Invest in Multifamily Real Estate with a Hard Money Loan
Oregon is taking steps to address issues of increasing housing prices, housing shortages, and urban sprawl.
The Portland-metro area has experienced a record growth rate of 1.3% a year over the past decade. Like many other cities across the country, the region’s competitive housing market has led to major price increases and transit issues as development moves outward.
Proposed state measures allow for a variety of new multi-housing options in urban areas currently zoned as single family. Multiunit attached housing, townhouses, cottage clusters, and conversion of existing homes into multifamily units can all help to creatively meet demand and reduce urban expansion.
Oregon real estate investors interested in long-term investment in the metro market may want to consider the cottage cluster concept.
Cottage Clusters an Intriguing Urban Housing Option
Cottage clusters – small-unit detached housing – are an innovative community-oriented answer to housing density concerns. Eight small cottages have been demonstrated to create less impact than four large homes on the same site. Depending on zoning and design, they can provide housing for up to double the density of a detached single-family home.
What makes a cottage cluster work? One successful design team used the following guidelines:
Personal space: Boundaries are clearly defined around and within each cottage home. Gates, walkways, front porch and railing, and thoughtfully designed private spaces all create personal territory.
Privacy: Homes are offset from each other and windows are carefully placed to avoid neighbors looking directly into one another’s space.
Security: Each cottage faces onto a shared common area, encouraging networking and an awareness of neighbors. The sense of community helps ensure greater security.
Parking: Car parking is set off the street for both security and aesthetics. Walking the short distance from parking to each cottage entrance increases community engagement.
Commons: The shared commons is pleasantly landscaped, provides opportunity to garden, and is a place for neighbors to gather. Mailboxes are clustered at a pedestrian entrance kiosk.
Size and scale: Cottages are zoned to be 1-1/2 stories, not 2-story homes, minimizing impact on the property and neighborhood. High ceilings, large windows, skylights, ample storage, and roomy lofts give a feeling of spaciousness to less than 700 SF.
Unique: The style, color and landscaping of each cottage – though similar – is unique. Residents feel greater connection to and take better care of a home that is distinctly theirs, instead of a “cookie cutter cluster.”
Quality: Cottages are carefully built and designed using quality materials and simple, thoughtful detail. The work of local craftspeople and a mix of re-claimed and standard off-the-shelf materials go into the development of each home.
Zoning laws differ from city to city. But well-designed cottage clusters are an intriguing solution to housing concerns and a potential opportunity for real estate investors.
Invest in Real Estate Property with Our Oregon Hard Money Lenders
We help Oregon real estate investors reach their goals with easy-qualifying private money loans when traditional lenders say no. Less than perfect credit is not an issue. As housing market trends and opportunities for investment continue to shift in the Portland-metro area and beyond, we’re there with the fast cash, equity loan financing you need when you need it. Give our Gregory M. Russell hard money lending team a call at 1-888-477-0444 to learn more. Or apply online today.