Ladd’s Addition is a unique historic district in the city of Portland that is known for its diagonal street pattern radiating from a central park spoke—the Ladd Circle Park & Rose Gardens. Ladd’s addition is named after the 19th century Portland mayor, William S. Ladd. This historic district is part of the Hosford-Abernethy neighborhood. The street layout is easy to spot from aerial maps of the city and clearly delineates the district’s boundaries.
Appraisers endeavor to take the measure of a neighborhood with a variety of charts and graphs. It helps them to frame the value opinion and see how the subject property relates to the neighborhood as a whole. For this blog post we will use the venerable histogram to better understand the single-family residential market for Ladd’s Addition.
A histogram is a graphical display of data using bars of different heights. In a histogram, each bar groups numbers into ranges. Taller bars show that more data falls in that range. A histogram may be used to display the shape and spread of the data of the real estate market and illustrate trends of properties that have sold and/or are listed. They’re a great visual tool!
The following information is based on detached single-family residential homes that were sold and/or listed on the open market as reported by RMLS—the primary MLS service for the City of Portland. Data was pulled from the year 2000 to the present date.
Age
Most properties within Ladd’s Addition were built around 1900-1930. This is reflected in the age histogram showing most of the homes falling in the 91-97 years bracket. New/newer constructions in Ladd’s addition is nearly unheard of.
35 different homes that sold over the last 20 years were on the National Register of Historic Places.
Bathroom Count
Most homes in the neighborhood have two bathrooms; but a home with only one bathroom is not uncommon. One home had the equivalent of 5 & 1/2 bathrooms. There is no waiting in that house!
Bedroom Count
Two to four bedrooms is the norm, with a few outliers having either one or 6-7 bedrooms.
Garage Stall Count
A one-car garage is the norm for Ladd’s Addition. However, a substantial number of homes in the dataset have either no garage at all or an extra garage stall.
Total Square Footage
This metric includes above-grade living area and basement space for a combined figure. The median total square footage for the neighborhood is 2,500 sq. ft. There are some larger homes in the area, with 32 sales/listings being at or above 4,800 sq. ft.
Gross Living Area
Gross living area only consider non-basement living space. Often the market reacts more strongly to gross living area, usually applying a discount to basement space. Median gross living area is approximately 1,700 sq. ft.
Level Count
The majority of properties are three levels in this neighborhood.
Lot Size
The vast majority of properties are on lots 0.120 ac – 0.129 acres (~5,227 sq. ft. – ~5,619 sq. ft.). There is substantial uniformity of lot sizes in this neighborhood.
Sales Price
This histogram includes sales prices over a 20-year period. The highest sales price obtained in the neighborhood (on the open market) was $1,105,000 on 3/17/2017.
# of Sales
Ladd’s Addition doesn’t have a substantial turnover of homes each year. The fewest sales in a year was back in 2015, when only 10 single-family residential homes sold. 2016-2018 averaged 20 sales per year. This year looks to be trending lower. Year-to-date sales are only 8 and, if the trend holds, 2019 may signal a cooling off of the number of sales.
So, there you have it, a brief histogram overview of one of Portland’s most iconic neighborhoods!
Appraisal Reports
If you are a homeowner and are looking to sell your home, you would greatly benefit from a prelisting appraisal. Our firm will bring high-level analytics to your report and give you a sound understanding of the current market.
If you are an agent and need detailed neighborhood analysis, or analysis of specific areas or specific segments of the market, please contact us and we can generate a custom report to help you frame a listing price for your client!
Portland Appraisal Blog 