I had to come to Reno, Nevada on personal business this weekend and couldn't help but notice how widespread foreclosures affaect markets in different ways.

Nevada is pretty much my home state and Reno my hometown. My children are fourth-generation Nevadans and I cut my professional teeth here. While we haven't lived here since 1987, we know the town well and have returned frequently to visit family.

Nevada remains among the top three states hit by foreclosures. Two things really struck me about the situation.  The first is the pervasiveness short sales and foreclosures have in real estate advertising. In Oregon, or at least Portland Metro, short sales are scarcely advertised at all. Foreclosures inhabit a niche, with the same few agents seeming to handle a fair number of them and advertising them as "Deal! Bank-owned!" or "Check out my list of bank-owned properties."

Here in Reno, though, they've been accepted as part of the norm. Nearly every agent or brokerage who advertises will have bank-owned properties in the mix, as though these were just another neighborhood. People saying they're "buying a foreclosure" say it in the same way as they might say they're "buying a house with a mountain view." It's just not a big deal.

What surprised me even more was how high-priced homes still are and how many active listings exist. In Portland Metro, listings are 'way down. Owners trying to sell are feeling downward pricing pressure and, for the most part, adjusting. In Reno, however, I really had the sense that a lot of people and developers are providing a lot of inventory, and they either won't, or can't, back off the prices.

My fear is that there're a lot of people out there in Portland Metro who want to sell, for all the usual reasons, and may try to do so in the months to come--the so-called "shadow inventory."  Will Portland Metro look like Reno--foreclosures and short sales part of the new normal, surrounded by a lot of overpriced listings?