About Malheur County, OR

Today I get to help with the Global Village Festival in Ontario Oregon. I'v e done this most years since it was started, I really enjoy it.

Our area celebrated diversity before it was cool and before we even knew what diversity was.

It's not that prejudice doesn't exist here, it does, but tolerance is the most prevalent.

Our area first had Native Americans, then some French, Spanish and Northern European people, then lots of Basque people some Chinese then Mexicans, then Japanese because we were a free zone in WWII. Of course there is a smattering of every type of person. All this is a county with less than 40000 people.

The festival features booths with different nationalities sellling their typical foods and each booth features a craft that the kids can do for free, the kids collect stamps from each booth on their "passports" and then they are elegible to win a mountain bike.

There is constant musical entertainment, a newer addition are the Hula dancers from Boise, they are fantastic. I always enjoy the bagpipes, the Mexican and Basque childrens dancers and like to top it off with the Taiko drumming.

The food costs, but everything else is free! Families can have a whole day of fun for the cost of a lunch.

One of the benefits of living in the Intermountain West is the ability to get away fast! One hour in any direction from my home in Ontario Oregon and you are in the mountains! However that's not where we went Sunday. We were only a half hour from home.

We took our 4 wheeler and went looking for Love Reservoir. We'd heard it mentioned for years knew vaguely where it was and had often talked about going there.

We Google mapped it earlier. It is south of Huntington Oregon in the desert along the ORegon Trail. The area has lots of "roads" think Baja lol. These serve as ways for the ranchers to get to the fences to fix them and to put food and salt blocks out for the cattle. We went for about 8 miles of absolute solitude - that's priceless right there. We came upon the reservoir and were attempting to drive around it, we were going along a fenceline and suddenly the earth opened up. There was a 50-75 foot deep chasm with rushing water and two waterfalls! I'm sure spring is the only time the waterfalls will be that strong, it was spectacular. The water was being diverted from elsewhere and the stream bed had also been changed. Interesting and we're researching why right now.

We both felt refreshed and restored. It doesn't take a big whoopteedoo to have fun - outdoor recreation's availability is one big reason people locate here. There are only 36000 people in my whole county! But if you want the city shopping and cultural happenings Boise is only 50 minutes away!

Maybe it's because I spent 10 years in the carpet business and have no carpeted rooms in my home, but I am glad to get rid of the snow and especially the ICE and have good old mud. The Treasure Valley (border area of Idaho and Oregon NW of Boise) is high desert so the mud won't last long. In fact the farmers will be out in the fields in the Sunny Slope area SW of Boise any time. AND ARE WE EVER READY FOR SPRING! Renewal, hope, flowers, sunshine, love, romance, enthusiasm, all things that will help our area and our country smile again and regain our spirit! Now if our marketing people can figure out ways of making thrift thrilling, prudence perky, earnestness exciting and caution carefree we'll be "cooking with gas".

In 2007, 151 residential listings were closed in Ontario, down 19% from 2006. The average price also dropped a little bit, from $134,763 in 2006 to $130,707 in 2007.

However, the average days on the market in 2007 was 78, down from 113 in 2006. So fewer homes sold, but they were on the market a shorter period of time.

As for my predictions, I believe that 2008 will be a reasonably strong year for homes priced below $150,000. There is still good financing available for those homes with low down payments, and since first time home buyers do not have to sell their current home before they buy a new home, I predict that homes in the "starter home" price range will be the easiest to sell with proper marketing.

There will also be some great opportunities for investors out there - I am seeing rents starting to rise and the availability of decent rentals is getting tighter. So now is a great time for people looking for rental property to add to their portfolio. If you have been thinking about buying your first rental property, maybe the time is right for you to make some progress towards that goal.

The higher end market is where we are seeing most of the problem - a larger than usual number of homes on the market and much slower marketing times, so some additional patience will be necessary by sellers of homes over $200,000.

Who will have the best of both worlds? I predict that buyers currently in starter-price-range homes (those under $150,000) will be able to sell their homes and then get a good deal on the larger home they have been thinking about moving up to. So now is a great time for those types of buyers to be jumping into the real estate market.

Barb Hutchinson is a Realtor with RE/MAX Tri-Cities in Fruitland, ID. She sells real estate in SW Idaho (including Fruitland, Payette, New Plymouth, Parma, Emmett, Weiser) and Eastern Oregon (Ontario, Nyssa and Vale in Malheur County). If you are interested in buying or selling a home, call Barb today at 208-707-4663 or visit her website at www.BarbHutchinson.com