CNN’s “This Just In” blog today featured an interesting study done by the U.S. Forest Service’s Pacific Northwest and Southern Research Stations in the Portland area that found that areas with larger, taller, well-maintained trees had less neighborhood theft and overall crime than areas with smaller trees. It turns out that tall trees “can reduce crime by signaling to a potential criminal that a neighborhood is better cared for and, therefore, a criminal is more likely to be caught…Large yard trees also were associated with lower crime rates, most likely because they are less view-obstructing than smaller trees.”
The link to today’s bank owned listings is linked below; nothing real exciting … alot of property under $230,000 as usual. There is a brownstone in here located up in Forest Heights (one of my favorite neighborhoods). Those particular townhomes were having HOA litigation issues for a while but I think they are resolved or close to being resolved; that should really help to get those units moving again.