The housing market is turning around and here at Renaissance Homes I wanted to reach out and give you my thoughts on the market; things are different than they were last year — and that’s a good thing. The housing market is on the rise. We have seen a 100 percent increase in sales this year at Renaissance over last year. And that also means that we’ve had a 100 percent increase in housing production.

I recently read a publication highlighting market activity from 1992 to 2011, and housing has risen — including the downturn — every year an average of 7 percent. That’s huge. It’s still the best investment. Yes, it’s been tough the last couple of years, but your best investment is a home.

And Renaissance Homes is investing all over the Portland metro area. With dozens of homes under construction from Multnomah Village to Mt. Tabor, Renaissance has expanded our offerings from luxury subdivisions in cities such as Lake Oswego, West Linn and Sherwood to also include infill built within our Vintage Collection of home styles.

People love old Portland and great craftsmanship and our company has identified 37 infill neighborhoods where we want to build and where their buyers want to be — including Sellwood, Eastmoreland, Clinton-Division, Hawthorne, Belmont, Alberta Arts and Irvington, to name a few. We look at Portland like it’s one big neighborhood and we have 37 neighborhoods in Portland where we’ve identified where we want to be and where our buyers want to be.

And it’s been working.

We’re the No. 1 builder in the city. They are all LEED (Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design) certified homes and we are the No. 1 builder of LEED certified homes in the state of Oregon for detached homes. We’re one of the top builders of LEED certified homes in the nation as far as detached homes.

And heading into 2013, we’re poised to launch new subdivisions in Sherwood and Wilsonville; homes are also available in our Lake Oswego and West Linn subdivisions. Contractors are busy; houses are being built and things are getting exciting in the building industry, once again.

This holiday’s cocktail conversations might have folks saying that if they bought their home last year they could have saved $50,000. Housing — and prices — are on the rise. And at Renaissance, we’re just getting busier and busier.

— Randy Sebastian, Renaissance Homes President