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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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Case-Shiller numbers show improvement in Portland July 28 − Portland's residential real estate market did slightly better in May than in prior months, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller Housing Index released Tuesday. On both a year-over-year and month-to-month basis, Portland showed improvement, according to the newly issued numbers. The Portland index improved 0.7 percent from May 2009 to May 2010, and 1.2 percent in May compared to April. The S&P/Case-Shiller's 20-city index showed considerably more robust activity, posting a 4.6 improvement in May 2010 over May 2009. San Francisco, San Diego and Minneapolis all showed double-digit percentage improvements in May. Officials warned against reading too much into the numbers, saying national housing prices moved mainly sideways over the last 12 months. Plus, the May numbers may be skewed somewhat by a residual impact from the homebuyers' tax credit. 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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Hawthorne Bridge will close to motor vehicles at 5 p.m. Saturday for party July 31 − The Hawthorne Bridge will be closed to motor vehicles from 5 p.m. Saturday to 2 a.m. Sunday for the PDX Bridge Festival's "LIFT 100: Hawthorne Centennial Party" celebrating the bridge's centennial. TriMet buses will detour to the Morrison Bridge during the closure. The Hawthorne's lift span will be closed to river traffic from 6 p.m. Saturday to midnight. Read more... 1905 Portland world's fair helps explain slew of centennials today July 31 − If Portland were a person, you could say the city started shedding adolescence after the Lewis and Clark Exposition in 1905. The world's fair attracted anywhere from 1.5 million visitors to twice that. Not bad for a city that barely had 100,000 residents at the turn of the century. The fair was supposed to commemorate the centennial of the explorers' stay in Portland, but it turned into a glitzy summerlong celebration of light, technology and commerce. It was the first such celebration held in Western state. Read more... News from Portland neighborhoods July 31 − Kurt Spak, a chef and owner of popular Alba Osteria & Enoteca, is combining history and Italian-style coffees, quiches and panini at his newly opened Caffe Autogrill two doors down at 6446 S.W. Capitol Highway. The two businesses share a nearly century-old building with beauty salon. The structure, known as the Bertha Station complex, was once a popular stop along the Red Electric's train route from Portland to McMinnville in the 1910s and '20s. "I've wanted this space for a long time because I love history and, of course, it's close to our restaurant," Spak said. "I also wanted another reminder of Italy." Read more...
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Home & Health |
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Portland brothers teach Living Building by example July 30 − After first targeting the world’s toughest green-building certification for a house being constructed on Southeast Woodward Street in Portland, brothers Dustin and Garrett Moon have now decided the lessons they’ve learned, and hope to teach, are much more important than any certification. In July 2008, with the help of family members, Dustin and Garrett set out on what they believed would be a yearlong process of deconstructing the old house and building a new one in its place. And as the project developed, it looked more and more likely that the home would qualify for Living Building certification. The Living Building Challenge is a three-year-old worldwide certification program that challenges builders to construct structures that produce all of their own energy on-site. Read more...
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Living Green |
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Solar manufacturers struggle to meet demand July 30 − Manufacturers are producing solar modules as fast as they can, but not fast enough to meet demand. Manufacturers and solar installers say demand for modules is increasing because of low prices, new feed-in tariff programs and greater public awareness. Now, some people are predicting that a module supply shortage could be on the horizon. “We are starting to see signs that the pendulum is shifting in the direction of less product,” said Andy Noel, Northwest regional manager for REC Solar, which has an office in Portland. “I am not suggesting that (solar module) prices will be going through the roof. But with more demand and less product, prices could go back up.” Read more... |
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Sports and Outdoors |
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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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Novelist,
truckers find common ground in Troutdale on literary truck stop tour
July 31 − It's peak dinner time at the Buckhorn Restaurant, and seriously
loud. Diners raise their voices over the sizzle, bang and clang of the open
kitchen. An intercom occasionally drowns out everything else, and the truckers
stop talking, thinking about the next dropoff, or home. It's a scene 67-year-old
trucker James Krueger knows well. Sporting a broad-brimmed cowboy
hat and handlebar moustache, he hits the Troutdale TravelCenter of America,
and the Buckhorn, every two weeks. On Thursday night the scene changed,
and in 40 years on the road Krueger's never seen anything like it. Just
after 7 p.m. a woman stood up -- petite, with a fashionable outfit -- holding
a book. "I'm Barbara, I'm a novelist, and I'll be reading and chatting with
you tonight," she said.
Oregon
Coast Aquarium in Newport presents your new friend, the shark
July 31 − Here's how Brian Fodness calls the sharks at the Oregon Coast
Aquarium when it's time to eat: First, he climbs to the top of the tank
and turns on the lights. Next, he turns off the water spraying over the
top and hooks a plastic "target" over the side. Last, he impales a frozen
Pacific Mackerel on a rod, swishes it in the water and yells, "Dinner!"
OK, that last part isn't true, but to the sharks swimming below, that's
exactly what this ritual says. And it's not long before Miss Piggy, at about
250 to 300 pounds and 7 feet long -- the biggest of the broadnose sevengills
-- swoops in for a bite. Next comes Bull, the largest of the male sevengills,
followed by a handful of leopard sharks and spiny dogfish, who poke their
faces from the water, hoping to sneak off with the meal meant for their
bigger tank mates.
The
Heritage Home Tour opens the door to a range of Portland architecture
July 29 − This Saturday, the
Visitors can make like Tarzan at Tree to Tree Adventure Park near Gaston
July 31 − Fifty feet in the air, David Bowles and
his sons swung from tree to tree, navigating a labyrinth of ladders,
wobbly bridges, tightropes, tunnels, zip lines and rock walls, without
falling once. "You know you're perfectly safe, but you don't want to be
the guy dangling from the safety wire 40 to 50 feet in the air if you
fall. I tried not to look down," Bowles said. The Bethany resident spent
Father's Day with his three sons, ages 16, 18 and 20, at the newly
opened 
