A housing report from the Oregonian. "Portland hasn't seen a housing market like this one in at least 10 years. Listings are up. Sales are down. Buyers, sensing an edge, are leaning hard on prices. The region's 7,000 or so Realtors are working harder to sell homes."

"'If I'm not selling it tomorrow, I don't care what it's worth,' said David Morganstern, a personal financial adviser in Portland. 'You should buy a house for all the fundamental reasons about enjoying it as a place you live in, as opposed to, 'Is it a salable piece of property?' Then you're a speculator, not a homeowner.'"

"The frenzied days of 2005 notwithstanding, most people make housing decisions based on lifestyle changes. Pat and Todd Salvo put their four-bedroom Lake Oswego house on the market about a month ago. 'It's a little slower than I would have expected,' Pat Salvo said."

"There's enough uncertainty to give even the econometrics geeks the willies. 'It's a particularly risky year, and you want to increase your investment in housing? I'm not so sure,' said Mark McMullen, senior economist for Economy.com who covers the Portland area."

The Bellingham Herald from Washington. "Dave Christensen is a longtime local architect who holds onto all his work, no matter how old or dead the project. He estimates about half the projects he starts never make it to the groundbreaking ceremony."

"A flurry of proposals in the late 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s came as Bellingham was trying to find a new identity, said Bellingham Mayor Tim Douglas, who also served as mayor from 1984 to 1995."

"'It was a time when Bellingham was flat on its back economically because of declines in our resource industries, including fishing and timber,' Douglas said."

"As Douglas begins his second stint as mayor, he is starting to see similarities with what’s now taking place. 'Is Bellingham ready for high-rise condominiums in the downtown core? I guess we’ll find out,' Douglas said."

"Ken Hertz also sees similarities today to when he was mayor from 1976 to 1984. 'So much of what was proposed back then was 'pie in the sky,' Hertz said. 'There is so much being proposed today, it will be interesting to see what will actually get built.'"

The Daily World from Washington. "It was just about a year ago that Weyerhaeuser CEO Steve Rogel announced that the company would be closing two mills on the Twin Harbors, eliminating about 350 jobs."

"So what happened here? 'In looking forward at what the capital costs were to keep the (pulp mill) running and safe,...and we couldn’t see ourselves go down that path," Rogel said."

"The company also suspected that the housing boom wouldn’t last forever. And, right on schedule, the boom has, well, started to bust."

"Because of the closure of the federal forests and more recently with the drop in home building,...the economics in the pulp and paper business on the West Coast is pretty difficult,' Rogel said. 'With the housing market dropping, all of the sawmills in the area are taking downtime and that’s putting pressure on the chip supply.'"