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Susan's Online Guide to Portland Let me Help You Find a Home and a Neighborhood |
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Welcome to my Web site about the Portland, Oregon, metropolitan area. It's my way of helping you become acquainted with the neighborhoods and communities of the Portland metro area and to inform you about the Portland area housing market. Your comments and suggestions about my Web site are always welcome. If you have questions or if you are interested in buying or selling a home in the Portland area, contact me online or call me at (503) 497-2984.
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Real Estate Market Trends |
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Four common real estate deal-killers September 5 − In May of this year, the sellers of an architect-designed home in the hills above Oakland, Calif., received two offers in less than two weeks. They accepted the offer from the buyers who seemed most committed to buying the house. In less than 12 hours, the buyers backed out. Although they had been looking for a home for months and thought they'd decided where they wanted to live, they had a change of heart -- not about the house, but about the location. Buyer's remorse is one reason transactions fail. The enthusiasm that permeated the home-sale market when the federal tax credits were available has waned. Economic news has been mixed at best. This has led to an increased reticence on the part of some homebuyers. An easily avoidable reason why contracts fail is failure of sellers to disclose a significant defect in the property before the buyers make an offer. Some sellers resist having presale inspections done because they don't want buyers to know too much about what's wrong with their home until they fall in love with it. Read more... Follow the Portland metro area housing market and subscribe to Susan's free monthly newsletter... |
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Community News |
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Out of several proposed natural gas pipelines in Oregon, only one moves forward September 5 − Before the recession, upbeat developers proposed no fewer than seven new long-haul natural gas pipelines in Oregon. On paper, the lattice of new pipes crisscrossed the state to fill what developers described as a looming supply gap by importing more fuel from the Rocky Mountains and overseas via liquefied natural gas tanker. As of last week, however, only one project was definitively moving forward. Several others have disappeared entirely. And the remainder are in regulatory and financial limbo. A flurry of activity in recent days underscores the shakeout, as a federal court rejected a last-ditch effort to block one pipe, developers of a second sued the state of Oregon and a third simply pulled the plug for lack of demand. Read more...
Wildfires continue to occupy crews across Oregon September 5 − A series of wildfires continues to keep crews busy across Oregon this weekend, but cooler weather conditions have helped temper the flames in places. One focal point for firefighters is the View Lake Fire Complex, which sparked from a lightning strike last month and had burned almost 4,600 acres as of Saturday morning. The complex includes three blazes burning in Clackamas and Marion counties, covering a general area about 45 miles east of Estacada. More than 700 total personnel started the day battling the View Lake Fire Complex. But that number should drop some by tomorrow, according to Virginia Gibbons, a public information officer for crews there. Read more...
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Home & Health |
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Modified salmon is safe, F.D.A. says September 4 − The assessment makes it more likely that the fish will become the first genetically modified animal to enter the American food supply. Food from the salmon “is as safe as food from conventional Atlantic salmon,” the F.D.A. said in its analysis, which was posted on its Web site Friday. “There is a reasonable certainty of no harm from consumption of food from this animal.” The salmon can grow to market size in 16 to 18 months instead of the 30 required for a regular farmed Atlantic salmon, according to its developer, AquaBounty Technologies of Waltham, Mass. AquaBounty has been trying for years to win approval for the salmon, a goal that now appears within reach. The analysis by the F.D.A. staff was in preparation for three days of public meetings on the salmon that will start on Sept. 19. Read more... |
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Living Green |
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Food safety tips for the budget-conscious September 4 − Eggs, lettuce, peanuts, spinach. It seems as if every time we turn around there is another outbreak of a scary foodborne illness. This summer’s huge egg recall was the latest reminder that we do battle against dangerous pathogens like E. coli and salmonella in our kitchens every day. That battle can be expensive. After a recall makes headlines, it is not unusual for consumers to flock to higher-priced organic and locally grown meats, poultry, eggs and produce that can cost two or three times as much as conventional food. And expensive antibacterial soaps and washes, cutting boards and meat thermometers are promoted as tools of the trade for a germ-free kitchen. Kathleen McCleary of Falls Church, Va., revamped her shopping and cooking routines after she became ill with E. coli that she and her doctors thought she got from bagged lettuce. The 50-year-old novelist described her new routine: “I buy almost all my meat and produce from the local farmers’ market, I cook everything thoroughly, my cutting board is clearly labeled on either side for meats and vegetables and I keep a little hydrogen peroxide on my sink to wash down surfaces where any dangerous germs could lurk.” Read more... |
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Sports and Outdoors |
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Where dams once stood, prospectors spur anger September 4 − When four dams on the Rogue River here were scheduled for removal, environmentalists predicted many benefits: more salmon and steelhead swimming upriver to spawn; more gravel carried downriver to replenish the riverbed; more rafters bobbing along 57 miles of newly opened water. What they did not bargain for was the arrival this summer of a clutch of people, eager to sift through the tons of gravel for flakes of gold once hidden behind the dams. Prospectors cluster slightly downriver from where the dams used to be. Their suction dredges blare together, in a discordant fanfare louder than lawnmowers. Read more...
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Portland Blogs and Web Sites
Web Sites
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Susan Marthens |
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© Copyright 2000-2010 All rights reserved Web by Dasan Design ● Telephone (503) 819-0011 |
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Engineer's
quest illustrates tie between Intel & PSU September 5 −
Intel was stumped. Seeking a smaller, faster computer chip, the company
couldn't find a way to peel back metals from one layer without damaging
other tiny, delicate structures. It couldn't interest its vendors in coming
up with a solution, so it turned to one of its young Hillsboro engineers,
Nabil Mistkawi. Within three days, he had a solution that's now saving Intel
millions of dollars annually - and ultimately earned Mistkawi a chemistry
Ph.D. at 
The
Oregon Stampede bike race provides the chance to suffer, gloriously, on
gravel roads September 5 − There will be no T-shirt
at the end or orange slices in the water," says Donnie Kolb, the Oregon
Stampede race organizer. Kolb speaks to the minimalist, self-supported nature
of the Velodirt Cycling Club's 123-mile endurance gravel road race near
The Dalles on Sept. 11, the first race of its kind in Oregon. Sixty percent
of the race is gravel road of variable quality, and the course has 7,000
to 8,000 feet of climbing. Hate gravel? Especially gravel hills? Well, the
race's 75 rider slots went like hotcakes, and its expanding waiting list
is unheard-of for most first-year rides. This gravel road race's instant
popularity is curious in a place like Oregon where cyclists have their pick
of top-quality mountain bike and road races, not to mention a cyclocross
scene that's all the rage. In the Midwest, the motherland of gravel riding
(also known as "gravel grinding"), some cyclists train on the abundant gravel
roads, especially between cyclocross season and the spring road races.
Graham
Oaks Nature Park in Wilsonville opens with a solitary oak, but a promising
future September 4 − This is where the visioning thing
comes in. Looking out on Graham Oaks Nature Park, the first thing you think
is that it ought to be singular. Graham Oak. Because a lone oak -- very
impressive, but solitary -- is what first catches the eye. At a casual glance,
the rest looks like new trails through dry, mowed grass. "We've got sites
that are more eye-popping and beautiful," acknowledges Jim Desmond, who
manages the
Real
Recovery offers fly-fishing retreats for men living with cancer
September 5 − Peter Coons' days are filled with radiation and immunotherapy
treatments, an exhausting array of medications, fatigue and uncertainty.
The 52-year-old Tigard man diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer known
as metastatic melanoma is locked in a frightening battle for his life. For
a few precious hours on Aug. 26, though, all that melted away. His biggest
problem that morning was trying to get a smallmouth bass to take a fly in
the Umpqua River. "When you're out there, none of that exists," Coons said
a few hours later, gathering his strength at Big K Guest Ranch near Elkton.
"You just listen to the birds and the wind in the trees." At first glance
Coons and 13 other men staying at Big K for three days as guests for a fly-fishing
retreat looked like any other group of guys getting together for a few days
on the water.
