Homes with a backyard pdx area (Portland, Beaverton: houses, neighborhoods, school)

[Eastcoast1988]

Looking for suggestions on areas, preferably in NW Portland and the West suburbs, of homes that actually have a backyard.

There are many nice homes in the west suburbs with nice square footage, but are built right next to their neighbors and have virtually no backyard.

I don't need acres of land, maybe a half at best...

Any suggestions..

Thanks!

edit: with a budget of 400,000 or less.

[jribe]

you can do a search on the standard realtor/zillow home sites and put your desired lot area. You may have a tough time finding something decent for under 400k though; the market is pretty hot.

[AnotherPDXGuy]

For your budget, you can rule out NW Portland. There should be some options on the west side of the hills. If you look up a map you should see the ridge of hills running in between downtown and NW Portland and the suburbs to the west. Homes in these hills will be a) more expensive, b) less likely to have standard back yards, due to the slopes.

So look further west. Google the "Bethany" area, and look at Beaverton and Hillsboro. Basically, Washington County. Many of the newest homes are being built to maximize the house's coverage of the lot (i.e. smaller yards). So you may want to look at older homes.

[oregonwoodsmoke]

1/2 acre, house, under $400,000? Maybe look in Sandy?

I know that there are some really nice houses towards the west, (perhaps Hillsboro?), on large lots but under $400,000? Well, take a look. Maybe you will find something.

You are probably going to have to look outside the urban growth boundary and that means an older house because the land out there can no longer be split into building sites and hasn't been subdivide-able since the last century, so building lots of small acreage were split off long ago because they can't be split off the larger parcels now. Large lots inside the urban growth boundary have either already been split or they are priced like they can be split.

If you go to the city planner's office, they should have a zoning map. There should be a few areas zoned low density. Make note of where those are and look in those areas. I suspect that low density areas in Portland are not cheap.

[jjpop]

I think if you look around Aloha you'll find mid-century homes on lots that are larger than more recent developments. The key is to look at homes built before 1980. My neighborhood (built in the 70s) doesn't have half-acre lots, but there are several that are 0.2-0.25 acres--much larger than the newer developments. My backyard is too big to take care of!

[patches403]

Some of the older homes have good sized lots (though .5 acre would be unusually large even for older homes). For your budget you will be looking at homes built in the 1970s and earlier. Your best bet on the Westside would be the pre-1980s neighborhoods in Beaverton/Hillsboro/Aloha.

[SETabor]

Don't rule out Metzger. You're more likely to get lucky and find a decent sized yard for the price in an unincorporated area (Aloha, Metzger, etc)

[StealthRabbit]

Pdx backyard.... Consider Vancouver, south heights, or near Igloo / Blind school on E Evergreen.

$0,99 hot breakfast at Ikea makes PDX an even more attractive spot to live near. Ringside East Happy Hour is very nice place to have dinner this time of yr.

[FSF]

Here is a link from Redfin filtered for at least 3 bedrooms and 1/2 acre lots. There are a few.

https://www.redfin.com/zipcode/97201...705,no-outline

[AnotherPDXGuy]

FSF, those are some good options. Most of them are pretty far from the central city. Don't know where/if you need to commute somewhere, but that is something to think about. The closer you get to central Portland, the more likely that properties in that price range have something "off" about them. Bad location, something wrong with the house, etc.