Green Lining to Portland Real Estate Situation

According to a Wall Street Journal article I read this weekend, there are some very positive things that are coming along with the slow down of the real estate markets. Developers are dropping plans to build on some choice pieces of land and instead are selling it for such uses as public parks and nature preserves. It even contains an example that took place here in Portland Oregon, where a developer had approval to build 65 homes on a 27-acre parcel agreed in February to sell it for $4 million, a 20% discount to the land’s appraised value before the housing market softened. While I don’t necessarily see this to be sustainable, I’d rather see us building parks and nature reserves rather than power plants.