If you read my BlackBerry™ post “All Wired“, you’ll know I’m excited about finally getting our MLS on our hand-held devices! A Realtor® friend of mine in San Francisco told me they’ve had that since 2006. And, if you read my Q1 post about short sales, vacant houses and foreclosures, you’ll understand my frustration with the lack of accurate data we get from our MLS! In doing research, I “googled” the Oregon Economic Development Department only to find 99% of their information was from 2006 and 2005.

All this reminded me again how “small town” Portland really is. I know this might upset some people, but hey I’m from Los Angeles. They have 6 and 8 lane highways there and you call 217 a highway?? It’s a 2-lane street not unlike Barbur Blvd. only without stoplights. (I love L.A. Story with Steve Martin. If you’ve lived in L.A. you “get” that movie). I know, I know “Californian’s go home” — I got that already too. (Read my post “Tom McCall vs. Californians“). On April 20, the Sunday “Oregonian“ had an article about tourism. I couldn’t believe in 2008 there are still people saying “Californians go home”. I guess the writer didn’t read my post “Who Moved to Oregon in 2007?” either.

Ever since I started selling real estate, I’ve gone to as many national and state real estate conventions as I could. Recently, at a convention it was”brought home” to me again just how small town Portland, Oregon really is. There’s a whole different real estate world out there Realtors® never see if they don’t go to these conventions. I know Realtors® who don’t even own computers for heaven’s sake! With an attitude like that they’ll be stuck in the mud (and we have a lot of that here in Oregon) for a very long time! I really laughed the other day when I read the remarks in a new listing. The agent misspelled home —hoem — three different times. Not once, three times. He must have meant to do that. Now I don’t know him or where he’s from, but I thought heaven help us if he can’t even spell what he’s trying to sell.

Last year I was going to launch my blog but got busy selling real estate. Blogging actually has been around since 2001 — I know I’ve gotten slow just living here. We have 8,000 +/- Realtors in our Portland Metropolitan Association of Realtors (I saw that number somewhere – maybe Zillow – just kidding) and guess how many are writing blogs? 60

One of my “Oregonian” friends said after discussing some of my travel plans “why would I want to travel”? I asked WHY NOT?? There’s so much in the world to see that will only enhance and enrich our lives. We can learn something from everyone and everything.

I ran into a Realtor® from another company at lunch. She’s been in the business almost as long as I have and has never been to a national or state real estate convention…… I hope her mind doesn’t rust any time soon (we get a lot of rain here). She probably hasn’t gone out of town to take any real estate classes either.

From my posts I hope you know I love it here and wouldn’t want to live anywhere else (well, that’s not true either, wherever there’s sunshine about now would be a plus). This doesn’t mean I have to move slowly through life. I only get one chance and I need to keep it full. I plan on learning something new everyday.

See you on the highway. Oh, and I promise I won’t have any road rage.

Copyright © 2008. Betty Jung.  All Rights Reserved.

(For more local and national real estate news, click on my monthly newsletter – JUNG’S JOURNAL – on my website www.bettyjung.com).