beautiful wood work everywhere, a nice flow and a huge backyard. It’s small, but in great shape overall. After spending about a half hour there, it was clear that this was a perfect house for Bev. We wrote an offer, the seller accepted and the transaction went off without a hitch. She moved in and now we await Part 2- selling her condo in Gresham.
Alyssa Isenstein Krueger
Broker | OR
She/Her
I am living the dream. Working as a real estate broker in my home town brings this native Portland gal joy beyond measure. Check Out My Reviews! I took the round-about-road towards this career...
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