Susan's Online Guide to PortlandLet 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. Susan Marthens
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Real Estate Market |
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Housing less dilapidated, but still a fixer-upperMay 21 − Housing has more curb appeal these days. Housing starts increased 2.6% in April, to an annual rate of 717,000, a higher-than expected level. Permits fell 7%, but the drop was from a three-and-a-half-year high posted in March. All in all, the report supports the idea that housing is no longer the dilapidated wreck it was in past years. The housing report also contained revisions going back to 2010. While the changes for the past two full years were minor, starts in the first quarter were revised up significantly. Homes under construction were also refigured higher, suggesting residential construction contributed more to real gross domestic product growth in the first quarter than the 0.4 percentage point estimated last month. (The second look at GDP will be reported May 31.) Read more... Ten housing market set for double-digit price gainsMay 19 − Ten hard-hit housing markets will record double-digit price increases through 2013, according to a report Wednesday. And with mortgage rates low, many house hunters have already started to pounce on bargains, said David Stiff, chief economist at Fiserv, a financial analytics company that prepared the forecast. "Some markets may have overshot to the downside, and people are jumping in to try to catch the bottom," Stiff said. Nationwide, home prices will start rebounding late this year and gain an average of 4% a year over the next five years, Fiserv projects. Read more... |
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Homes & Health |
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Pearl living at its best
A peak into some of Portland small housesMay 20 — I went on a small home tour in Portland last week and met Jordan Palmeri, a Oregon Department of Environmental Quality waste prevention specialist who oversaw this study about the environmental benefits of smaller homes. On the tour, we met people in Portland who are shrinking their environmental footprints by shrinking the physical footprint of their homes. I saw examples of people building a 160-square foot tiny house on a friend’s driveway, people building a 670-foot retirement home in their own backyard, and people sharing acreage to fit four 530- to 1,600-square-foot homes on one valuable lot. Small homes have a smaller environmental impact right from the start because they use fewer building materials, Palmeri said. But the benefits keep accruing as the years of less energy use add up. That quickly puts small homes built to code on par with bigger homes that have all the green building bells and whistles. Read more... Caballo Blanco’s last run May 21 — Micah True went off alone on a Tuesday morning to run through the rugged trails of the Gila Wilderness, and now it was already Saturday and he had not been seen again. The search for him, once hopeful, was turning desperate. Weather stoked the fear. The missing man was wearing only shorts, a T-shirt and running shoes. It was late March. Daytimes were warm, but the cold scythed through the spruce forest in the depth of night, the temperatures cutting into the 20s. For three days, rescue teams had fanned out for 50 yards on each side of the marked trails. Riders on horseback ventured through the gnarly brush, pushing past the felled branches of pinyon-juniper and ponderosa pine. An airplane and a helicopter circled in the sky, their pilots squinting above the ridges, woodlands, river canyons and meadows. For three days, rescue teams had fanned out for 50 yards on each side of the marked trails. Riders on horseback ventured through the gnarly brush, pushing past the felled branches of pinyon-juniper and ponderosa pine. An airplane and a helicopter circled in the sky, their pilots squinting above the ridges, woodlands, river canyons and meadows. Read more...
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News |
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News from the Pacific Northwest Portal
California condors hit a milestone -- a population of 405 -- after nearly going extinct
Portland Woman's Club -- the power group of its time -- carries on todayMay 21 — In a hurry-up world where faster is better and face time has given way to Facebook, it's easy to dismiss the past. And so it goes when a group of women make their way to the front door of a Northeast Portland restaurant. A few men caught behind the group fidget as the women, three in their mid-90s, walk slowly to the back room for their monthly luncheon. The gathering is the vestige of a bygone era. At one time, more than 500 women belonged to the Portland Woman's Club. Membership has withered now to 26, and they worry about the future of the group, formed in 1895 to give women a voice in a world that too often ignored them. In their own way, the club's women helped shape Portland. And then, the world changed and made them close to irrelevant. Read more... Thousands run in music-themed half-marathon, a new Rose Festival eventMay 21 — Weaving through Portland on a hilly 13.1-mile course, about 14,000 runners set the stage for this year's Rose Festival to a new tune -- the first Rock 'n' Roll Portland Half Marathon. The race, part of the nationwide Rock 'n' Roll Marathon Series, was the first major event of the 2012 Rose Festival. Participants wore a mix of running gear and costumes — including a woman in a shirt with tie-dyed letters that read "Lactic Acid Trip" and a man in jeans-style leggings and a mesh shirt with fake tattoo sleeves. They ran to the music of about 25 groups along the course and at the post-race celebration, including The 5th Elephant, the Portland School of Rock, the Jacob Merlin Band, Hit Machine, Kevin Rudolf and Chris Rene. Beginning at Tom McCall Waterfront Park, the group headed south on Southwest Naito Parkway, crossed the Hawthorne Bridge, ran a stretch of Southeast Hawthorne Boulevard, followed Southeast 55th Avenue north, passed Laurelhurst Park and curved along Northeast Lloyd Boulevard. Read more... Biker's bar
Water, sewer rate votes setMay 21 — The City Council is scheduled to consider increasing water and sewer rates on Wednesday. Mayor Sam Adams has proposed increasing water bills by 8.1 percent and sewer bills by 5.39 percent for the average single-family residence. These increases are less than those originally proposed by the Water Bureau and the Bureau of Environmental Services, which operates the sewer system. The scheduled vote comes amid growing controversy over some of the spending by the bureaus. Among other things, a lawsuit filed in Multnomah County Circuit Court charges that the council has illegally spent tens of millions of dollars from the water and sewer funds on projects not directly related to the core missions of the two bureaus. Read more... Expect the worst and plan for resilience Cascadia lecture series on disaster preparednessMay 21 — Geologists estimate that there is a 10 percent chance of a magnitude 9 earthquake in Portland over the next 50 years, and a 37 percent chance of a magnitude 8 or less. On Tuesday, May 8, at 7 pm, special guests from the Tohoku region of Northern Japan will share recovery and preparedness experiences from last year’s devastating earthquake and tsunami.“Voices of Tohoku” is the first in a 6-week Tuesday night series of Cascadia Lectures beginning May 8, through June 12 (excluding May 15), at Mercy Corps Action Center, 28 SW First Ave. The lecture series, designed to promote earthquake awareness and encourage emergency planning, is organized by the Portland Earthquake Project (PEP). PEP is a collaborative effort of Mercy Corps, the U.S. Geological Survey, the Oregon Red Cross and the Portland Bureau of Emergency Management. Read more... Drive the Coos Bay Wagon Road through Oregon's Coast Range and back into time
Matt Love revisits the summer of 1970, when the stars of 'Sometimes a Great Notion' mingled with the localsMay 20 — "Sometimes a Great Notion" is the other Oregon movie made from a Ken Kesey novel. "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" swept the major Academy Awards after it was released in 1975 and put the Oregon State Hospital in Salem and Depoe Bay into cinema history. It's a stone-cold, time-tested classic, easily the best movie filmed in Oregon. "Sometimes a Great Notion" is no classic. Filmed five years earlier than "Cuckoo's Nest" in Newport and elsewhere along the Oregon coast, it is best known for an incredible scene in which Joe Ben Stamper (Richard Jaeckel) is trapped by a log and the incoming tide despite the best efforts of his cousin Hank (Paul Newman) to rescue him. The movie is also the answer to a trivia question: What is the first program to be broadcast on HBO? It was also known, at least among those who were there, as a never-ending party during the summer of 1970. Read more... |
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Imagine browsing at Powell's Books, catching a play at Portland Center Stage, people watching, and walking in this vibrant corner of Portland! This and more are possible while living in this light-filled two bedroom/two bathroom unit at The Pinnacle, situated in a quiet corner of the Pearl. You will be steps away from parks, shops, cafes, restaurants, galleries, and the Street Car. You can read the paper, have morning coffee, or afternoon treats while enjoying your northeast view of the river and Mount St. Helens. Unit includes deeded parking space and deeded storage space. Walk to three parks: 
May 21 — Good news for California condors: Their population just topped 400 -- 405 to be precise -- the most since the effort to save the species began 30 years ago as it teetered on extinction's edge. An April 30 count found 226 of the enormous vultures flying free over California, Arizona and Baja, Mexico, and 179 living in zoos and four breeding centers, including the Jonsson Center for Wildlife Conservation, an Oregon Zoo-run operation in rural Clackamas County. That said, the species faces steep challenges, and the 
May 21 — 
May 20 — The Coast Range, lowly sister to the Cascades, stands between Oregon's fertile farm valleys and the Pacific Ocean. No glaciated peaks, no looming volcanoes, no bare summits lord over these forests; instead, matted humps labyrinth together and precipitous rain-swollen hillsides regularly crumble into streams and earth below. Tendrils of moss drip from elbowed limbs up the tree trunks. There are nearly a dozen ways to cross the Coast Range -- from following the Columbia River in the north to the dubious Galice-to-Agness crossing next to the Kalmiopsis Wilderness in the south, which is advisable only in the summer. Each has its own character and culture. One, the Coos Bay Wagon Road, despite the Internet and satellite TV, is only slowly creeping into the 20th century -- forget about the 21st. Carved over Native American footpaths in 1872, the 11-mile run through Brewster Canyon has yet to be paved. The federal government in the late 1860s handed out four road contracts in Oregon to tie together the territory's far-flung corners. They were to facilitate freight travel and were sometimes called military roads (a custom that continues; the interstate highways were originally billed as a "defensive necessity"). Of those four original roads, only the Coos Bay road still exists.
Contact Susan
Principal Real Estate Broker, CRS, GRI
Direct (503) 497-2984 | Office (503) 297-1033
6443 SW Beaverton-Hillsdale Highway
Suite 100, Portland, Oregon 97221
Copyright © 2011 Susan Marthens. All Rights Reserved.