The annual NW Natural Street of Dreams housing showcase will feature the U.S. debut project of a large international builder, and the first U.S. private residence designed by celebrated Japanese architect Kengo Kuma  – and it could be yours.

The home is one of three of the five Street of Dreams homes without buyers lined up.

Based in Yokohama, Japan, Suteki specializes in wood framing systems and wood building construction. It’s a subsidiary of Yokohama-based Nice Corporation, which was founded in the aftermath of World War II as a timber auction company. For that reason, the firm has a special relationship to Oregon timber lands and is why the company selected Oregon as its first residential market, the company said in a statement.

The firm is active in Europe and Canada, but has yet to complete a project in the U.S.

The Suteki home, at 2017 N.W. Natural Street of Dreams in Happy Valley, has an L-shaped floorplan, which attempts to make the outdoor garden (designed by Portland Japanese Garden curator Sadafumi Uchiyama) feel like part of the home.

The design by Kuma’s firm, Kengo Kuma & Associates, uses shakkei – a word meaning “borrowed scenery” – to incorporate the surrounding landscape of large oak and sequoia trees and a stream that runs alongside the property.

Suteki is the Japanese word meaning natural and comfortable.

Kuma designed the recent Cultural Crossroads expansion project at the Portland Japanese Garden. He and Suteki have partnered on many projects before, according to Lisa Scholin, a spokeswoman for the company.

Billed as the country’s longest-operating single-site new house showcase, the Street of Dreams is a major fundraiser of the Home Builders Association Portland. The event is intended to show the state of the building and design industries, including highlighting new and creative products and methods, said HBAP communications specialist Adrian McCarthy.

This year’s showcase, the 43rd annual, is located in Happy Valley. Running July 29 to Aug. 27, the showcase will feature a “festival-like atmosphere” on the street outside the homes, with a street bistro hosting guest chefs and theme nights, including a veteran’s appreciation night and a whisky-themed “Street of Drams” night.

Planning the event takes years, with organizers often considering contingencies for multiple years at once, McCarthy said. Part of what makes the event a challenge for organizers is the fact that they are creating an actual neighborhood where real families eventually will live.

Click here to view more photos of the Kengo Kuma & Associates-designed SUTEKI house

The Oregon Dream 2017

A modern reimagining of the classic country home and an “entertainer’s dream,” Stone Bridge Homes NW’s contribution to the home showcase is a bit of a contradiction in terms – a luxury farmhouse.

To pull this off, the Lake Oswego semi-custom home builder attempted to blend “native, natural materials” with “industrial, urban touches.”

Stone Bridge Homes president Kelly Ritz called the feel of the home “light and airy and very uncluttered,” in information provided about the home.

Farmhouse touches like the covered front porch with pillars and a pair of steep, second-story gables are offset by industrial accents such as distinct black framing around the windows.

A grand foyer opens into the home’s centerpiece – a two-story dining and great room with a glass panel door that “disappears” into a covered outdoor living room that features a fireplace, refrigerator, bar and barbecue. The landscaped backyard has a pool and hot tub, a fire pit and another bar. There’s also a “recreation garage” with indoor basketball, a full bathroom and a bar.

Also working on the four-bedroom, five-bathroom (three full; two half) house were Macadam Floors & Design, Medallion Industries, Pacific Lumber, Rinnai and Tyvek/Orepac.

The Barclay

Another mash-up, the Barclay by BC Custom Construction fuses mid-century touches with 21^st-Century fashions.

Barclay Home Design and the rest of project team were inspired by Portland’s classic mid-century architecture. It also features hints of architects John Yeon and Robert Rummer – clean, contemporary, angular one-level living. Organic and natural materials and textures were incorporated to “soften” their effect. A year-round water feature is intended as a soothing retreat.

The mid-century touches continue with a Pullman-style kitchen with a glass bar that floats onto a stone countertop.

The master suite has soft lighting and a seating area equipped with personal charging stations. The master bath has heated floors, a free-standing tub and a double shower with a dual exit to a walk-in closet and utility area.

Vendors on the 3,670-square-foot, three-bedroom home include Key Home Furnishings, Ferguson Enterprises Inc., Carin Atterbury + Surface and Merten & Sons Landscaping.

The Neveah

The largest home in the 2017 Street of Dreams, the Naveah is meant to serve as an “ultimate family home” for the family moving in, and not a “show home.”

The seven-bedroom Naveah is essentially two homes in one, with large, secondary living quarters that include a master room, garage bay, guest room and dedicated entries.

The design is described as eschewing a traditional ground-floor layout, with a home theater and recreation room, in addition to a family room/great room. The look is modern farmhouse, with 12-inch barn-wood floors throughout. The theme continues with marble-look quartz countertops in the kitchen and a full barn-wood door wall in the rec room.

The builder is TA Liesy Homes NW.  Also involved in the project were Paulson’s Floor Covering, Ferguson Enterprises Inc., Globe Lighting, Medallion Industries and Innovative Construction.

The Elysian

Architect Michael Barclay’s firm calls its 5,100-square-foot, single-level home “expansive yet balanced.” The Elysian has five bedrooms, 3-and-a-half bathrooms and a large vaulted bonus room over the garage.

The home mixes horizontal v-groove siding with traditional board and bat, with a creamy rough-cut Texas limestone to the exterior. Shed-metal roofs over the windows and front porch bring a touch of industrial flavor and complement the split-wood, shake-styled roof tiles.

It has a grand entry and great room, and a large “neighbor friendly” porch overlooking a brook.

Vendors include Standard TV & Appliance, Wendy O’Brien Planning & Design, Stone NW, Area Floors, Medallion Industries and RE/MAX Equity Group.

If You Go

What: 2017 Street of Dreams

When: July 29 to Aug. 27

Where: S.E. 129th Ave. and Southeast King Road, Happy Valley

Cost: $20

Information: streetofdreamspdx.com

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The outlook for local homebuilders who weathered the storm during the recent downturn is more slow improvement.

New single-family home construction is up 14 percent in 2014 over last year, whereas new multifamily construction is up 31 percent, according to the Associated General Contractors of America.

Jim Chapman, president and general manager of Legend Homes, said the market for new home construction is “still erratic, but has more confidence.”

“Two years ago, if we said we had an increase of 100 percent in construction activity it sounded huge,” he said. “But it meant we built two homes that year instead of one like the year before.”

Chapman said his company built 400 homes in 2006, but just 36 in 2010. This year Legend Homes is on track to finish 50 homes, he said.

Kevin Wann, owner of Pacific Lifestyle Homes, said his company’s sales volume currently is about 50 percent of what it was before the housing downturn.

Randy Sebastian, president of Renaissance Homes, said the company formerly had offices in Lake Oswego, Seattle and Bend. Following the housing downturn, Sebastian closed the Bend and Seattle offices and focused on building high-end single-family homes in the Lake Oswego and Portland areas.

At the height of the housing boom Renaissance Homes built upwards of 300 homes each year, Sebastian said. Now, the homebuilder constructs between 100 and 150 “boutique” homes in the Portland and Lake Oswego areas.

Sebastian said his company and the other builders who survived the recession did so by producing high-quality homes.

“There’s been a general upswing in the number of homes being built since the downturn,” he said. “But the home has to be the right home in the right location with the right price and the right amenities. It’s a finicky market and buyers won’t accept anything but the best.”

Lenders are also finicky, Wann said, loaning money to only the most qualified homebuyers.

“It’s tougher today to get a loan than it was, and it should be,” he said.

Chapman and Wann both said would-be first-time homeowners who didn’t qualify for mortgages in 2011 or 2012 when interest rates were at their lowest will likely be turned down by lenders today as well.

“The market for first-time homebuyers is the last market to come back, but it’s starting to get legs,” Wann said.

Though new construction of single-family homes is increasing, Chapman said few local builders are able to make enough profit on them to participate. Instead, big companies – such as Lennar Homes, Polygon Northwest and D.R. Horton – are swooping up land and building at a lower profit margin.

“They’re basically wasting the lots that are on the ground,” he said. “The rest of us can’t buy a whole lot of dirt, and even if we could, carrying the homes until they sold would be too expensive.”

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The homebuilding industry is supporting extension of a construction excise tax to pay for planning efforts throughout the region.

In past years, the Home Builders Association of Metropolitan Portland criticized the Metro program because the bulk of the money went to planning for urban infill projects. However, the group is “generally satisfied” with assurances that tax revenues would be used, at least in part, for concept planning in urban reserve areas, said Dave Nielsen, CEO of the association.

“That’s why the (tax) was originally created and why we set it up seven or eight years ago,” he said. “Cities needed to plan urban reserves. They are basically unfunded mandates.”

A 22-person advisory group consisting of industry leaders, consultants, city staffers and county staffers unanimously OK’d an extension of the program, which was set to expire Sept. 30. The Metro Council will vote on the proposed extension Thursday.

The group had been meeting since January to review the program, said John Williams, deputy director of Metro’s planning and development department. If councilors agree to extend the tax, which is likely, future considerations would still need to be made determining what types of projects would receive the funding, he said.

“A lot of the tax money has been coming from cities of Portland, Beaverton and Hillsboro,” he said. “Many stakeholders felt that we should use the money to continue development in those areas, but there also was recognition that there should be a little bit of each. That is why it got wholehearted support.”

The tax applies to projects valued at more than $100,000 with an assessment of 0.12 percent on improvements. For a project valued at $250,000, the tax would be $300. For the fiscal year ending June 30, 2013, tax collections totaled $2.3 million – the most since 2008, according to Metro.

The money could be used for a variety of purposes, such as pro forma studies of different building types and work on brownfield sites, Williams said. In other scenarios, dollars would be used for master-planning greenfield sites with streets, sewer infrastructure and parks. If the Metro Council passes the extension, more work will be done in the fall to determine which types of projects would be eligible for funding.

“Some places are more development financed, or (receiving) work to actually understand what a market might build in place and the bottom line for the site,” Williams said. “In other places, the money would be used for a much more general kind of planning that needs to happen.”

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End of year numbers indicate that the nation’s residential market is finishing the year on an upswing.

Homebuilding has ramped up 22 percent since this time last year, and is at its highest level in nearly four years, according to data released recently by the U.S. Commerce Department.

The increase is a result of an improved market; last month, nationwide home sales rose 4.4 percent from October, according to the agency. It was the largest monthly sales increase since April 2010.

Home prices are rising as well. The Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller national home price index, a leading indicator of the U.S. residential housing market’s health, increased 4.3 percent in October from a year earlier.

Of course, this is relative to the recession: Home sales remain below the 700,000 mark, which economists consider healthy. However, many local homebuilders consider the increases an encouraging sign.

“We’re still not making money from it, but things have improved,” said Jim Chapman, president of Legend Homes, which has seen a 50 percent production increase this year.

Homebuilding is the only type of construction expected to experience significant gains in 2013, according to data released by the Associated General Contractors of America in early November.

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While the metro-area housing market appears poised to improve in 2013, at least one big problem looms on the horizon. A lack of developable lots may suffocate new home construction, according to Wally Remmers, vice president of Arbor Custom Homes.

“The lot shortage is very real,” he said. “I’ve been in the industry a long time and I’ve never seen anything like this … We’ll be in the situation over the next 12 to 24 months where there won’t be enough lots for the amount of buyers that will be in our market.”

The simple reason is that no one has developed land for home construction because of the recession. Remmers said that when the economy fell apart, much of the land went to banks. Over the past few years, banks have sold that land to developers at significant discounts, and builders have added housing.

Now, little exists for new construction.

“That’s actually a subject of considerable concern for us,” said Jon Chandler, CEO of the Oregon Home Builders Association. “There’s not much in the pipeline in any place in the state … the foreclosed inventory has been burned through, not much has happened since and the banks are not lending money. So we’re kind of stuck.”

Chandler said that even if development were to start today, the process to secure necessary permits and entitlements could last two years. And while banks have begun lending for home construction, they still believe land development is too risky.

John Satterberg, president of Community Financial Corp., a financial institution specializing in construction and land development, said he is aware of the looming lot shortage. Community Financial has made several development loans over the past year and Satterberg said money is available for the right place, the right borrowers and the right product.

“Single-family houses are selling like hotcakes,” he said. “We’re seeing multiple offers … 60 days prior to (construction) completion. It’s a really good market right now.”

With that said, Community Financial prefers to make loans to builder-developers rather than parties looking to develop lots on spec. Developers should come to the loan table with at least 20 percent cash in hand, he said.

The lot shortage shouldn’t be a problem for Arbor Custom Homes. The company is in the process of acquiring entitlements for 700 new units in the North Bethany area – an undeveloped neighborhood with a master plan adopted by Washington County. Arbor hopes to break ground in May or June 2013 on developments that include 125 single-family homes, 131 townhomes and 420 condominiums or apartments.

The company presently is developing 335 units in the Arbor Oaks neighborhood. The company has already built and sold 300 homes there, and Remmers said demand is growing by leaps and bounds.
In 2011, the company sold 30 homes in Arbor Oaks. In 2012, it sold 120.

“The difference is, in 2012 I could have sold way more than that,” Remmers said. “I just didn’t have them. I didn’t have the lots.”

Remmers said that while the company projected 350 starts for single-family homes and apartments in 2012, it has started 372 – the most since 2008. All of those homes have been sold and now the company is fervently pushing dirt to make room for more.

Arbor’s new homes will be priced between $150,000 and $500,000. Remmers said he looked forward to introducing affordable homes to the area, while maintaining its focus on luxury living.
Arbor has streamlined development in Washington County, where it sees the most opportunity for growth – especially with Nike and Intel expanding. As a result, Remmers said, Arbor has reduced its debt and increased relationships with lenders. That promises to keep the company and its vendors busy over the next year.

But for companies that don’t possess land or the ability to put a significant down payment on a loan, 2013 could be a tough year, according to Remmers.

“Banks will loan on buying a new house, or a builder to build a new house, but they don’t want to loan on land development,” he said. “It’s too risky and they’re not there yet.”

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New residential housing sales continued to roller coaster in January, dropping 0.9 percent to an annual rate of 321,000.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau most recent report released Feb. 24, that’s 2 percent above November’s rate and 3.5 percent above the rate in January 2011, but 3 percent below a relative high point in December 2010 of 331,000 annual home sales.

The median sales price of new homes sold in January 2012 increased 3 percent from December, to $217,100. The average sales price declined 1 percent, to $261,600.

The seasonally adjusted estimate for new houses for sale at the end of January 2012 was 151,000, which represents a supply of 5.6 months.

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