Pacifica Tower and Riverscape Townhomes

For about a year I was spending nearly every weekend working at the sales office of the Pacifica Tower and the Riverscape Townhomes.  What I've found is it is one of the coolest developments no one has ever heard of.  It's only a short distance from the Pearl District, or NW 21st and 23rd streets in Portland.  It has been around for several years, but has never been as affordable as it is now.  However, don't take my word for it, come out tonight, Feb 25th for some free food, wine and music and check it out for yourself.  (See Flyer Below)  If you need directions or info, give me a call or shoot me an e-mail.

Aaron Stelle
Real Estate Broker
Licensed in OR & WA, CDPE, e-PRO
RE / MAX equity group, inc.  
Direct:    503.495.3264
Fax:        503.495.5124
E-mail:     aaron.stelle@remax.net  
Web:       www.pearldistrictpdx.com

Referral Network

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Last week I was in a 2 day training seminar which was talking about working by referral. It was not ground breaking information, and was actually just reinforcement for a program I had gone through. Basically in 1 sentence or less, I get nearly all of my business through referrals from friends, family, past clients, and business partners. However, the seminar got me thinking.

Through my personal and professional life, I have met some really great people. I have a number of people or companies that I would be happy to refer out to anyone and everyone. If you are looking for financial planner to help manage your portfolio or assets, I have a great guy. If you need a painter, plumber, general contractor, etc, I have a person. I even have worked with people in completely unrelated fields like attorneys, golf vacation companies, restaurants, and things along those lines, I know people. If you are looking for real estate specific referrals, I know mortgage brokers, moving companies, staging and design companies, and of course a really great Realtor that works for RE/MAX. (ME!)

However, I do have requests that come up for industries that I don’t have a ‘guy’. That makes me want to go out to my friends, family, and colleagues. I want to know what YOU do! Referrals make the world go round and I would much rather refer someone I like vs. some stranger from the yellow pages. Plus I think it creates a certain amount of accountability. I know if I am referred a client by a friend, the last thing I want to do is disappoint them. Not only would it make me look bad but would trickle down to the friend that referred me.

So, if you ever need a point of contact in any industry, I am happy to help. Also, shoot me an e-mail, text, or just give me a call and let me know what you do. I am always happy to pass on a name and number!

Aaron Stelle

Real Estate Broker
Licensed in OR & WA, CDPE, e-PRO
RE / MAX equity group, inc.
Direct: 503.495.3264
Mobile: 503.515.7557
Fax: 503.495.5124
Web: www.aaronstelle.com

Purchase Price vs. Interest Rates

One of the most frequent questions I get asked is, 'What is more important, the purchase price or your interest rate?'.  The short answer is both, but with rates as historically low as they currently are, I would go with rates.  Most everything I've seen has pointed to an additional 10% drop in median home price.

This blog has been updated and moved to: http://www.aaronstelle.com/Blog/tabid/158/EntryId/17/Purchase-Price-vs-Interest-Rate-Which-is-More-Important.aspx

Measures 66 & 67 - Explained by a CPA

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Measures 66 and 67 were a huge hotbed issue not only in Portland, but across the state of Oregon and to some extent the nation.  There were literally millions of dollars spent on both sides of the issue and a lot of misinformation passed by both sides.  In an attempt to be a responsible voter, I read the actual bills, the summaries, and commentaries from both sides.  Since then I have even read articles in the New York Times and Chicago Tribune.

Either way, the bills passed and the time to argue about them is over.  They are now written into law and I think it would be good for people to see how, if at all, it will affect them.  This information was passed on to me by a colleague and I wish they would have spent $10 million on advertising this vs. the commercials we all had to endure.  That being said, I pulled this information from the blog of Shauna Zobrist who is a CPA at Sherwood Tax and Accounting.  I found it very simple and concise.  It is important to take a look at the flow chart that is linked about half way through.

Shauna Expressions : http://shauna.sherwoodtax.com/blog/entry/the-facts-of-oregons-new-tax/

This entry was written by shauna and posted on January 31, 2010 at 10:20 pm.

Emotions run high on both sides of the campaign that ended Tuesday with a victory for the supporters of Measure 66 and 67.  Now the buzz is all about really trying to understand the new taxes.  How will the taxes affect you?  Everyone is talking about it, but misinformation seems to be the only common denominator.  Let’s talk about the facts and answer some of the misunderstanding about the new law.

Measure 66 increased the state income tax rate for households who have taxable income over $250,000 or individuals with taxable income over $125,000 from 9% to 10.8% plus a temporary bracket for those earning over $500,000 at 11%.  This tax is retroactive to 2009 so high income tax payers will have a tax bill that they didn’t plan for. 

Business in Oregon is affected by Measure 67.  If you have a business entity of any kind except for sole proprietors, you will pay some additional tax.  The Oregon Center for Public Policy has created a flow chart that is the best I’ve found in making the tax implications to business clear.  The flow chart helps to bring clarity to the new taxes and who they will affect. 

S Corporations, LLC’s and partnerships will pay $150 to file a tax return rather than $10.  They will continue to pay tax on the net business income on their personal tax returns.  The biggest misrepresentation of the campaign was that corporations only pay $10 in tax.  Of course anyone with common sense knows that this wasn’t true.  Business owners of S Corporations or LLC’s pay plenty of tax in Oregon.  Luckily if you have an S Corporation or an LLC this is the extent of your tax increase (unless your business income puts you in the “high income” category for personal taxes).  However, also tied to this legislation you will now pay $100 to renew your corporate filing each year rather than $50.

C Corporations are the ones who get hurt the most.  Corporations are designated with the IRS as either a “C Corp” or “S Corp.”  The difference is that a C Corporation pays tax as an entity rather than passing its taxable income to its owners.  If you are a C Corporation who has revenue over $500,000, even if you don’t have any profit, you will now pay a minimum tax of $500 and the tax increases as your revenues increase.  This will affect small and large companies in Oregon. 

Avatar in 3D

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So I know I am way behind the curve on this one, but I finally took the time to go see Avatar in 3D last night.   Everyone that had seen the movie talked it up to the point where I was actually worried that I would be disappointed.  Lord knows that very few things live up to the type of hype this movie has been getting, but I was excited anyway.

So I pulled up the movie listings and saw that the Lloyd Center Theaters had it playing at 3:10.  Since it was just a normal Sunday I didn't think there would be any problem gettting tickets and checking it out.  However, the girl in the box office informed us (I brought my brother and sister in law for the ride) that not only was this showing sold out, but every single Avatar 3D showing had been sold out since it's debut at Lloyd Center.  Now I realize that this is pretty close to downtown Portland and the Pearl District, but I did not think that many people would be venturing across the river to check out this movie.  Boy was I wrong!  We promptly bought tickets for the 6:50 showing and decided that we would be sure to get there plenty early.

After killing a couple hours and taking Caleb and Soraya to the new Chipotle on Lovejoy for the first time, it was now 6pm and we headed over to the theater.  They were huge fans of Chipotle in case you were curious.  It is now 50 minutes before start time, on a movie that's been out for a month and a half, and upon our arrival there are probably 50 people in line ahead of us!  WHAT?!?  Considering it's $13.50 to watch this movie in 3D, James Cameron must be watching his bank account roll up line one of those progressive slot machines in Vegas.

Now I will say Regal has done a good job of upgrading what used to be quite a dumper for a Theater.  This is the Lloyd Center Theaters across the street, not the ones actually inside of Lloyd Center Mall.  We walk in and file directly into the theater so we can watch the 40 minutes of commercials and the 4 rolling trivia questions. Good times!  However once the movie started, I was in complete awe.  I will not go into the storyline in case people haven't seen it, but the experience was unlike anything I had ever been to.  The way things popped off the screen and the vivid colors grabbed me from the very beginning.  The only thing that could make this experience feel any  more real is if they start raising and lowering the temperature of the theater and start pumping in smells to go with what you see on screen.  Outside of that, you felt like you were there!  

This truly was an epic movie and there were very few times in the 3 hours where I wasn't totally captivated.  I actually don't go see a lot of movies and from the terrible trailers I saw that trend will probably continue.  However, this movie is worth every cent and every minute of your time.  In fact I'm already thinking I'm probably going to shell out the $15.50 so I can go see it in IMAX.  I will definitely make sure I am there well in advance next time though, I refuse to sit in the front row of an IMAX theater.  I am going to make it happen, so if you want to go just say the word.