Earthship, paws down.

It's a tough call. The Berkshires pad looks pretty sweet and the Pearl District condo beckons, but the hobbit hole in New Mexico has a wind turbine!

Either way I have no $$$ for a house at any cost.

None are LEED-certified, so no self-respecting Portlander should buy any of them, right?

The New Mexico house will be a hard sell in a crappy housing market. And a buyer may have a difficult time finding a lender due to the non-standard electric and plumbing systems.
Keep in mind that the entire Southwest is awash in homes for sale; and at 400K this will be a tough sale when you can buy a decent conventional home in that general area for 50-60% of the cost of the eco-house.

A Pearl condo for only $400/ft? Where do I sign?

It would be interesting to know what the costs of labor and materials were for the condo. Then land and then permits. Breakout all the costs individually.

I'm loving our 2000 sq ft, 4 BR home on a beautiful, wooded 1/2 acre lot backing up to the Salmon River for about half that price.

Dig into Jac'ks first link in the original post and look at the real estate taxes. You have to page down a bit in each subpart of the Times story to which Jack linked.

I'd appreciate your comments after you check the real estate tax numbers.

Its an interesting exercise.

exercise

Thanks, but I'm all in.

We like our off the grid 900 sq ft island cottage in BC, and it didn't cost any where near $400k! And it comes with a 180 degree water view too!

A good friends daughter 1 1/2 years out of college just bought a 4 year old home in Phoenix for $120,000 in a newer neighborhood. It's 8 blocks from a freeway, 10 minutes from her Boeing job, has a community pool, exercise, community building, 3 bedrooms, granite, tile floors, two car garage, corner lot with community landscaping services, no HOA fees. Taxes are $938 a year and her monthly payments are only $9 more than her previous 2 bedroom apt It isn't LEED, but has low volume toilets-showers and energy star appliances, super insulated, and low water-use landscaping.

Portland prices will be coming down even more, even though politicians and planners will keep blabbing how Portland is so affordable and jobs are plentiful, and we are the leaders in every category they can imagine.

I lived in NM for 3+ yrs. Home prices in Sante Fe and Taos were going through the roof driving all the lower income earners out of town. Building like this hobbit hole meant people were driving upwards of an hour to get to/from work.

Yeah, those ultra LEED homes really help save the environment when factoring in fuel use.

Yeh, LEED is just another form of taxation, but going to companies that "certify", for a big fee, that your building is "green". It's all about making their companies and employees "sustainable". There's a lot of graft in their long process.

Property taxes here compared to the other locations - wow! As a 5th generation Portlander, I'm ready to vote for a sales tax for several reasons: a) Lower our property taxes, and b) Give us a three-pronged stool during times of economic stress.

Give me the Berkshires!