Let’s face it, Portland has just gotten too hip and too expensive for some of us. There’s no shame in it, some of us have goals that don’t include blowing our hard earned nest egg to afford an attractive house, in a convenient area, with fantastic amenities. And that’s where Milwaukie comes along.
I’ve been touting it for a few years now. My clients and friends think I’m going to wreck it, by enticing hipsters to buy in this quaint, “Perfectville” of a town and that it’ll get blown out like Division St.. But the serious fact is that what I call the Blue Collar Riviera is the same exact portion of river as shared by posh Dunthorpe and Lake Oswego. The Downtown has been revitalized, the waterfront park completely redone, with great accessibility where previously there was none. There are 3 parks, one of which is an island, all open to the public. It’s seriously livable and just a little bit slower than Portlandia.
Milwaukie is an oasis. It’s also soon to be accessible via Max. It’s the next place to hit! And this is why my client Sally, whom decided it was about time she come down from Alaska to snow-bird and invest, chose Milwaukie.
She wanted to be close to the water, but as you know, in PDX the water isn’t terribly accessible and because of the sea wall is rather concrete, commercial and sometimes just plain industrial. Instead, she wanted to hop on a bike and be down to a tree-lined park on the water in minutes. Perhaps, she could even find a house directly on the water, if she was lucky. She also wanted quick, nearby public transportation into downtown. She wanted space for an Air B-n-B, and she didn’t want to have to fight tooth and nail against 15-30 other offers for the chance. This all pointed to MILWAUKIE.
Sure, we saw a few condos in Sellwood or John’s Landing first, it did seem like a viable option for a snow-birding retiree but as an investment goes, the condo market can be iffy. So then we drove all the streets by the river and plotted our goal – a house, in Milwaukie, nearish the river, with some size to it! Just then, a realtor friend mentioned a new listing she had coming up on a street I’d already sold a house on previously, and knew to be pretty darling. It was mere blocks from the MAX and a quick bike jaunt to the river and Elk Rock Island. It was walkable to the Elks Lodge (60,000 sf ft of mid-century awesome, with an olympic swimming pool!) AND, it was a pristine tri-level mid-century ranch house with an idyllic private back yard. It also had room for an ADU, and it was affordable. Not a nest-egg breaker! It seemed perfect,and there would be less of a fight for it.
So we jumped. And we won.
Thanks Sally, for choosing me to by your realtor, for being open minded to that little place just south of town called “Milwaukie”, and for being so fun!
