Alameda +13.7%

Arbor Lodge +9%

Beaumont-Whilshire +12.7%

Boise +14%

Buckman +19.1%

Concordia +7.2%

Cully +6.6%

Eastmoreland +12.4%

Elliot +23.7%

Irvington +15.1%

Kenton +6.5%

Mount Tabor +8%

Multnomah +11.9%

Overlook +10.6%

Piedmont +12.4%

Rose City Park +12.4%

Sabin +14.6%

St. Johns -.8%

Vernon +16.9%

Woodlawn +11.8%

Woodstock +8.9%

If your neighborhood is not listed here go to http://www.zillow.com/local-info/OR-Portland/Montavilla-home-value/r_207230/

Crisp evenings and big full moons signal the fall season is upon us. This quick home repair checklist will help prepare your home for the upcoming cold weather.

• Check your heating system including the filters, pilot lights and burners.

• Double check your programmable thermostat to ensure it is working properly.

• Clean and vacuum dust from the vents, baseboard heaters and cold-air returns.

• Check smoke alarm and carbon monoxide detectors. Replace batteries.

• Paint interior rooms or shampoo carpets while it’s still warm enough to leave the windows open.

• Have the flue of your fireplace inspected and cleaned.

• Check caulking for deterioration around exterior joints and weather stripping around doors and windows. Replace where necessary.

• Wash windows.

• Inspect, clean and install storm windows.

• Clean and lubricate garage door hinges, rollers, and tracks and be sure all of the screws are tight.

• Check the attic insulation to make sure it does not cover the ventilation vents in the eaves. This will help to prevent winter ice dams on the roof.

• Trim back any tree limbs that touch the roof. Be sure ridge vents and vents at eaves are free of plants and debris.

• Clean gutters and downspouts throughout the fall season to prevent a build up of leaves and other debris. Extend the downspouts away from the foundation of your house.

• Clean, repair and store patio furniture.

• Turn off exterior faucets. Service lawn irrigation systems and blow out water.

Portland, Oregon

What’s going for it? Do you like letterpress? Do you like vintage clothes? Do you play in a nu-folk band? Then get ye to Boise, Eliot and Overlook in Portland. The city has been the capital of liberal, hipster USA for decades. The Dandy Warhols wrote Bohemian Like You about their very home town. There are some, indeed, round these parts who’d like the entire Pacific Northwest to break off from the rest of the US and go it alone. So very liberal is Portland that it’s a home from home to anyone from Europe, especially if they read the Guardian. Cyclists are loved, not loathed. There are planning restrictions on crappy developments. Portland has the highest number of microbreweries in the world. Everyone is lovely. My auntie lives there and will make you a nice cup of tea if you’re homesick. H.E.A.V.E.N. Shockingly, it still remains relatively good value. Especially the patch north of the Willamette river above the railyards. When I first visited in the early 90s, Boise, Eliot and Overlook were the kind of spots you sped through: always the first sign of a neighbourhood you should buy in. Now you can’t move for contemporary modern antiques shops and dinky record stores.

The case against Bit too cool for school. Everyone’s like you. Who will you have to hate? Oh, yes, everyone like you. The weather: like Britain, but more so… hotter and colder and danker.

Well connected? Unusually again for the US, cycle and walk without abuse: the most bike- and foot-friendly city in the country, packed with proper cycle routes (15 minutes to downtown from the northside). You may use the car. Occasionally. Perhaps for a surf trip to the coast, or a ski trip to the mountains (both 60-100 minutes).

Hang out at… A food cart: all the rage (check out foodcartsportland.com). Or, for the indulgent, Grand Central Bakery, in an old scrap metal yard. Artisan, innit.

Property The area is full of 1910s and 1920s bungalows that the local real estate guys call “craftsman style”, with handsome stoops and carved wood decoration. There are a fair few vacant lots, too, for the brave, plus 1960s and 1970s infill apartment blocks that, with a zuzz, could be nice. Look off the main drags, like Mississippi and Interstate regeneration projects. Huge detacheds, £415,000-£575,000; four-bed-plus detacheds, £225,000-£415,000; two- or three-bed detacheds, £140,000-£215,000. Condos below this.

The Ice Cream Social is an opportunity for Boise businesses to say thanks to our neighbors, keep in touch and give back. Please join Vintage Real Estate, and 32 other Mississippi businesses for a FREE scoop on Tuesday, August 23rd from 6:00-7:00…or until the ice cream runs out! 

Mortgage lenders, many of whom are still working through foreclosure documentation problems that surfaced last fall, also took back fewer properties in May, the second monthly decline in a row, foreclosure listing firm RealtyTrac said Thursday.The delays continue to push the 2 million U.S. homes already on banks’ books or in some stage of foreclosure further into limbo and put banks on track to repossess about 200,000 fewer homes this year than in 2010, the firm said.“The problem with that, even though it sounds better, is that all of those foreclosure auctions we should have seen this year roll into next year, and that means it’s going to take that much longer for the housing market to recover,” said Rick Sharga, a senior vice president at RealtyTrac.The pace of homes entering the foreclosure process and those ending up as bank-owned properties began slowing sharply last fall, when allegations surfaced that many banks relied on erroneous documents when they foreclosed on thousands of homes.Since then, banks, federal regulators and state attorneys general have been reviewing how foreclosures were carried out the past two years. That has prompted lenders to resubmit paperwork on foreclosures and, in states where courts play a role in the process, caused a logjam of foreclosure cases.Lenders also have put off on taking action against delinquent borrowers as U.S. home sales slowed this year.In many cases, banks are only going forward with the foreclosure process as quickly as they can sell the properties they already have on the market, Sharga said.Banks have almost 900,000 properties already on their books, so if the ones on the market aren’t selling, there’s little incentive for them to take back more homes that will end up sitting vacant.Combined with the 1.1 million homes in some stage of foreclosure, the properties represent more than three years of housing inventory at the current sales pace — and that’s if no other homes go into foreclosure.The backlog spells further declines in home values, as homes in foreclosure sell at a 20% discount on average, and those discounts erode prices throughout a neighborhood.One bright spot is that the number of home loans at least 90 days late has fallen five quarters in a row and is the lowest since the start of 2009, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.That’s partly because loans made after the credit crisis, when lenders tightened underwriting standards, are not becoming delinquent as often as riskier loans made between 2005 and 2007. That means fewer of those loans are likely to fall into foreclosure.

 Mississippi Ave.  Market
Mason and Mississippi in Q Center Parking lot
Saturdays,  8 a.m. – 1 p.m.
May 7 – Sept 3rd

King Neighborhood Market
NE 7th and Wygant
Sundays, 10 a.m. – 2 p.m.
May 2 – October 31

Alberta Farmers’ Market
NE 15th and Alberta
Saturdays, 10 a.m. – 2 p.m.
May-September

Hollywood Farmers’ Market
NE Hancock between 44th & 45th
Saturdays, 8 a.m. – 1 p.m. (starts at 9 a.m. in November)
May 1 – November 21

Interstate Farmers’ Market
3550 N. Fremont (near Overlook Park)
Wednesdays, 3:00 – 7:00 p.m.
May 20 – September 30