Word: longer
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...last winter, the game had changed. When the couple started looking at houses again, they found plenty in their price range. The western suburbs of Boise, Idaho - four- and five-year-old neighborhoods scattered among hay farms and potato fields - are no longer a favorite stomping ground of out-of-state speculators, no longer a surefire way to get rich in real estate. (See pictures of Boise's struggling housing market...
Among his friends, Michael is no longer the chump because now he's buying a new house, freshly marked down, in Hidden Springs, a Pleasantville-esque string of subdivisions tucked into the Boise foothills. The conscientious people who were prudent with their money are buying a nicer home. There's almost something quaint about it. Quaint and good...
...Larger homebuilders - the ones that sat on big stores of land going into the bust - have to find another way. These days, CBH Homes' headquarters, just south of Interstate 84, are chillingly quiet. The game is no longer volume - the busloads of investors from California stopped coming long ago - but efficiency. Owner Corey Barton squeezes costs wherever he can, which is why half of what CBH builds (which still isn't much) now belongs to its slimmed-down Advantage Collection. The trick: boxier floor plans cut out embellishments like bay windows and take fewer materials and less time...
After 35 years in the mortgage industry, Tom Birch took a job as a housing counselor at Boise's Neighborhood Housing Services this past winter. He spends his days meeting with people who can no longer afford their mortgage payments. It has been tough going. More than most, Birch appreciates that mortgage companies were not prepared to handle the number of cases they have seen. He also understands, again probably more than most, that foreclosure is, in certain circumstances, the right outcome...
...kids lose reading skills, communities would be better off implementing fun reading programs to keep kids growing. Childhood is a time of creativity and play. I'm not against education. I am completing my Ph.D. But I can't stand to think about my kids being behind their desks longer than they already are. Bethany Snyder, RESTON...