Latest news with #Vitalius
Yahoo
07-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Multiunit homebuyers are turning sour on Portland
Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what's in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience. Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what's in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience. Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what's in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience. Generate Key Takeaways May 7—Just a few years ago, when a multifamily home in Portland hit the market, real estate agents could hardly keep up with the demand. Dozens of showings in a matter of days, sometimes tens of offers, almost all well over the asking price. But last year, the same kind of two- or three-unit building drew only a trickle of visitors, maybe one or two offers. For the first time in years, agents were seeing listings expire. "It seemed like we could hardly get anyone to come look at anything," said Brit Vitalius, principal and designated broker at Portland's Vitalius Real Estate Group. The number of unsold two- to four-unit buildings in Portland dropped 91% last year, compared to 2023, according to the Vitalius group's 2025 market report. The listings expired, were withdrawn or were canceled. Multiunits in Portland had long been "the gold standard" for both investors and young people looking to break into real estate. What changed? Industry experts say Portland's market is finally saturated. The combination of high prices (the median two-unit sold for $729,000 last year), rent control and competition from newer apartment buildings with swanky amenities has stripped away some of the allure for live-in landlords and investors alike. With prices in surrounding cities like Saco and Biddeford also climbing, many of these would-be buyers instead set their sights on lower-priced areas like Lewiston and Auburn. "It's turning my world on its head," said Vitalius, who specializes in multiunit sales. "It's harder to sell in Portland now than it is in non-Portland cities." DOING THE MATH Tom Landry, owner of Benchmark Real Estate in Portland, has also noticed the slowdown. A lot of prospective buyers look at buildings like The Casco and The Armature featuring amenities like rooftop pools and pet spas, and they hear announcements of more units coming to Washington Avenue or Thompson's Point. Owners of the city's traditional three-deckers are suddenly competing against luxuries they can't match. They start to worry, Landry said. "(Portland's) population is growing, but it's just barely growing," he said. The city's rent control ordinance could also have a dampening effect. City voters approved the ordinance in November 2020, and it went into effect Jan. 1, 2021. It ties housing costs to inflation in the region by capping annual rent increases at 70% of the consumer price index for that year — for 2025 the maximum increase is 2.5% "As the market is mellowing out, people are doing the math," Vitalius said. The added inventory, coupled with rent control, has helped to slow the rapid rent increases, and buyers can't charge enough to recoup their investment. "(So) they look to other areas," Landry said. 'IT'S STILL NOT AFFORDABLE' The draw of an owner-occupied building was once that a first-time homebuyer could buy an old two- or three-unit, move into one and fix up the others, ultimately increasing the value, and therefore the rent, to help pay down the mortgage. But with the average multiunit in Portland creeping up on $1 million, the initial purchase — let alone the money for renovations — feels out of reach. "Even if two people are really kind of killing it," Landry said, "it's still not affordable." But in Lewiston and Auburn, where the average two-unit sold for $335,000 last year, it feels more achievable. Landry purchased a two-unit home in Auburn in 2023 for $180,000. He put in a little work, made a few updates and sold it in January for just under $600,000. That property would have been listed for $1.3 to $1.5 million in Portland, he said. The price growth for multiunit sales in Portland appears to be slowing. According to data from Vitalius, the median sale price for multiunit buildings increased just 2% between 2023 and 2024, to a median of $822,500. Between 2019 and 2024, the median sale price increased 61%. In Lewiston-Auburn, however, the median increased 13% between 2023 and 2024 to $386,000. That's a 156% increase from 2019. PRICES UNAPPEALING TO INVESTORS There have always been investors who decide to forgo Portland in favor of Lewiston, Vitalius said, but there used to be trade-offs. The properties were in worse conditions, the tenants were harder to work with. But as Portland has gotten more expensive, the gap in desirability between the two cities has narrowed. While Lewiston-Auburn's growth has outpaced Portland's, multiunit sales are still, on average, slowing there, too. Sales activity in both metro areas was still below prepandemic norms. The number of unsold listings in the Twin Cities increased from 29 to 42, or 71%, between 2023 and 2024. Vitalius blamed prices for the declines in both Portland and Lewiston-Auburn, but for different reasons. In Portland, he said, prices are simply too high. The median sale price for a three-unit last year was $800,000. It cost $1 million for a four-unit. In Lewiston, he mused, sellers could have been "reaching" for that higher price point, listing something to see if it could sell for more and then when it didn't, deciding to hold onto it. The median price for a three-unit last year was $400,000, and $465,000 for a four-unit. David Foster, an associate broker with the Fontaine Family real estate group, said the area is particularly good for owner-occupied buyers, but like in Portland, the rising prices are starting to turn off investors. For some investors and their spreadsheets, the cost of buying the building and rehabbing the units compared to the rent they can feasibly get in the area is getting harder to justify. In Lewiston, the fair-market rent for a two-bedroom apartment is $1,268, according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development. In 2019, it was $915 — just a 38% increase, compared to the 156% increase in home prices. "It's not finding a house that catches your heart and you'll do anything to be there," he said. "Investors look at numbers and 'does this make sense or not?'" Increasingly, the answer is no. 'A GOOD PLACE TO LIVE' But for first-time homebuyers looking for an owner-occupied situation, the Twin Cities are an attractive option. There are federal and state loan programs and grants that can help with the down payment and closing costs, and the generally lower price point makes it more affordable, according to Tony Poulin, a broker with Meservier and Associates in Auburn. If a person is willing to commute the 45 or so minutes to Portland, it's a smart investment, he said. Poulin said that reasonably priced buildings are still selling quickly but that he doesn't expect to see as much drastic price appreciation this year. Amato Polselli, an associate broker with Benchmark who grew up in the Lewiston area, said there's a lot to love about the area. It's affordable and has easy access to the highway, he said. Like Portland, the buildings are older, "so they have a charm factor," but they generally have more outdoor space. The area has great restaurants and breweries, as well as a burgeoning arts and culture scene, Foster added. "It's definitely a good place to live." Copy the Story Link
The Guardian
15-02-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
The week in audio: Coming Out; The Great Post Office Trial; The Teen Commandments
Coming Out Radio AtlasThe Great Post Office Trial Radio 4/BBC SoundsThe Teen Commandments Sara Cox By far the most moving and absorbing piece of audio I heard last week was on Radio Atlas, the website that showcases excellent non-English-speaking audio documentaries. Before I get to the programme itself, I feel Radio Atlas may need a reintroduction (I just checked, and I first wrote about it in 2016). Set up and run by Falling Tree's Eleanor McDowall, it finds the best audio pieces from around the world and gives them a beautiful translation into English that appears on your screen, each word timed perfectly to those spoken, so that you're not rushing ahead or catching up. It does mean, of course, that you have to look at your phone when you're listening (unless you speak the language), but that's good. These shows need your undivided attention. Anyway, Coming Out is from Lithuania, made by Rūta Dambravaitė and Inga Janiulytė-Temporin for publicly owned radio station LRT Radijas's Radijo Dokumentika series. Billed as 'a tender love story, lived in private, across five decades', it's based around an extended interview with Vitalius, now 70, who tells the story of his 52-year relationship with Albinas, 85, whose memory is going. The pair met in a Kaunas city park, known as a meeting point for gay men and thus a place of danger. When Lithuania was part of the Soviet Union, the military police used to actively search for gay people to charge them – and worse. Vitalius tells his and Albinas's story beautifully. His childhood is devastating: he grew up in a village where he knew no other LGBT people and couldn't imagine they existed. 'A cosmic loneliness,' he says, and your heart breaks. This documentary is the first time he's ever spoken about being gay. Usually, when people ask about his and Albinas's relationship, he lets them assume that he is Albinas's son. Though there is a moment, towards the end, when he describes telling a shop assistant exactly who he is buying a ring for – 'It's for my man' – and, honestly, I burst into tears. The music, classical and opera, chosen by Vitalius himself, is hugely and suitably romantic. The story has a coda. During the programme, an impassioned Vitalius argues for his and Albinas's partnership to be treated the same as a straight one under Lithuanian law. The country only decriminalised homosexuality in 1993, and still doesn't recognise same-sex marriages or civil unions. When Coming Out was broadcast in early 2024, the online version became the most streamed episode in the show's history (it went on to win the Prix Europa European audio documentary of the year), and opened up a debate on human rights in Lithuania. It also led to a symbolic humanist wedding ceremony for Vitalius and Albinas, witnessed by 21,000 people, who signed the certificate. It was the first time Vitalius and Albinas ever held hands in public. Speaking of a righteous fight to be recognised, here's dogged Nick Wallis back on Radio 4 to report on the current state of play with the Post Office scandal. He has been reporting on this for 15 years, and there are 17 other episodes to The Great Post Office Trial if you wish to catch up, though after ITV's Mr Bates vs the Post Office I can't imagine there are many who don't know what went on. This brand new episode gives us some audio from the inquiry, which is still yet to deliver its report. Much of it is centred on ex-Post Office chief executive Paula Vennells, who doesn't come across well, being at once bewildered and bewildering; so incurious and sappy as to provoke laughter from the public gallery. We also hear from former post office operators Lee Castleton and Rooprit Gill, who are robust in their final victory, even though they're yet to receive full monetary compensation for what happened. Wallis is great at pushing both the new interim head of the Post Office, Neil Brocklehurst, and the MP Gareth Thomas, the minister now in charge of the victims' compensation, as to why everything's so complicated and is taking so long. Of the two, Thomas seems to be more on the case, though it still seems like wading through mud. 'You've got 92-year-old Betty Brown, who's heading towards the end of her life without having received full and final compensation… what are you going to do to make things happen quickly?' asks Wallis of Thomas. From his hemming and hawing, it sounds as if Brown will be lucky to get what she's owed before her 100th year. Radio 2's Sara Cox and her best friend, Clare Hamilton, have a new podcast, The Teen Commandments, in which they share insights on, and anecdotes about, raising teenagers and promise to reveal what they were like when they were that dread age. 'It's all karma,' says Hamilton. I get the feeling that, like many new shows, The Teen Commandments wants to recreate the intimate, funny vibes of Miss Me?, Lily Allen and Miquita Oliver's hugely successful podcast. But that's harder than it might appear, and The Teen Commandments is sort of there, but not quite. The episodes need a specific topic rather than a jovial ramble around the edges, and are in need of listener contributions too, which no doubt will come flooding in. Until then, it's a bit formless, veering wildly between Cox and Hamilton reminiscing about how cute their kids were when they were little, and impromptu masturbation – theirs, not their kids – as a way of finding the energy for what needs to be done. 'Procrasto-wank,' says Cox; a good name for it, but perhaps not quite what listeners were expecting.
