July 23rd, 2008
Best Citywide1 comment
July 23rd, 2008
Best Kept Secret2 comments
July 23rd, 2008
Best Landmark0 comments
July 23rd, 2008
Best Place to Hear Live Music1 comment
July 23rd, 2008
Best Place to Shop0 comments
July 23rd, 2008
Best Place to Drink Coffee2 comments
July 23rd, 2008
Best Place to Grab a Hangover Brunch0 comments
July 23rd, 2008
Best Place to Toss One* Back0 comments
July 23rd, 2008
Best Place to Take a Date0 comments
July 23rd, 2008
Best Place to Eat Cheap0 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. |
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








