Tough choice: roads or regatta.

Your urban renewal dollars at work ...

SOW(hat) was never high on my list of attractive places, I prefer the other the other target of hate, The Pearl. For me there is no "there, there" in SOWA.

And while the foreclosures are occurring, we all knew they would, the rate is about half the national average. The reality is that it isn't as bad here as most other places.

Notice on the map that the foreclosures are occurring in all the boom areas of Oregon, including Bend, Medford and Ashland. While Bend has some vacation condos most of those areas are the land of single family homes, and they are getting foreclosed, just like condos.

Foreclosures are not related to condos, they are related to people's bad choices on financing their purchase. And from the looks of it people who buy houses are just as stupid, if not more so nationally, than people who buy condos.

I drove through SoWhat about six months ago to see what was there. I saw a hodgepodge of unremarkable buildings, and no landscaping that I can recall. I found it very depressing and will not go back there unless I have to.

The Pearl has always reminded me of a superterranean rabbit warren. It also has a dearth of street-level landscaping.

Are there no laws or regulations mandating a minimum amount of landscaping for buildings in the city? Shouldn't there be some?

Hey whatever happened to Kitzhaber's ex-wife who was going to be the "ambassador" of SoWa? She go back to taking 2 hours a day to drink coffee at Starbucks with the girlfriends?

As far as walking around the neighborhood, they totally screwed up the one good feature, the river, by blocking access with the buildings which makes a pretty bleak setting at street level. That is until they figure hos to ding us for anoter $100M.

Then again, what Sam/Homer wants, Sam/Homer gets.

Portland is full of pay option | alt-a loan products, the bulk of which were originated in the past three years.

The resets are typically 3 years for this loan type, which means the PDX 2005 vintage have *just started to reset*.

Portland is likely just joining the foreclosure party.

PDX Renter (aka Cassandra aka Zarathustra)

Good old SoWhat . . . or as I also sometimes call it, "Little Dubai". Everytime I go past it, it makes me sick.

I also concur with Grumpy here. I find it rather ironic that these supposedly "green" high-density, Fake New York-type things are always nothing but pavement and concrete. Maybe that's Sam and Homer's way of expressing their "hipsterdom".

Why can't they just drink Pabst, instead of trying to fill every square inch with zero-offset condo bunkers and toy trains? Heck, I'd even buy them the Pabst if they offered to stop.

Yaaaaaay! Can we eat at the Spaghetti factory afterward, and then ride the tram? Pretty please?

"Foreclosures are not related to condos, they are related to people's bad choices on financing their purchase."

Subprime is so 2007. Prime or near prime loans are driving the newest (and far larger) wave of foreclosures. Its alsoclear that many foreclosures are occurring because people owe more than their house is worth (or will be worth for years). As PDX catches up with its sister cities things are going to get very ugly in this pretentious backwater.

Parabola in the making:

http://www.housingtracker.net/reo/oregon/portland

Foreclosures don't occur just because people owe more than their houses are worth. A house's value makes no difference in the owner's ability to make the monthly payments. Whether I can make the monthly payment on my mortgage depends on my income, not on the value of my house.

Foreclosures occur because people stop paying their mortgages, either because they can't pay or because they won't pay. Some people can't pay because they have lost their jobs. Others can't pay because they didn't make enough to be able to afford their house in the first place.

"Audubon Society of Portland: Birds of prey"

They'll be explaining how birds of prey like the green 325 ft walls of glass and steel across from their Ross Island.

Isaac, Nice strawman. What part of "Its also clear that many foreclosures are occurring because people owe more than their house is worth" did you not understand?

Extensive research from numerous economists including Alan (f***ing) Greenspan shows that foreclosures increase most dramatically when there is an increase in negative equity.

"Others can't pay because they didn't make enough to be able to afford their house in the first place."

Your flawed assumption is that the homes were bought to live in and not as a leveraged speculative investment.

"or because they won't pay"

And why would any sane individual pay for a leveraged asset that is depreciating in value? Oregon is a no recourse state there is little financial consequence for foreclosure. Plus you get to live rent free for a year or more.

Perhaps the CoP can coordinate with some local banks and real estate offices to hold open houses during the event.