Tony and Libby Kelly, CRS, ABR, ePro, SRES, CLHMS, CNHS

Yesterday, Monday, Feb. 2, the Westside Express Service commuter rail went on its first ride. The westside of the Portland Metro area now has its own commuter rail line. The 14.7-mile route has five stations in Beaverton, Tigard, Tualatin and Wilsonville, with trains running every 30 minutes during weekday morning and evening rush hours.

So far the busiest station has been the Beaverton Transit Center. Officials are hoping it will become popular so that it will reduce traffic on Pacific Highway, 217 and I-5.

The new commuter trains are equiped with free Wi-Fi, bike hooks and swivel seats; and the stations have some fun works of art.

It is hoped that in the future they will be able to offer some weekend hours, but that of course will depend on how much use it gets during commuting hours.

http://tigardtimes.com/news/story.php?story_id=123319608573742100

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It seems that economic crisis has caused an opportunity for some. (besides buying up cheap properties) Apartment vacancies are on the rise putting people in a mighty good bargaining position.

Managers are starting to get desperate to get and keep people in their buildings all across the country. The Portland OR area is one of the biggest rent drops of -3.2%. So if your lease is up, now is the time to talk to your landlord about a new longer and cheaper lease.

http://finance.yahoo.com/real-estate/article/106480/Rents-Drop-Nationwide-as-Vacancies-Spike

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Toll Brothers Inc. is a luxury homebuilder who is tired of watching buyers sit on the sidelines waiting for mortgage rates to hit bottom. They are now offering on their new-home inventory a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage at an interest rate of 3.99% with no points paid up-front. The idea is to get those teetering on the fence to finally jump off and buy.

This is a brilliant idea on their part and the phone has been ringing off the hook. Now they are even locking that rate in for nine months for those who want to buy a new, built-to-suit home.

http://money.cnn.com/2009/01/22/real_estate/builder_slashes_loan_rates/index.htm?postversion=2009012217

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I was going through the Realtor magazine and found a page about people connecting. With all the blogs and facebook pages and ways people are getting together on the internet this article was letting people know that you can still meet face to face.

Apparently there is this website called http://www.meetup.com/ where you can start or join a group of like minded people who want to meet up and get to know new people.

So I got on there and looked up my city and found all kinds of cool groups! People who meet to hike, play poker, talk about Buffy the Vampire Slayer, dance Salsa, do pub crawls, even get-togethers for World of Warcraft fans.

You don't even have to join a "networking" group in order to network, although I did find a Real Estate Professionals group. http://www.meetup.com/portlandrealestate/

Is this one of those things everyone already knows about and I'm just the last to hear?!

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This article on CNN.com mentions that one of the reasons that home prices were soaring too high was the appraisals. Loan officers and mortgage brokers were (and do) putting lots of pressure on some appraisers to "hit the number" that the officer or broker was looking for.

So now there will be a Home Valuation Code of Conduct starting in May. These will be guidelines for appraisals being used in loans being sold to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The guildelines prohibit lenders from coercing, extorting, colluding with intimidating or bribing appraisers.

So what you are telling me is, this was not against the rules before.

The only way this will be of any help at all is if it is actually enforced. Otherwise the appraisers following the rules will be the ones not getting work.

The enforcement comes by way of complaints from appraisers or consumers. If a lender receives too many then they won't be able to sell loans to Fannie or Freddie.

As usual, I'm sure there are already pleanty of regulations in place that are not already being enforced. Perhaps more are needed but I would be willing to bet that TRUE enforcement is what is really called for here.

http://money.cnn.com/2009/01/14/real_estate/appraisal_reform/index.htm?postversion=2009011405

PLEASE CHECK OUT OUR NEW PODCAST ON THE HOMEPAGE OF OUR WEBSITE http//:www.TonyandLibby.com & OUR NEW PORTLAND METRO BLOG AT http//:www.TonyandLibby.blogspot.com (make sure you leave comments)