Lynn Krogseng

Kayaking on Lacamas Lake

Lacamas Lake, Clark County, Washington, is the lake I got my first kayak ride on. The prestigious subdivision, Lacamas Shores has grand homes, some even with breathtaking views of the lake. (By the way, there are 10 for sale at the time of this post). From the lake, we can see the homes higher up, but the walking trail that runs along the west side of the lake is part of a nice, treelined buffer.

My second trip in a kayak was in the smaller Round Lake, which is actually part of the Lacamas Lake. In my first ride, my husband paddled and I rode up front, helping occasionally. For my second ride, I was the power - in the single seater and my husband powered the two seater with our son aboard. Without going into details, I'll just say, this was a big learning lesson for me.

We put in at the bridge where Lacamas feeds Round lake and encountered a few people fishing from shore and another kayaker right away. As we moved in to the body of the lake, I caught "Egeria densa" on my paddle. I didn't know what it was at the time (see the next paragraph). We went towards the dam and around the edges of the lake. Both Lacamas and Round lakes have dams that were originally installed to facilitate log movement for the mills in the late 1800s. This day the water was down quite a bit.

Here are some reports about the lake. This water report mentioned the weeds I encountered in much of the lake. "Since 1984, Egeria densa has largely displaced more desirable native species in the shallow-water areas (Parsons, 1999)."

From a similar water report, I read "In the absence of renewed lake and watershed management efforts, continuing human impacts to the lake are likely to erase past improvements and further degrade its beneficial uses."

Lacamas and Round lakes are not unique in the symptoms they exhibit of preventable water-quality change. Please do your part to protect our precious watersheds so everyone (future generations included) can continue to enjoy and benefit from the bountiful, local resources of our region.

Reading our local paper...

We had fallen behind on disposing of the local paper, so that's probably the reason I noticed a possible correlation in trends report on Thursday, October 2 and on Friday, October 3. On the 2nd they reported bridge traffic over the I-5 and I-205 highways. On the 3rd, they reported marriage licenses issued. Here's what I noticed: the number of marriage licenses issued from 2005 until 2007 decreased from 228 to 186, then in 2008 they jumped to 238. Meanwhile, the traffic over I-5 has steadily decreased since 2006 and except for a small increase in 2007, has been decreasing on I-205 also.

Here's my theory:

Portland has a lively nightlife - attractive to singles. So, people have been leaving Vancouver, crossing over to Portland for the dating scene, finding a match, getting married and !violà! They stop going to Portland!

Is a flattened market a good thing?

The Vancouver, Washington market has maintained a steady 12 months (give or take a couple of weeks) of inventory since March. Prices have continued lower overall. Is that the steady push of the inventory? Is this flattened activity a good sign when the rest of the economic world is in a panic?

The RMLS summary for September isn't out yet. In my own numbers tracking I see that the ratio of pending to active listings over the last two months has worsened, so I expect that will be reflected in a slight increase in inventory in September's report.

What does this suggest for home buyers or sellers (or investors)? Well, if you don't have to sell and you aren't planning to buy up, stay out of the fray. If you do have to sell, price below the last sale of comparable property to get sold fast; otherwise you may risk taking a lower price later. Is it time to buy if the prices could go lower? Well, if you don't anticipate selling in the next couple of years, yes, it looks like a good time to buy. In fact, it really seems like the interest rates are going to have to go higher, so if you aren't paying cash, you'll need to anticipate the ultimate cost to you if you wait for price decreases versus the potential interest increases.

Of course, this is just my guess and I'm not claiming any future-telling ability! Please do consult your own crystal ball for what's really going to happen in the future.

Is a flattened market a good thing?

The Vancouver, Washington market has maintained a steady 12 months (give or take a couple of weeks) of inventory since March. Prices have continued lower overall. Is that the steady push of the inventory? Is this flattened activity a good sign when the rest of the economic world is in a panic?

The RMLS summary for September isn't out yet. In my own numbers tracking I see that the ratio of pending to active listings over the last two months has worsened, so I expect that will be reflected in a slight increase in inventory in September's report.

What does this suggest for home buyers or sellers (or investors)? Well, if you don't have to sell and you aren't planning to buy up, stay out of the fray. If you do have to sell, price below the last sale of comparable property to get sold fast; otherwise you may risk taking a lower price later. Is it time to buy if the prices could go lower? Well, if you don't anticipate selling in the next couple of years, yes, it looks like a good time to buy. In fact, it really seems like the interest rates are going to have to go higher, so if you aren't paying cash, you'll need to anticipate the ultimate cost to you if you wait for price decreases versus the potential interest increases.

Of course, this is just my guess and I'm not claiming any future-telling ability! Please do consult your own crystal ball for what's really going to happen in the future.

Is a flattened market a good thing?

The Vancouver, Washington market has maintained a steady 12 months (give or take a couple of weeks) of inventory since March. Prices have continued lower overall. Is that the steady push of the inventory? Is this flattened activity a good sign when the rest of the economic world is in a panic?

The RMLS summary for September isn't out yet. In my own numbers tracking I see that the ratio of pending to active listings over the last two months has worsened, so I expect that will be reflected in a slight increase in inventory in September's report.

What does this suggest for home buyers or sellers (or investors)? Well, if you don't have to sell and you aren't planning to buy up, stay out of the fray. If you do have to sell, price below the last sale of comparable property to get sold fast; otherwise you may risk taking a lower price later. Is it time to buy if the prices could go lower? Well, if you don't anticipate selling in the next couple of years, yes, it looks like a good time to buy. In fact, it really seems like the interest rates are going to have to go higher, so if you aren't paying cash, you'll need to anticipate the ultimate cost to you if you wait for price decreases versus the potential interest increases.

Of course, this is just my guess and I'm not claiming any future-telling ability! Please do consult your own crystal ball for what's really going to happen in the future.