Best Bang for Your Buck

 Though home prices have dropped in the past year, the rate is slowing and the end may soon be nigh for bargain basement deals, so smart market watchers should act fast to nab the house of their dreams. Jeff Yarbrough, a top-producing real estate agent in the Los Angeles area (and a former editor in chief of The Advocate), compared two similarly priced properties in two wildly popular lesbian hoods in Portland, Ore., and Northampton, Mass., and chose the best deal for LGBT house hunters:

3112 N.E. 25th Ave.
In the Northeast district of Portland
Listed at $449,000
This 1925 Craftsman-style bungalow typifies Portland's Roaring Twenties era of urban sprawl. On a tree-lined street in one of the city's hottest (and most heavily lesbian-populated) areas, this renovated house comes with three bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a usable basement. The 2,050 square-foot Crafty sits on a 4,791-square-foot lot with a deck, grassy lawn, and two-car garage. Trendy shops are nearby, as are Portland's numerous cultural offerings. (For more information contact Ronda Joseph at Hasson Company Realtors, [503] 228-9801.)