Fancy Houses

8316 SW Mapleridge Dr. Portland, OR 97225

Went looking at houses yesterday. Wife thinks she wants to live closer in to downtown Portland, but we both like our backyard, so she's looking for a place that might have something similar, which constrains our options. We're thinking we want something smaller, but all the places that meet our other criteria are just as big as our McMansion or bigger. All these places are expensive, somewhere north of half a million bucks.

The first place we looked at (above) has a tremendous view. You can see all the way to the beach. Well, you could if the coast range wasn't there. One thing I noticed about these houses is that access is a little difficult. It's not that difficult, it's just difficult compared to where we are now. We live in relatively flat suburban neighborhood. It's a short quarter-mile jaunt to a thoroughfare that will take you to downtown Hillsboro or the freeway. The houses we looked at are in some out-of-the-way locations. The roads that lead to some of them snake around for a ways, which makes going anywhere kind of a pain.