The Seattle Times reports that Quadrant Homes has stopped building and selling at The Ridge in Gig Harbor.

The 120-lot development off Borgen Boulevard was to hold 1,500-3,100 square-foot homes for $259,000-$342,900, according to the story.

Peter Orser, Quadrant president, told the paper that the decision was "a suspension, not an abandonment" and that the stoppage would be temporary. But he acknowledged that the move was significant and attributed it to the contracting economy.

Have you bought a home in The Ridge? Or had you started the process of buying there? We want to hear from you. E-mail kathleen.cooper@thenewstribune.com with your name and a daytime phone number.

I am putting together a story about what the market is like right now, especially for first-time buyers. I tagged along with a first-time buyer as she looked at possible homes, and I spoke with agents and lenders about what buyers need to know about today's market.

How do you feel the market is for a first time buyer? Is it a good time to go from renting to owning?

What was your experience like when you bought your first home?

Pick up Sunday's paper for the story.

Real estate agents have a lot of names for the Hilltop, the centrally-situated and formerly (still?) infamous neighborhood in Tacoma. But not, typically, the Hilltop. In their listings, agents call it New Tacoma, South Downtown, Upper Tacoma.

Sure, the Hilltop has its share of image baggage. Two decades ago, the Hilltop was a mess of gangs, violence, drugs and run-down properties. Not so now. Certainly, developers have noticed, finding enough merit in the neighborhood to build several dozen new condos there in recent years. The Hilltop stretches from Division Avenue to South 28th Street and to South Sprague and Tacoma avenues.

What do you think? Does the Hilltop’s baggage make it the kryptonite of real estate marketing? Or should we call a place by its name?

Of the new neighborhood names floating out there, I don’t see any yet that’s stuck. Is one among them better than the others? Or how about a suggestion for an altogether new name? Any votes for the Hilltop?

News of another grocery store planned for downtown Tacoma, as reported in Dan Voelpel’s column today, isn’t necessarily in downtown. At least according to The News Tribune’s style guide. Or the Tacoma Downtown Merchants Group. But it is if you consult the city’s generous and recently reconfigured boundaries, which include Port property across the Foss Waterway.

These wide-ranging interpretations of downtown boundaries got us talking about where exactly downtown starts and ends. Real estate folks have a special interest in what a neighborhood is called, since the location of a property is among a listing's most basic info.

The newspaper’s definition would put some supposedly downtown condo projects, such as City Steps and McCarver Village, in the Hilltop. Along with the grocery store at South 25th Street and Yakima Avenue planned by Metropolitan Real Estate Development.

I've heard others call the area downtown, South Downtown, New Tacoma and Hillside.

What do you think? Your feedback could be used to redraw the paper’s definition of downtown.

Here's a look at the city's take on downtown boundaries:

And a look at the TNT's take on the boundaries:

I'm looking to talk to people who have experienced some impact from recent changes in home lending as banks pull back on high-risk loans (otherwise known as subprime lending). I’d like to find homeowners, prospective borrowers, real estate agents, loan officers or anyone else in the industry for a story I'm putting together for the weekend.

Call me at 253-597-8652 or email me.

At the risk of seeming Zillow obsessed, I want to throw out a question for a story I'm working on: Have you or someone you know gone to Zillow.com to change attributes (# of bedrooms, square footage, etc.) assigned to your house? The folks at Zillow say there are thousands of you in Pierce County so I'd like to talk to a few and find out how often you've changed the description attached to your property and why.

So drop me an email.