June 10th, 2009
Yes We Canoe | I paddled the Willamette, and so can you.0 comments
June 10th, 2009
I’d Like to Give the World a Frank | Hot dogs are the U.S.A.’s gift to the world. Don’t defile them with ketchup. Ever.0 comments
June 10th, 2009
Cover Story • Down and Out in the City of Roses | WW’s guide to enjoying the summer, economy be damned.3 comments
June 10th, 2009
Sundays In The Parkway With Everybody | The City’s Sunday Parkways program is back—three times over.0 comments
June 10th, 2009
Summer Soundtrack | Five albums to rock your world for the next three months.0 comments
June 10th, 2009
Cinema Al Fresco | Get your movies out of the theater.0 comments
June 10th, 2009
Baby Got Bach | The best of the Summer’s non-pop music festivals.0 comments
June 10th, 2009
Put A Cork In It | All right, so liquor ain’t cheap, but don’t whine—make wine!0 comments
June 10th, 2009
Holes For Dips | Whatever your dysfunction, we have a swimmin’ hole for you.0 comments
May 20th, 2009
Drink Top Fives | Our Drink Guide list of lists.0 comments
[April 11th, 2007] Let's face it: Real estate is based on sales and marketing. This is not a bad thing, inherently. But sometimes real-estate agents get a little creative when it comes time to write the short, sunny description of the latest shack they have to flog.
Real-estate ad copy is a notoriously Orwellian, two-faced literary genre. It is written not to provide you, the buyer, with any real data but rather to bait you with smiley disinformation. Knowing what grim, moldy truths might lurk behind the chirp-chirp adjectives and randomly capitalized, surreally punctuated sales terms can save a lot of disappointment when that "Close-In Charming Cottage!" turns out to be a decommissioned meth lab in Troutdale.
As you scan the listings, check out this modest decoder ring—our attempt to put the "real" back in real estate.
| If the ad says: | It really means: |
| Up and Coming Neighborhood | Chain-link fence, cars on cinder blocks, pot-holed dirt roads. |
| Easy Freeway Access | Wedged up against Interstate 205. |
| West Irvington | Between a laundromat and an abandoned Alcoholics Anonymous meeting hall on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. |
| Near Sellwood | Milwaukie |
| Alberta Arts District | As far north as Columbia Boulevard, as far east as 82nd Avenue. |
| Close In | Gresham, Clackamas or Tigard. |
| Near Historic St. Johns | Next to the train tracks in the industrial no-man's land of North Portland. |
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The Plunge
Become Donald Trump in One Day!
A Renter's Survival Guide
I'm Buying a What?
Way of the Ninja
Guns for Hire
Cracking the Code
What the Hell Does $250K Buy, Anyway?
The Final Frontier
Sweat Equity?
Armed & Dangerous
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