Not long ago, I sat in a restaurant by myself in downtown Portland, eating an ahi tuna salad and drinking a glass of white wine. I'd just had a mildly unpleasant medical procedure. But I had also had the forethought to schedule the appointment for right before noon on a Friday, just so I could treat myself to a fancy lunch afterward.
The restaurant was buzzing, but not too busy, and I was a woman dining alone. The host tried to seat me in the bar by a window, at a hightop far from the action. I insisted on sitting in the main dining room. I would not be shunted aside, not on a day I was taking myself out to a posh lunch.
As much fun as it is to dine with others, there's a special pleasure in a solo, weekday lunch. Especially now, after it not being much of an option for the past two pandemic years. When I lived in Washington, D.C., I especially liked sitting alone amidst the lunchtime hubbub of the fast casual restaurants of Union Station, listening in on other people's workplace dramas. Everybody loves to bitch about work.
In Portland, on a Friday afternoon in January, I had a direct view of three people in a booth: Two women in their mid 20s, and a man who sat facing them, about a decade older. The women had perfectly blown out hair and were wearing wedge-heeled Sorel boots. I call this style "Pacific Northwest Luxe." The man also had nice hair. He was wearing snug dark jeans and a flannel plaid shirt that looked like Filson. When I jotted all this down in my notebook, I described him as a VHM, short for "Very Handsome Man."
I suppose it was all very PNW Luxe, even the restaurant, even my own wool Nau coat slung over a chair, and my lunchtime glass of Willamette Valley Pinot Gris.
My doctor had prescribed a Valium (just one) for the appointment, which required a tissue sample from my uterus. The pinot gris stretched out my mild Valium buzz, creating a just-right feeling allowing me to forget for a moment that the procedure had been more painful than I anticipated, that it would cost me $3,248 out of pocket, and that its outcome meant yet another procedure. (Don't worry, I'm fine!)
Placidly high, I eavesdropped as the VHM told the PNW Luxe women about the real estate licensing exam. There is some math on it, he told them. But you can pass the exam even if you fail all of the math questions.
The VHM gave off an older brother vibe, the guy who knew from his fraternity brothers which college professors to avoid because they were hard graders. I imagined the women were meeting with him because their moms all knew each other. Maybe they thought the VHM could connect their daughters to lucrative careers in real estate, who knows? All I know is what I saw and heard while sitting in a fancy downtown seafood restaurant, mildly buzzed on Valium and half a glass of wine, my overactive imagination filling in the missing details.
The math is real, though. As I was writing this yesterday, a brochure arrived in our mail slot from a local real estate group, soliciting our business. "Calling all sellers! A seller's market continues to hold strong in Portland." Homes, the realty group promised, are selling for an average list price of $571,900 – up 15.8% over last year. "So now is the time to list and maybe even look into finally upgrading your dream home."
We're not selling, thanks. But friends who put a successful offer on a house around the corner reported from the field: Conditions are frantic out there for buyers. Of the 18 single-family homes for sale right now in our zip code, only two are on the market for less than $600,000, and just barely. They will both go for well over asking.
On Instagram, I follow a home stager who posts photos of the light-filled, minimalist spaces she prepares for market here in Portland. I admire the gracefulness of her interiors, which can be replicated even on a budget. "Our ambition for every project is to create a timeless space with a nod to the Pacific Northwest that simply feels like home." The vibe, I realized, is PNW Luxe.
But who can afford the vibe, in this housing market?
I recently spent a weekend helping someone look for a home in another city in another faraway state, in a county growing so fast new subdivisions sprout daily. No one knows what to bid, even the realtors. All the homes were going for shockingly high amounts over their asking prices. Unlike here in Portland, almost none of the homes were staged. Some we looked at were filthy – we saw grimy kitchen countertops and conditions bordering on hoarding. The market in that town, like so many others, was so hot, so fast, that sellers didn't bother cleaning up before an open house.
One potential home popped up on Zillow at noon on a Saturday. We drove by at 3 p.m., but there was no For Sale sign. The owner was outside, and he invited us in for a tour. He had listed the home himself, and was planning to close it to bids less exactly 24 hours after it went on the market. He already had more offers than he knew what to do with. It was an ideal home, but there was no use in even making an offer. It was already gone, sale pending.
In the car as we drove around, I talked (ranted?) about redlining and gentrification and housing as a human right, not an investment. But I also expressed the contradictory impulse shaped by too much HGTV in the early 2000s: Did those messy owners not know they could get 20% more for their home if they staged it? And that it would sell even faster if so?
Back in December, I drove to Nordstrom's at the fancy suburban mall to find some clothes to wear for my author photo. I headed to the Individualist section, confident as a longtime student of PNW Luxe that I would draw the attention of an experienced sales clerk simply by browsing in one of the priciest parts of the store. Sure enough, someone who had been working there since 1985 approached me. I explained what I was looking for. She scoured her section and others for the perfect outfit in colors that would bring out my eyes. I tried on a million things. I bought two pieces. As she rang me up, she told everyone else in line that I was an author getting headshots, and how great would it be if the outfit she picked out for me ended up on the book jacket?
Another elegantly dressed woman, buying many more things than me, told me she was an avid reader of nonfiction. What's the title of your book? she asked. Windfall, I said.
Ooooh, is it about money? she asked.
I laughed. It had never occurred to me that it was, not until right there at the Individualist counter. Yes, I told her. That's exactly what it's about.
Love,
Erika
THE NEWS
All the Links…
When the next affordable city is already too expensive. This line grabbed me in particular: "It’s easier to change where we live than it is to change how we live."
When the PNW Luxe vibe goes rogue in a Olympic Peninsula town overtaken by the politics of QAnon.
Boomer retirements are at the heart of the “labor shortage.”
Your yoga pants link of the week? How sustainable fashion is a myth in a growth-at-all-costs system.