When I first started selling real estate in 1975 here in Portland, Oregon, I wound up selling lots of acreage out in the country along with building lots in the city.  In selling lots, I would not only find the lots to be built on for my buyers but I would search and find the builder that matched them, helped them pick out floor plans and worked with them during the building construction process until the day the house was completed and they could move in.

My new construction background is quite extensive and I have even drawn blueprints, done partitioning of land, lot-line adjustments, and subdividing of property.  My former husband and I used to build new homes as well.  This experience then extended into representing builders and I have had subdivisions listed where I helped pick the plans and then did what we call “list backs” for the builders with the new homes already built.  At one point I even conducted a new construction class for seniors at one of our local high schools  – Sunset High School - as a representative of our Board of Realtors®, Make America Better Committee.  Those were “the good old days” as they say in the early years of my career.   My first love was and still is vacant land, acreage and new construction.  I used to love searching for that perfect piece for the developer or buyers and could “see” the property developed and built on.

After that, the larger builders and big national builders came in and bought up all the developable land.  The homeowner that wanted to build their one “dream” house and the small builders got lost in the shuffle and no longer had the same opportunities.  It was buying a new home in one of those new subdivisions from the national builder or large local builders and that was pretty much it.  Land use laws came along and were adopted.  They prohibited where building could occur in Oregon and what could or couldn’t be built.

Which brings us to today – 33 years later.  Lately, I have seen a change yet again.  There are now “lots” to be had for the homebuyer’s dream home and for the small builder.  Not only are there lots and acreage available but land that can be subdivided.  There are even platted parcels all ready to be built on that other developers or builders have abandoned.

Now, most of the big national builders have left our area.  Frankly, I haven’t seen this many vacant lots or developable properties for sale in a very long time.  There are builders and developers that would love to “unload” some of their bare ground.

• In searching the MLS for area 147 (Lake Oswego), I found 56 vacant lots and some acreage priced from $179,000-$2,500,000 for .56 acre.
• ML 148 (SW Portland) had 107 vacant lots or acreage from $79,900 up to $1,690,000 for 2.31 acres; and,
• ML 151 (Tigard) had 58 lots or acreage starting from $89,900 to $998,000 for 1.46 acres.

This information doesn’t include parcels that can be subdivided or split into more lots with older or tear-down houses on them, as most of those are mainly listed under our residential section and I didn’t search those.  However, I have seen many of those listed as well.  The stats above represent vacant lots or acreage only.

Without a doubt our real estate activity has picked up.  Almost every Realtor® I have spoken to within the last 3 weeks has said they too have noticed increased activity, as I have.  It will be interesting to see what the Q2 stats and June monthly report will be.  You’ll be seeing that information in a post here soon.

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