Elissa Mendenhall contacted me about a small cottage she has for sale in Portland, Oregon. She has discovered that many people think the cottage is cute but to small to live in. She asked me to show it to you as the Tiny House Blog readers appreciate small and are looking to downsize. This cottage has 560 square feet with a 280 square foot basement. If you think this is the house for you get in touch with the Portland Alternative Realtors and also let me know through the contact form above.
Lush front yard with driftwood art fence and edible landscaping
Portland, Oregon, Southeast. Charming cozy cottage on a quiet South Tabor street. 2 bedrooms and 1 bathroom with fir floors throughout and a woodburning fireplace. Adorable vintage kitchen with bamboo floors – all appliances are included. Freshly painted exterior. Amazing organic garden full of fruit (apples, pears, peaches, currants), veggies and edibles. Bike trellis, chicken coop and run are all included. Wonderful location – quick jaunt to Mt. Tabor, and SE Division amenities!
Date Listed: 1/5/2010
Price: $195,000 (New Lower Price 2/19/2010 – $189,000)
Bedrooms: 2
Bathrooms: 1
Lot Size: 50 x 98
Style: Bungalow
Square Footage: 854, including 280 sq ft of basement
Levels: 2
Neighborhood: South Tabor
Schools: Atkinson, Mt Tabor Middle, Franklin
Sewer: Public
Water: Public
Heating: Forced-air gas
MLS# 10001722
The house has enough room for me. From the pictures it looks nice too. I imagine someone will pick it up soon.
If I lived in Portland, I would have bought it yesterday. Love.
i agree with jennifer. beautiful!
What Jennifer said..
Beautiful! I wish I was in the market for a home in Portland – that would be a winner!
Adorable little home. Absolutely lovely garden 🙂
It’s nice… but $189,000?
Not long ago you could buy a much larger house in Portland for $70,000.
This market is waaay too overpriced.
Yikes. Glad to be looking for housing in
Texas. I’d love for that to be here in one of the small outlying towns.
It’s also be far cheaper.
I was looking at a larger, 1930’s built house on almost half acre for $35,000. Not quite in the shape of this one, but not a pile of sticks either.
If said place had been in this shape, it would be about $70,000 at most. Likely less. It is a 1000 sq/ft place. This house, on the same lot would run $40-50,000. And I’d be very interested in it as well.
I need more workshop space than living space.
I just bought a lottery ticket — because if I win, that cottage is mine!
Love their Web site and their philosophy, too!
I wonder how large the attached garden/yard is?
WAR
This house is supercool.
Mark A, I don’t know know how long “not long ago” is for you, but one certainly couldn’t buy a much larger house for $70k within the last 15 years in Portland. This market is overpriced, but it HAS been overpriced for quite a while now.
Yes, I may have being generous with my “not long ago”, but the housing prices are ridiculous in Portland/metro.
I recall when the house across the street was for sale for $110k asking price (my house was purchased a few years earlier for 90k and is much larger) and the buyer turned around and tried to sell it for $190k without doing anything to it.
I expect a crash in the near future in Portland, even worse than the last year or two.
My husband and I love it! Pitty we’re nowhere near Portland.:( That is definitely not too small to live in. People are just nuts. Gotta have room for the exercise room, home office, den, living room, guest room and three bedrooms for the imaginary kids that they’ll have in the future, not to mention a master bedroom, master bath, two smaller bathrooms, and a full garage for the storage of so much crap that they’ll never be able to park the car in it. 😀
I say whatever…It’s actually a bit big for what my hubby and I will be looking for eventually. Go figure.
Lust! Whimper!
2 simple little words, each with the same punctuation. Amazing the meaning you’ve managed to pack into them. Thank You.
Perfection.
The size is good and it is cute, but NOT for anywhere near that price! When are people going to realize that we are in a new depression???
Not nearly as severe in Portland. One of the few US cities to have long planned ahead and diversified accordingly.
http://ownaportlandhome.blogspot.com/2008/10/two-recession-reports-two-outcomes-for.html
Different parts of the country have wildly varying prices. I just saw a 236 sf home in Ballard outside of Seattle for a whopping $265K. This home in Mt Tabor would be in a highly coveted area. The same home further from Portland would be half the price.
Deborah,
I’ll agree we’re in a bad recession all around and, yes, a “new depression” (for many people) but it seems real estate prices have a lot to do with location. So a house/lot like this might be two very different prices in two different locations. Maybe this is a spectacular location. I think it’s a cute house but don’t know from Portland. Have been there but never for very long.
I’ll point out that for this price you can barely get a tiny studio apartment in the more coveted neighborhoods in Brooklyn (NY)–and then it would probably be a semi-wretched place or have other issues. Prices are coming down but things are still relatively expensive here.
I think the same square footage as this house in our area could go for 500,000 to a million dollars depending. If you look at the very smallest spaces in our area (studio apartments), you won’t see any asking price under $250,000.
So, it’s all relative unfortunately. Does Portland have a public record online system showing what the current owners paid for the house? We have that in NYC. It’s rather invasive but the records were always available to the public but now they’re available on the internet which I find creepy since people’s signatures are sometimes part of mortgage documents and get scanned and uploaded to the database! Yikes!
Suggestion to the real estate agents: take a couple of new photos where you pull out the cords out of the outlets and stow them away in the kitchen. Those dangling wires detract. There’s one in the kids’ room too. Also, probably not possible, is there any way to move that huge purple easy chair? It makes the room look smaller than it needs to. I’m sure it is very comfy but taking up so much space visually and physically in a small house can’t be that great for an open house…?
Overpriced? Probably, but if you’re not familiar w/ Portland, the house is just off Powell, which is a pretty hot area for restaurants and commerce. The location alone bumps up the worth immediately. Just wish I had a bit more equity to roll out of my present home for a gem like this.
If I lived in Portland…yep…it would be mine.
The price is not too bad if you also take into consideration the great yard and the ability to grow your own food and raise some chickens. This is rare to find within a city limit. Portland is a wonderful and forward thinking city.
Whew! It’s not the SIZE of this cute little cottage, it’s the PRICE!
I don’t care WHERE you live, Portland, Chicago or Springfield, Illinois: almost $338 per square foot is simply outrageous! In most suburban areas, a 2800 sq. ft home in a ‘very nice’ newer neighborhood costs around HALF that much per square foot!
Christina pointed out other amenities as perhaps the better ‘explanation’ as to why the price is so much (raising chickens and a food garden, within city limits), but I would expect to get an acre or two for this price…
I guess I’m SPOILED, living in the Midwest where some smaller towns host similar cuties in move-in-condition for as low as $19,000!!
My home cost me roughly $50,000, several years ago, and is a huge, five bedroom Folk Victorian on almost 2/3 of an acre (fenced), move-in cond. (of course, I’ve done my own cosmetic upgrades over the years).
I’ve been looking into downsizing myself (why I’m hanging out here at the tiny house blog, as of late), and have been browsing little cottage/bungalow types in the Central Illinois area: there are hundreds like THIS little gem, but in the $24,000 to $44,000 range!
Is the $189,000 sticker on this cottage TYPICAL for the Portland area??
Cute cottage.
But ‘over-priced’ for MY blood.
I want to live SIMPLY, but not house-rich/cash-poor…
I think the key words are “most suburban areas” and “Midwest.” Portland has an urban growth boundary, and this house is well inside it and in fact is fairly close in. Eastside close-in houses (esp. vintage homes that have been renovated and cared for) are at a premium. There are suburban towns around Portland, but Portland itself cannot get any bigger, so living anywhere in Portland proper means that you are a pretty short distance from the city core, and this keeps commutes manageable within city limits (vs. suburban commutes which are commuting nightmares just like everywhere else). For some people, that is a quality of life factor that they are willing to pay for (less house for more money, but more time to spend in it!) just as other people would value several acres to put horses on or just have peace and quiet- and would be willing to drive 30 minutes to the nearest grocery store! There are definitely “crashed out” areas like Happy Valley (a suburb 30 min out from the city core w/out traffic) where new-construction homes averaging >2500sf (with all that implies- 2 and 3 car garages, two master suites, etc.) that were going for $350-400k a few years gone by are being tossed out for under $200k. But again, “more” isn’t always “more.”
And definitely, the cost of living is higher here than in the Midwest; our minimum wage is close to twice the federal minimum wage. When I was job hunting recently, out of curiosity, I looked at other areas, and my profession’s starting wage is nearly twice here what it is in many parts of the country ($35/hr vs. $16-18/hr). Housing prices are scaled as well, in that light.
Hi,
As I thought, price per square footage is really quite relative. Shea, we are thinking of downsizing too and this is why I, like you, have been looking at the small/tiny house blogs.
As I mentioned in my previous comments, the prices around our neighborhood for small apartments are much higher than the house featured on this thread. I would imagine that some of the West Coast cities have that percentage bump up in price that the some of the East Cost cities have. Location-location-location.
I was going to stop by the open houses for three apartments today but just couldn’t drag myself out. I’ve pasted in the web addresses below. The one-bedroom’s asking is $499,000 up to $599,000 for one of the two-bedroom apartments. Plus there is a maintenance monthly charge. Frankly, I think they’re too expensive and the asking price is just that: “asking”. The final closing price might be $99,000 or more off each apartment–who knows…I’m not a real estate maven so your guess is as good, or better, than mine.
Still, for us, the math of downsizing actually doesn’t make sense in NYC. It only makes sense if we sell and leave Brooklyn all together I think. I spotted a tiny studio asking about $189,000 with a low maintenance monthly of $259 or something like that. Granted, it was in a very good location in Park Slope and the studio had a nice entry hall so you wouldn’t enter right into the living space, but still.
The main window has a fire escape and the broker’s listing online is surprisingly upfront, pointing out the coop building has low owner-occupancy (most owners rent out their apartments or maybe the original apartment building owner still owns most of the apartments since they converted it to coops). The listing points out that you’re not likely to be able to get a bank mortgage because of the low owner-occupancy (i.e. expect to cough up the entire price of the apartment upfront!). On top of that, if the building’s apartments are, for the most part, rented, not lived in by the owners, and especially if the original building owner is in the picture, it might be a lousy living situation. You might as well rent so you can move if there are unruly, noisy neighbors or the building has problems that are never addressed/fixed.
http://www.corcoran.com/property/listing.aspx?Region=NYC&ListingID=1916733&OhDat=2/21/2010%2012:00:00%20AM;
http://www.corcoran.com/property/listing.aspx?Region=NYC&ListingID=1949641&OhDat=2/21/2010%2012:00:00%20AM;
http://www.corcoran.com/property/listing.aspx?Region=NYC&ListingID=1957950&OhDat=2/21/2010%2012:00:00%20AM;
Like others here I find this cottage to be cute, but also find the price to be morally reprehensible. I approach my goal of living small on many different levels, and for many different reasons. Some of these reasons include the feeling that I don’t need so much space, but also, that morally I don’t need to be taking up so much space, and using so many resources. I like organic gardening and providing my own food. It would be nice to get to a point where I could ultimately live off the grid, be more environmentally efficient, and reduce my global footprint, but that is not my main focus for this lifestyle. I’m attracted to the comforts of smaller living, the practicality of it. I find that we have over complicated our lives, so as to make ourselves believe we are more important. I feel that getting back to a simpler life plan would help ease our societal stress, and foster better health. Shedding the old concept that more is always better, learning that a higher quality of life can be achieved with less, not more.
For the people here who seem so willing to shell out this kind of money for this cottage, I have to wonder what their reasons for this kind of life style are. Do some of these people look at this as the current Vogue thing to do, and that’s why the cost seems to be of no issue here. I understand that to some people living in places like New York City, the price probably seems quite low. One of the great things about the technology we have today is that we can break the chains that once held us captive to over populated, over polluted cities. Isn’t part of the goal here, to get away from the rat race and focus on quality, not mass quantity? I can’t help but feel that spending such a large sum of money to live small sort of goes against the very concept of living small, not to mention other ethical aspects.
In regards to the location argument, sure Portland is nice, I just had a cousin move back from there, but I feel it’s highly overrated. I often find that most people only see this country as having an east coast and a west coast. Few of these people have ever even been to the Midwest, and thus really have no idea that there is an entire country that exists between the two coasts. The part of the Midwest that I’m from has mountains, lush valleys, rivers, and amazing secluded lakes, plus lots of clean air. Exactly what is it at the Portland location; that people feel; they can only get at this location? The areas here cost just a fraction of what they are on the coasts, with almost all of the same features. It always amazes me how people are tricked into believing the hype that we as society put on places and things.
I can’t help but feel that if a person could achieve the same goal here where I am, for roughly a quarter of the expenses, then imagine what that extra money could be used to do. Charitable works, fund an arts program, or help an emerging urban gardens program. Then a person would be doing something really important through their actions, not from the self fabricated importance of living in a fashionable location at fashionable price.
Wow… I think I’m going to add my middle initial to my user name so I won’t be mistaken for you. Every one is entitled to their own opinions and convictions, I certainly have mine and I suppose that free speech gives the right to preach about it. Thankfully, most of us choose not to exercise that particular aspect of free speech and merely do as we think rather make a spectacle of ourselves.
I’m sorry to sound so negative, in retrospect it does come off a more preachy than I had intended, that was not my intent. I guess my usually positive outlook has been rocked by news like Wall Street bank bonuses skyrocketing to record highs of 20 billion, after we the American people bailed them out from their greed and corruption. This all the while the rest of the country is trying to claw its way out of a recession. For the many friends of mine who have lost jobs, and then had their homes foreclosed on them, losing everything, I guess watching them struggle has hit me hard in the heart. It just seems that all forms of modesty have flown out the window, in the face of the millions of Americans trying to get by. Two hundred grand for such a small house, in this current economy, just seemed like an awfully excessive luxury.
Told you I’d add the rest of my initials. seriously, we’ve all been affected by what’s happening these days. If not by ourselves then we know people who have been, everybody is nervy and re-evaluating their lives.
Just a quick re-cap of the 21st century thus far for me: 2002,lost my nice job and started my own business and in Dec. nearly died in a wreck; 2003, my mother died; 2005 lost the electric meter for the last time in the house; 2006, my partner, friend, and back watcher in chief, my 10 year old Akita died; 2007, the heavy rains of the 1st half of 2007 caused the blocks holding up my house to sink into the ground and dropped the house over to the ground (that was exciting in the middle of the night), causing me to move into my storage building; 2008, lost my mediocre job and have nearly starved, broiled (summer), and frozen (winter) since then, nearly died in 2009 from the unsuspected allergy to the sting of the red wasp (back of the head. Ouch). Could I carp and complain? Absolutely. At each incident I permitted myself 1 week to feel sorry for myself and moved on, had to.
But, all of the above is not my life, they’re merely incidents that have occurred and I choose to find them instructive. I will not go into any more detail about the last decade, people in America aren’t supposed to have my experiences here, I let other people keep their delusions, they need them. I look at the near future and I find it a good place and I work at making it so.
So cheer up, let people argue about the relative merits of their place in the Country, and thank God (the Force, Source, Universe, or whatever your view is) every day you’re still here to read about it. It could always be worse. What has kept me going, even when things are at their worse, I know there are people out there, in this Country, who are worse off than me.
Sorry, I fussed at you for preaching and now I’ve gone and done it. My only point is, it can be so much worse. And quite frankly, I’m thankful every day that I live in Texas. I used to think that homes were overpriced in my little part of it, I’ve found out I was really wrong, thanks to this forum. So lighten up, enjoy these forums, dream, then put your head down and work to make those dreams into reality. Really and truly, it’s all we really have.
I find the comments on this post very interesting! The cottage is exactly the size and amenities that I would like to find. I have been wondering if those who are shocked by the price are from the Midwest. In the past few years I have lived both sides of this argument. I bought a 560sf cottage with 1/4 acre lot in SoCal in 2001 for $150,000. That was so absurdly low price for the area that the first set of underwriters refused the loan with the argument that there can’t be a house in that area for so cheap a price! It was in abysmal condition, but historical character. I sold it in 2005 for $325,000 without even listing it. It may be worth less now, but still considerably more than $190,000!
I thought I would cash in by moving back to the Midwest, bought an 888sf house on 1/2acre in Indianapolis for $43,000 (now know I paid too much considering the condition) and fixed it up. I love the house, but after 2 years I have decided that the close community that I left behind in SoCal is worth much more than having a cute house mortgage free. I am selling the house in two weeks for $79,000 (and taking a loss on what I invested). I know I can’t have a house in the area of SoCal where my friends/family are for the $175,000 equity that I have so I am arranging to rent a “granny flat” from friends at a bargain price of $700/month. It will be less than 400sf, but worth it to be back with those I love.
If you haven’t lived and bought property on the west or east coast areas, it is hard to appreciate what you get for the price. Quality of life is entirely determined by a person’s priorities in life. To each his own!
Why don’t we just concentrate on the houses here, and leave the political and economic whining to a minimum. Yes, I think we all understand that NY is more expensive than Portland. I also think we all understand the economy is in crisis and is affecting almost everyone. I am interested in living within my financial means and to satisfy my personal means by stripping down what I ‘think’ I need. For myself, I would never think of dropping $190k on a house this size. Period. I wont bore you like davidrc does in his fine blog book above. Look, the house is too much for what this blog is about.
I dont think its the small size thats deterring a buyer, but rather the BIG price! I live in Portland, and although this house is cute as a button, there are others – some twice or 3x the size for $50K LESS. Even in the neighborhood its in, IMHO this price is way overboard.
Way too high, even for Portland. We left there about 12 years ago, good timing. We moved to Boise, have all the above in 1,100 sq. feet. I’d like to go more rural, and smaller, with about 500 sq. ft., but not for $180,000.! Too high, and property tax is REALLY high there too… and I lived right by Mt. Tabor too, nice area, if you can afford it…
Right now, that house would be lucky to sell for 140k. There is substancial homes just 1.2 miles away in Woodstock for that much, 2 bed rooms places with more commerce to walk to and a bigger yard to create anyway you like too boot.
I thoroughly agree with Anne B: Quality of life is entirely determined by a person’s priorities in life. All of us have been affected in different ways by what is transpiring in our country right now. There are a lot of people, myself included, that have a different definition of what would provide Peace of Mind in my life currently and for the future. I agree that some of these questionable structures that I’ve seen on the internet can be harmful to some however; I also see that some don’t, at the present time have a choice. However, hopefully, there will come a day when all of us have learned from the housing foreclosure fiasco and can call “home” what makes us comfortable, makes us feel safe, makes us “rise” above a defeatist situation. I would love to have a house like this for a lot of different reasons. After living with a parent in what some would call a medium size home of 1600+/_ square feet, I have come to realize that “downsizing”, “streamlining” or whatever you want to call it, has a great deal of advantages. The mental attitude of “been there, done that” has a resounding effect on me. The concept of each of us having our own space, even if considered small, would be a wonderful and welcome opportunity for both of us. We have now reached a point in our lives, that downsizing the current residence that she has will actually make this residence too big for both of us. Condensing is a word that I would like to use – how many people need 2 or 3 different places to eat, and then eat out instead? I think that this is a great little place and would love to see more pictures of it and the surrounding area, although frankly, the first thing I would change is getting rid of the chicken coop and run but I’m envious of the edible yard!
I meant to address this in my previous post as well: Another important aspect that is driving “small” square footage living is various and improved technologies. The concepts of going paperless, book readers, laptops, cell phones are more reasonable and achievable in a smaller square footage living arrangements – and it’s not like you store all that physical stuff in such a small space- like 2 or 3 different kitchen tables, dining room tables and on and on it goes.
I really wish you could put out some more pictures of this house, the bedrooms, the garden and surrounding area and just in general a lot more detail.I think from what I can see of it, it is adorable and I have used it in my mind as a sample of what I would like to have in my life, although, I have, in my mind at least, redecorated it for you. I painted it, knocked out the ceilings to make it “live large” etc. I should be living in it.
Was this beautiful home sold?
I wish there was a website just for small homes for sale all over. Would love to find something like the Portland home in my area.