Tony Marnella

At Volare, in Happy Valley, we are offering our "Firenze" model home for sale. This home has a very comfortable feel with our upgraded knotty alder cabinetry and granite counters with a full subway tiled backsplash, pantry, eating bar and large dining area. The main floor has wide plank laminate floors with a hand scraped appearance, a corner gas fireplace and the powder room is finished in painted wainscoting. Going upstairs, the banister includes a stained maple cap & post with painted balusters, utility room is here for convenience with washer & dryer and the 2^nd bedroom has a built-in desk for the boy's room. The master bedroom features plantation shutters, a ceiling fan, full height vanity with double sinks and a large walk-in closet. The Firenze plan features 1430 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 2 full baths and a powder room with 9ft. ceilings on both floors. This model includes Air conditioning, refrigerator, security system and sound in the family room and master bedroom for $214,950. All of the Volare residents enjoy weekly rounds of golf at the Eagle Landing Golf course and unlimited use of the clubhouse and fitness center. They also enjoy walking and biking distance to light rail, shopping, restaurants and entertainment.

You can view the virtual tour at the following link:

http://www.youtube.com/user/TonyMarnella2#p/a/f/1/PlpGokUz8F8

You owe it to yourself to come see the presale opportunities for the Firenze that start at $199,950. Our Firenze model, and our other models, are open at Volare here in Happy Valley every day from 12 -5. I hope to see you soon.

If your home has a furnace installed in the garage, it most likely is. At one of our construction 101 classes at our Volare Town Home community in Happy Valley, this came up. We have been installing our entire HVAC systems inside the conditioned space of our homes (meaning the interior living area of the home). We realized the obvious benefits of: improved performance by reducing the length of duct work for the air to travel, by not installing ducting in the attic or crawlspace spaces as they are much hotter or colder than the air we are providing to the rooms that need it. Another benefit is, if the duct system leaks air it is only leaking into your home not the outdoors. However, it never occurred to us the air quality benefit of a furnace in the home versus the garage.

The furnace unit that is installed inside the conditioned space is a "Sealed unit" this means that the cabinet of the furnace is entirely sealed up. Unlike, most furnace units that are installed in a garage. Most people can recall being near a furnace in a garage when it started up and seeing the flame burning through the venting of the front of the furnace cabinet. What probably didn't come to mind was that when the fan motor started up it was pulling air from within the garage. This could be including the exhaust from the car, gas fumes from the gas can, bag of yard fertilizer, etc. Anything off gassing in your garage could have its fumes spread throughout your home.

The great benefit of a Marnella Homes system being entirely with the home is that it is only pulling fresh air from the exterior of the home with the assistance of the HRV (Heat Recovery Ventilator). The HRV periodically exchanges stale interior air with fresh outside air. This provides interior air quality that is superior to any traditionally installed HVAC system. This should be especially important to anyone with children that have asthma or any other respiratory health issues.

So, should you be stuck with a traditionally installed system in your home, consider this when you are letting your car warm up in the morning and you might want to find a better place to store the gas can, fertilizer bag or anything that you smell when in the garage. However, if you are looking at buying a new home, you owe it to you and your family's health to consider how your next HVAC system is installed.

The next 20 days will provide what I feel is truly the "Perfect Storm" for anyone looking to buy a home.

We currently have: 1) Our Lender offering 3% of the purchase price to our Buyers for closing costs, 2) Northwest Natural Gas is offering a years worth of Natural Gas on any of the homes in the Ultimate Open House, 3) The Federal Home Buyer tax credit is still available, 4) Exceptionally low mortgage interest rates and 5) Great home values that have reset to 2002 in many areas. For instance:

•1) On any Marnella Homes town homes in Volare, Golf Savings Bank is providing a Lender Credit of 3% of the Sale Price up to $20,000. This program has just been extended for sales agreements dated on or before the 1^st of June, 2010 with closing dates on or before the 30^th of July, 2010.

•2) Northwest Natural Gas is offering a year of Natural Gas, up to $800, on our homes that we have presented in this years Ultimate Open House.

•3) The Federal Home Buyer tax credit is available for qualified home buyers on transactions executed by the 30^th of April, 2010 and closed by the 30^th of June, 2010

•4) We are seeing mortgage rates that are as low as our Grandparents took advantage of after World War II. These are rates that cannot be sustained at these low levels and will have to begin to rise.

•5) Home values in some areas, like here in Happy Valley, have reset to 2002/2003 prices. If you are looking at homes under $300,000, these values have bottomed out and have shown signs of strengthening in many areas.

So, for anyone thinking about or actively looking to buy a home, the current conditions for home buying are such that we may never see again in our lifetime.

No it isn't what my sons do and giggle or what happened in that embarrassing situation in the elevator. Offgassing our outgassing is what we tend to call the "New Home Smell" or "New Car Smell". We think we want it, but do we? This smell is actually gases emitting from the materials in our new homes and cars. Like, carpet, vinyl, paint, etc. and even furniture.

The Energy Star New Homes program requires that builders within their program must build at a minimum of 15% above the code requirements. However, Marnella Homes is building to exceed 30% of code requirements with 100% of the homes we build. Improved indoor air quality is one of the criteria that we must address. This begins by using materials that have low volatile organic compound (VOC) content. VOCs include a variety of chemicals, some of which may have short and long-term adverse health effects.

To meet the requirements of the New Home program's indoor air quality criteria it begins with using Green Sealed Certified carpet and low VOC content paint and caulking. Since these products contain much less VOC they don't emit as much VOC as similar uncertified products. This is amazingly noticeable when walking into a home built with standard products without the indoor air quality consciousness compared to a home that is built to the Energy Star indoor air quality standards.

Whether you already have health concerns that require this attention to indoor air quality or not, you owe it to you and your family's health to educate yourself on the importance of it. So, when looking for a new home, look for the Energy Star label to see if the builder is offering any indoor air quality features. These features will not only benefit you as an occupant of your new home, but will provide lasting value to you when you resell in the future.

I think one of the most under reported stories about the real estate market today is just how close to normal our markets are. What we keep hearing is how far off we are "from the peak". Well, "the peak" was unsustainable in any market so, why are we comparing our current market's health with such unrealistic statistics. For our market here in Portland Oregon, inventory levels are currently at 6.5 months (inventory levels are calculated by taking the current number of active listings divided by the number of pending sales in any given month). In fact, Happy Valley was one of the first and hardest hit markets in the Portland metro and it has reduced it's inventory in line with the metro average as well. The Portland metro started out in January of this year at 19.2 months of inventory! Not a bad adjustment. In comparison, the time period between 1998 and 2002 experienced monthly inventory levels ranging from 4.1 to 10.1. Averaging mostly between 5 & 6 months of inventory until the spring of 2003. We are currently carrying about 3000 more listings than we averaged during that time period however, we had approximately 350,000 fewer people then as well.

In wrapping up this year, it is exciting to hear such statistics as ""The affordability equation is now at its most favorable point for buyers since 1970.", "The 64% jump in pending sales is the largest same-month increase since February 1996.", "New home inventory, on a non-seasonally adjusted basis, is at its lowest levels in over 14 years." and "The 30-year (mortgage rate) has never been this low since Freddie Mac began its weekly survey in 1971." All of which came out this past week.

After the correction we just went through, normal is ok. In fact, welcome. So, it's time that we started acknowledging, better yet, appreciating what we have instead of dwelling on such unrealistic comparisons. It is time to enjoy the sun rise on a new day, no matter how "normal" it might feel and let yesterday, be just that.