Overall, Portland, Oregon is 47% cheaper than Los Angeles, CA
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Your Money Goes Farther in Portland
Portland, OR
VS
Los Angeles, CA
$510,000 Portland, OR
47% Less
Median Home Cost
$980,000 Los Angeles, CA
$4,590Portland, OR
62% Less
Property Taxes(annual based on avg price home)
$12,250 Los Angeles, CA
Portland, OR Webinar
Everything you need to know about Portland, OR real estate
Webinar originally recorded for LeavingTheBayArea.com
FULL TEXT TRANSCRIPTION:
- We are live! First off, I wanna welcome you to our Market Insider Series. My name is Scott Fuller with LeavingTheBayArea.com, and every episode, we travel the country to look at some different areas that people are relocating to, some of the more popular places people from the Bay Area are choosing to go to. We provide some great information, great education, and that's exactly what we're gonna do for 45 minutes today. I'm real excited, today we are going north up to Portland, Oregon, and with me today I've got Kami Price with Premiere Property Group joining us. Welcome, Kami.
- Hi, hi, everyone!
- Okay, so here's what were gonna do. We're gonna give you some great information, but I also wanna encourage you to ask questions. So you should see a little button on your dashboard if you're watching this live. This is going to allow you to use the chat feature or raise your hand and ask questions. And so the more interaction, the better, but we're gonna try to cover everything. If there's anything that we've missed, we're happy to go ahead and answer that live here. So Kami, why don't you give me kind of like a brief background of your history in Portland and how you guys work there are far has helping people with real estate and relocation to the area?
- Okay, so I am a native Oregonian, born and raised in Southern Oregon on the coast. For you golfers, you might be familiar with the Bandon Dunes. I lived just north of that. I moved here in 1995, right after high school to go to college and haven't looked back. I am, I have been in real estate since 2004, and so I have been doing this and ridden a couple of our waves so far, and I generally sell about 80 to 100 homes a year in Portland, about 50% of those per year are relocations. So we're very familiar with our relocations and love to have clients, contrary to the popular belief that everyone hates Californians, we don't. We love all the implants.
- So you're saying that's not true. They're welcoming of Californians, and everything's good, right?
- I would say that people that I meet now, it's rare that I'm a native Oregonian, so there's--
- Got it.
- There's so many different people coming from all over the country that we're kind of a minority now, and so it's become our normal.
- Okay, got it. And a lot of the people that you're seeing coming into Portland, are they generally coming from California, are they coming from different areas in the West Coast or the U.S.?
- I get, most of my West Coast people are from California, but I also get clients from all over the U.S., anywhere from Colorado to Minnesota, Florida, I get a lot of Floridians that have come, and just basically, most of them are Californians. I would say the majority of my relos are Californians, but we also have some from all over the United States.
- Okay, awesome. So I think that what people are really interested in, at least from what we've been told in our feedback, is people are interested in learning more about the area but more specifically housing prices and some of the more popular communities in the Portland area. Obviously, we have a lot of people retiring to Portland that we've helped, and we've also had people who are maybe looking for different job opportunities, especially in tech, which we'll talk a little bit more about the tech industry and the growth there. But Kami, why don't you walk us through maybe some of the more high-growth areas, the more popular areas, and give us an idea of what it costs to be able to buy a home up in your area?
- Yes, so I can talk about both Portland and a little bit of the Vancouver market as well as we're fortunate enough to be on a border and be able to cross a couple there. So for Portland specific, it depends really on what your lifestyle looks like. We have so many different lifestyle options here. We've got, you know, if you wanna be five minutes from a coffee shop, or if you wanna be out in more of a countryside, or if you wanna be more suburbia, we have all of those options. Our most popular right now are the five minutes from a coffee shop. That's where everybody wants to be, and because of that, we're also having a lot of little inner communities within our community built around that. We've got a lot of little tiny communities, such as Sellwood, Alberta, Mississippi, Hawthorne, little tiny microcommunities within our community that offer those features. Right now, our hottest markets are North Portland, Northeast Portland. Happy Valley and South Hillsboro are our new communities where they actually have land to build newer homes. So inner-city Portland are more of what we call scraper lots where you, if there is a lot available, it gets scraped, and then a new home is built. If you're looking for a new home community, that's gonna be out in the outer areas of Portland, including Vancouver.
- Gotcha, okay, and we get a lot of inquiries about Vancouver, and we'll talk a little bit more about this when we get into kinda the tax section, but you have a lot of people who are interested in Vancouver as well, even though it's obviously north of border.
- Yes, what we see, it's kinda funny, because here in Portland, people complain about the traffic to Vancouver. For anybody that's coming from California, they laugh about our traffic complaint.
- Right.
- Because it could be a 30- to 45-minute commute to cross the bridge, and that's still a very fast commute for anybody who's lived down in traffic, actual traffic nightmares. But what we see the most is anybody who is working and wants to be in Portland, when you're in Vancouver and in Portland, you're still taxed, so it's more beneficial if you don't have to pay a state income tax, if you're retired or if you're actually working in Southwest Washington, it's more beneficial to be there because of the tax reasons. But those who are interested in coming to Portland generally wanna in Portland, they wanna be in the happening.
- Got it, okay.
- Scott, does that answer your question?
- So you're gonna have, I would imagine, a lot of those areas, I imagine you have a lot of those areas that are gonna be like kind of close to Downtown where they're kind of building up like you said, near coffee shops, things like that, and is that really for people who, younger families who are moving in, or is that retirees? Is that kind of a blend of people who are looking for those areas?
- It's a blend. I see a lot of retirees that want to be in the same situation where they can walk to the coffee shop and read their book or they can walk to the grocery store and not have to get in a car. So we see a lot of both, and what I am seeing is that young families are moving in there, and then once they start having their children grow, then they're going to the outskirts because they want the better schools.
- That's exactly the same dynamic that we see here, so very, very similar. So Kami, give us kind of an idea, you mentioned a couple of areas, like North Portland's a very popular area. Give us an idea of what you can get for the price. What are homes costing as far as, you know, whether it's a single family out in a new area or maybe new construction, things like that.
- Yeah, so one of the things I wanted to touch on, too, that is unique about Portland is, since you mentioning the new construction, we have what's called an urban growth boundary, which is what defines our city as a city.
- Okay.
- Where it's an invisible boundary where we're not allowed to build into a sprawling metro area. We have an invisible boundary that restricts us from doing so, and back in, I wanna say it was 2017, they expanded that urban growth boundary, which is why you'll see a lot of the newer construction in the outskirts. But Portland itself proper is more of a building-in-and-up city, where they're taking bigger lots and dividing them in half and adding as many properties as they can.
- Sure.
- Or they're building up into condo communities, but as far as, let me share my screen here, as far as the North Portland and the East Portland side, though, you have a smattering of homes, our median price range is about 450 right now.
- Okay.
- But you can get anything from a $350,000 condo all the way up to a million-dollar home in the same areas as you see the $450,000 homes. So if you take a look at this, this is one of the new, the infill lots, it's a new construction, we see a lot of these in our North Portland area. A lot of the homes on our east side, which is desirable, tend to look like this, we call 'em--
- I'm not sure if we're seeing your screen right now, Kami, so if, you know--
- Where we have bungalow, we don't have a screen yet, okay, let's go back. I am directly wired in, and it is saying my system is unstable. That's not good.
- Oh, okay.
- Can you see it?
- There we go!
- Can you see it now?
- Yep, I see it right there.
- So this is the example of a infill lot that I was talking about where they have divided a bigger lot and built three new-construction-type homes in North Portland. This one is between four and 424. If I scroll down here, this is a majority of what North, Northeast, and Southeast homes look like. They're more of a craftsman or a bungalow style, or Northwest Contemporary is very popular here.
- Okay.
- This is an example of another bungalow, we're seeing in the 500 ranges. Here's some--
- And about, Kami, how about how far are these from like Downtown? I mean, what's their proximity? Are they kind of just kind of scattered around the Portland area?
- They're just scattered around. If you stay anywhere inside of the 205 border on the east side, that's gonna be probably about 20 minutes to Downtown, depending on where at you're located, could be upwards to 30.
- Okay.
- The deeper you get into Southeast and Northeast, the more clogged the channels become. This is a new condo unit down there in the same sort of area. That one's off of Mississippi, which is a popular microcommunity here. This is a typical Portland-style home. You can find those in North, Northeast, Southeast, Southwest, they're all over. One of the unique things about Portland is that all of our east side is more grid-like, more flat. We do have a couple of hills, but on the east side specifically, we're more grid-like. Here's a modern home that's pretty popular being built now in Portland. I think that's also similar to California. Just a standard, average house in Portland. And if I jump over to the west side, you've got more condo options there in the Downtown area or the South Waterfront. Really, so we have a lot more bigger lots out there and not your conventional lots as you can see by this guy here is in the 400 range. And their yard isn't a typical, a lot of non-paved roads over there. And then you also have your typical normal Portland house. So it depends on where you are and what you wanna, how you want your lifestyle to be. So this is another one of the unconventional homes that I was mentioning in the West Hills.
- And I think for so--
- Kind of a new option--
- I was just gonna mention, I think for a lot of people who are watching this who are thinking, okay, you know, we're looking at price ranges, and obviously it's gonna be across the board, right? You're gonna have, you know, 350 up to multi-million, but overall, a lot of these prices we're looking at are maybe 400, $600,000, which is obviously very reasonable compared to what we're seeing in the San Francisco Bay Area. So obviously this is a lot more value, you could say, in that.
- Yeah, yeah, and so that is one of reasons why we see a lot of Californians are moving here because they're able to sell their properties at a premium down there, come here, and pay cash or mostly cash with a small mortgage for those properties.
- Sure.
- People, it's interesting because you get people from, you know, other parts of the country that are in sticker shock on the prices of our homes based on the square footage, and then you get the people from California who are always rejoicing that the price of the homes they like--
- Right.
- Are way more affordable than they're used to.
- But they get, wow, what a deal, right? So , it's all relative.
- Did you want me to show you quick Vancouver as well since we're on the property section?
- Yeah, why don't you pull it up, yeah, pull it up real quick, 'cause we've had some people ask about the Vancouver area.
- So Vancouver has just revitalized their whole Downtown area, and they've created a cute little boardwalk that's very desirable, and they're also adding a bunch of condos all the way across to make it livable down there, live, work, or walkable to shops and things like that. So you've got some condo options, and then the styles are very similar to Portland and Vancouver. If I were to lay them side by side and not put the address on there, I wouldn't be able to tell the difference. The one big difference in Vancouver is you do tend to get a little bit more house for the price. In Vancouver, their median price range is 350.
- Got it, okay.
- Ours is 450, so $100,000 difference for medians. But they have very similar qualities. They do tend to have bigger lots out there than we do here, so if yard size is something that's important. But we also have, you can see on this one over here, you have views of the river. We have views of mountains, so very pretty here. It's very green.
- Sure.
- And here's some people--
- And so it sounds like for people who wanted to be up in, you know, wanted to consider Vancouver in their search, it's still reasonable for them to be able to commute to Downtown Portland, if that's where they're working from, is that right?
- Yeah, 45-minute commute is pretty average. It can be upwards of an hour, but yeah.
- Okay.
- That's still pretty reasonable compared to what I think people are used to dealing with down there.
- Perfect, okay, awesome. So I think that gives people kind of an idea of price range, and if you wanna flip your screen back, Kami, let's talk a little bit about kind of what's going on with a lot of the home price trends. I mean, so would you define it as a seller's market, a buyer's market, and let's talk about maybe the average days on market, how competitive the market is up there right now, especially with a lot of people moving into the area?
- Yeah, so we are still in a seller's market for the median price ranges. We still are seeing multiple offers on any property that is worth it, that doesn't need a ton of upgrades, or if it's priced well, we will see multiple offers. I think I wrote six offers last week, and every single one of 'em was competing, and that is also the same in Vancouver. It is a multiple-offer situation up there, and because of that, it makes it a seller's market.
- Okay.
- Now, if we're talking condos or anything that's above six or 650, that is trending to more of a neutral market where it's not quite a buyer's market yet, but it's not a full seller's market. We're seeing prices, more price drops on those type of properties and more negotiating power.
- Okay.
- With that being said, if it's a super commodity property, we are still seeing multiples in both situations.
- So right, so you mentioned maybe around--
- Sellers and--
- That 650 mark and below, you're gonna see a large amount of competition, above 650, maybe a little bit less, is that right?
- Yep, yes, that is correct.
- Okay, perfect. Let's talk, so a lot of the people that are moving from California, especially in your area, and you're probably seeing this already, are at retirement age, nearing retirement age, and maybe they're looking for kind of an active 55-plus community, touch on that a little bit about maybe a couple of the popular communities that you guys have up there that people tend to be drawn to and also maybe what those price ranges look like.
- Yeah, so we have several retirement community options on all sides of the river, so Vancouver, east side, and west side. We also have an entire city called King City that is a majority 55-and-older communities. They have opened it up recently to expand out with that urban growth boundary to have non-55-and-older communities, but it is largely just 55 and older. Price ranges, again, in our 55-and-older communities are about the same. I mean, you can get a condo for 300,000, or you can get a single-family residence for up to six. It just depends on what you're looking for. A couple of the communities that come to mind.
- Kami, it sounds like we're losing some of your audio here.
- Up here that, okay, how about now, can you hear me now?
- Yeah, it's just kinda cutting in and out, but keep going.
- Yeah, it keeps saying my internet is unstable, which is interesting because I'm hardwired. A couple of popular communities, if you're following kids on the east side, Summerplace, we've got the city of King City, obviously, and then Summerville is on the west side. We also have a couple of progressive retirement communities, such as Marylhurst has a big one, or Mary's Woods they call it. There's also several being built currently not far from Downtown where you can buy in and move progressively. They have single-family residence, then you can transfer into a condo unit, and then you can transfer into assisted living, and then nursing home if that's the trajectory you're going on, so we have lots of different 55-and-older-type communities that are available. It just depends on what you want.
- Yeah.
- Vancouver also has, for the same reason, I think everyone's recognizing the baby boomers are needing that or wanting that type of environment, so that's a focus here.
- Sure, and let's talk a little bit about--
- I was looking--
- Along with, you know, the 55-plus, a lot of what they're looking for that we hear quite a bit is how is the access to health care. So you wanna be relatively close to health care service providers, tell us a little bit about kind of some of the major hospitals and just locations of those.
- Yeah, we have major hospitals all over Portland metro area. We've got state-of-the-art OHSU, which is up on what we call Pill Hill. It's up in the West Hills, and it sits next to also the Veterans Hospital, and it's a teaching hospital, so it's also a college. We've got a naturopathic university here. It's one of the leading in the nation. We've got hospitals all over. We've got St. Vincent's Hospital, the Providence network, we've got Legacy networks, Kaiser networks, we have two Hillsboro, three Kaiser hospitals that are available that are state of the art. And we also have a huge chiropractic college here that's also available for teaching chiropractic, so we have a ton of natural medicine options as well. So we've got Western and Eastern medicine all over the place.
- Yeah, yeah.
- And that is also the same in Vancouver. There's some pretty big names up there in the Legacy and Providence system, too, so getting to a hospital anywhere you are in Portland should be 10 to 15 minutes.
- Got it, okay, so obviously that's all available, and Kaiser is very large, at least in the Bay Area, so that's probably good for some people to hear that Kaiser's also available up in your area. Let's jump into a little bit of the industry and employment because one thing you had mentioned to me before is the Silicon Forest, is that right?
- Yes, the Silicon Forest.
- So let's talk about some of the industry and what you're seeing up there as far as high-growth industry and employment centers.
- Yeah, so we have a ton of tech centers here. We've got a big Intel campus. This is where they call us the Silicon Forest as opposed to the Silicon Valley because you're in the midst of our forest here. We've got Tektronix, we've got ESI, we've got Hewlett Packard, they all have big campuses here in the Portland metro area. Hewlett Packard is in Vancouver. So the tech industry is pretty prevalent here. Apple just actually is opening a design center up here. The rumor is, and of course I don't have actual release to say this, but the rumor is they're planning on doing about 200 employees up here in their design center. So we're also a big shoe mecca. So we've got a lot, we've got, Nike's World campus is here. It was born and raised here. We've got an adidas campus, we've got KEEN, we've got Under Armour, we've got Columbia. We've got a lot of the shoe-dominant industries here. Under Armour just moved their headquarters here, I think it was last year or two years ago, so we've got a lot of big industries here that can support that. Those are the major industries that we have here, and then you've got of course the OHSU teaching hospital where a lot of residents are here, which is part of our big medical community as well.
- Right, and I was looking at, obviously tech is of special interest to a lot of Bay Area residents. If they're here in tech and they're thinking can my dollar go farther somewhere else, and obviously Oregon, Portland, can be a consideration for that, to kind of to go on to what you're saying about Intel, I guess if they're looking to add on to their Hillsboro factory, potentially a billion-dollar expansion of 1,750 jobs, and I was also reading in Oregon Live that Amazon is potentially looking to add nearly two million square feet of warehouse space in North Portland, and it looks like Nike maybe, again, we can't substantiate all this, it's all kind of rumors until they come out and say it's really going on.
- Hearsay, yeah.
- But they may be looking to add three buildings of up to 1.3 million square feet of a price of more than a billion. So obviously we've got a lot of growth in the tech sector, but then you kinda look at that and you say, well, what has to be here to support that, it's construction. And so I would imagine just with the construction industry up there, it's just going crazy. Are you seeing that?
- Yes, absolutely going crazy. Everywhere you look, there's a new building, and also contractors are very hard to find because they're all so busy.
- Yeah.
- Yeah, and then I would also maybe even add to that, in addition to the tech companies that we have, the ability to commute and work from your house is also drawing a lot of people here. So we have people that are working on, for example, San Francisco salaries and moving here where it's a less fast-paced lifestyle and a cheaper comparatively lifestyle, so they're buying homes on San Francisco-based salaries and still working for those companies remotely.
- And so what you're saying is that you have people that are moving up there, buying there, are still basically telecommuting but working for their same company in San Francisco.
- Yes.
- Wow.
- We're seeing a lot of that.
- Yeah, and it's awesome for people that have that option, right, because you can experience a lower cost of living, probably a higher quality of life, and be able to keep that same salary, like you said. So it's really, for people who have that option and that opportunity, I think it really makes sense for them to look into it.
- Yeah, I agree.
- Yeah, okay, great. So let's get into a little bit about taxes, and I wanna mention we did have somebody who had mentioned, I think if you live in Vancouver but work in Oregon, you still have to pay Oregon income taxes, right?
- Yes.
- Because you are earning it in Oregon.
- That's right.
- Now, a lot of people I think come to us and they say we're looking at Portland, but we're particularly interested in Vancouver, and maybe that's because it's implied that there's going to be a tax advantage. Is that right?
- I think that that is the implication. However, if you work in Oregon, you do have to pay income tax, you don't get a tax break. But if you are living in Washington and you either work there or you're retired there, you don't pay the state income tax. If you live in Oregon and you retire, you do have an income tax that you have to pay.
- Got it, okay, so just to make sure I've got this right. So Washington does not have a state sales tax, right?
- No, Washington has a state sales tax, Oregon does not.
- Or I should say income tax, and okay--
- Oh, income tax, yes.
- And Oregon, where you're at, there is no sales tax.
- There's no sales tax, that is correct.
- Okay, got it, and a lot of people, I mean, it's California, one of the claims to fame amongst a lot of the great things, the not-so-fortunate things, we have the highest state income tax in the country right now, which can be from 7.25% up to in the 12% range, and so for a lot of people, they're thinking, you know, whether it's Oregon or whether it's Washington, maybe there's an advantage to look at some of those areas that don't have an income tax or don't have a sales tax. We also have sales tax that generally starts, it's per county, but it generally starts about 8.25%, kinda getting hit with a double whammy, right, on both ends of that.
- Yeah.
- So it sounds like there are some advantages, whether it's in Vancouver. Again, I think people really need to talk to their CPA or financial planner to find out based off of where you're working and where you claim your residence, how does it actually impact you, but that helps you to look at some options and say this could help us out even more financially if we were to look at Portland to potentially relocate to.
- Yeah, and our tax, our state income tax rate is five to 10, upwards to 10%. It all depends on your income and filing status. So that's for our general state income. In Washington, the sales tax is about 6.5%.
- Okay.
- So it kinda feels like you either take one or the other, and it's roughly about the same.
- Yeah, so really, I mean, it's almost like quality of life. Where do you, and for a lot of people, they're going there for a certain reason. It's either for a job or family or maybe just kind of a new beginning, but kind of doing the full calculations to find out what's that end result going to look like financially for you.
- Yeah, I'm actually seeing a lot of people, surprisingly enough, trying to escape the heat of California, like, they need it for medical purposes, they need to be in a cooler climate so they're moving here specifically for that.
- Interesting, okay.
- Yeah.
- So let's get into climate because I think people think that Portland's kind of cold and dreary and rainy and misty and whatever it is, but talk a little bit about what the climate is like there. Today, let me look at the window, today we are blue skies and sunny. Yesterday, we were drizzly and rainy. We kind of say that Portland has multiple personalities as far as weather goes. One day can be 56 degrees and pouring-down rain, and the next day can be 75 and blue skies and sunny. So the weather here consistently is about 60-ish degrees all year round, if I'm gonna do an average. Summers here are beautiful. We're green for a reason, and that's because we do have a lotta rain.
- Yeah.
- In the wintertime, we get a lot of rain precipitation. We don't get a lotta snow here. We get about a week, maybe two. If it's a really bad winter, we might get three weeks of snow where the whole city shuts down, but it's very rare that that happens. We didn't have any big snow days really last year, maybe one or two. So the climate in the winter's very mild. It doesn't get super freezing here a lot. It stays relatively warm, 50s, 60s. Californians will be cold for at least a while until they acclimate, but--
- Unless if you're in San Francisco, because I think that tends to get generally cold also just with the cloud cover, but you'll have, you know, nice days in the summertime as well.
- Yeah, and summers in Portland are beautiful. We don't get excruciatingly hot, hot days. We do have a couple of weeks, it's similar to our snow. We have a couple of weeks where it's unbearable. A lot of people here actually don't have air conditioning because it's not always necessarily needed except for a couple of weeks in the summer. So we, average temperature's in the 70s, I would say, 70s are pretty normal for our summers, on the upper end in July, August, September, sometimes even through October depending on how late the season ends up going. But it's fairly mild, we don't have a lot of extremes. We don't have a lot of extreme cold, we don't have a lot of extreme heat. With that being said, we also have easy access to both of those if that's what you like. We've got mountains very close by that you can go, and there's snowcaps on the mountains all year round. We also have a eastern, or you know, Central Oregon, Eastern Oregon that are desert climates 3 1/2 hours away if you really need a heat to get into the, get the warm back into your soul, if you will.
- Sure. So for people who enjoy snow skiing and they're used to going up to Tahoe or snowboarding or whatever it might be, how far are the nearest ski resorts? And then on the flip side of that, in the summertime, how far are you from the coast from Portland as well as maybe like boating, and so different things like that?
- So we're surrounded by water here. We've got lots of boating activities happening. You can do the Willamette, the Columbia, there's some smaller rivers, you know, tributary rivers that are around that people enjoy taking their boats out on, we've got lakes. All around us, we're surrounded by water. So if water sports are your thing, there's a lot of opportunity here for that. As far as skiing goes, we've got Mount Hood that's 45 minutes from Downtown Portland. It's really close to, we've also got, and there's several ski resorts up there. You've got Skibowl, which is huge for snowboarding, and there's several different kinds of resorts up there. And then there's also Central Oregon and Bend which is not too far away where you've got Mount Bachelor and you've got some other ski resorts out that way. Sun River's a big ski community. It's also a big summer community, too. As far as the beach goes, depending on where you're at in Portland, you can be 30 to 60 minutes away from the beach, and our beaches are colder than California beaches. Average temperature there is more like 60s, 50s, 60s.
- Sure.
- But it's still that fresh, salty air that people crave, and we do have some beautiful days at the coast as well. And it's very easy access to do any of those things, and there's tons of hiking. So if you're an outdoor person, we've got Forest Park which is kind of parallel to Downtown, it has over 80 hiking trails in it, and it's 5,200 acres, or 50, is it 57? I can't remember.
- Wow. That's big!
- It's huge, it's big.
- Yeah.
- And it's very popular hiking all through there. Plus you also have Multnomah Falls which is beautiful, and there's a ton of different falls you can go to for hiking, and hiking up in the gorge is beyond beautiful. There's just so much to do. The gorge itself, in addition to, I'll touch on this in a second, but wine country, you've got windsurfing and tons of hiking up through the gorge, and that's an hour away if that on a good day.
- Okay.
- We're also huge on wine country up here, and I know you've got your Sonoma Valley down there, but we've got so many good, delicious world-renowned wineries up here, either in the Dundee area, we've also got them in Salem, we've got them in Eastern Oregon, we've got them in Eastern Washington, we've got them in the Vancouver area. They're just everywhere, wineries, good wineries are at your beck and call. I actually do an annual wine tour for my birthday every year and have for the last 10 years, and we pick three wineries every year to go to, and I don't think we've repeated yet.
- That's awesome, how fun. Well, and it's interesting because just listening to what you said in the last three or four minutes, how you're describing the activities, the topography, location, you'd almost, it's almost like you're describing the Bay Area, and I think that's a big draw for people to go up to the Portland area is because it's really not too different from that. I mean, here it's kind of the same thing. You're a couple hours from Lake Tahoe. You're maybe anywhere between, well, five minutes to maybe 45 minutes to the coast. You've got a lot of those outdoor activities, and then you have, like you said, Sonoma, Napa, and a lot of other wine country. So it's almost like you're going up there, and you're really the same quality of life, those same activities that you enjoy doing you can continue to do in the Portland area.
- Yes, yes, they are very, very similar.
- Yeah, talk about, 'cause I know we have a couple people who may be interested in investing in real estate in Portland, and I wanna, just real quick, if anybody has any questions, feel free to pop those on right now, but for people who might be looking to invest in Oregon, whether it's because at some point they intend to move there, so maybe they wanna have some rental income, and they're preparing to move there to make it their primary in a couple years, or obviously, we haven't touched a lot on education, but there's a lot of opportunity for investment real estate. What would be some of the recommendations that you would make for an average investor in different areas that make sense more than others?
- As far as areas go in the investment world, of course, the inner, the closer you are to Downtown Portland, the better the investment is just by the nature of the growth rate and the potential income earnings in that area. People pay more to rent in the areas that are desirable. I would think it would be very important to talk with or do some research on our new rental laws, and we have some new things that have happened in the last year or so where they passed some rental cap laws and some, specifically in the city of Portland, some tenant evacuation laws.
- Okay.
- And so I am not an attorney and I am not an expert in either of those things because usually my role is to help them purchase it, and then their role is to figure out the tenant world. So I don't do property management, but there are some specific rules and regulations here on how you can get a tenant out of a home if you need to. So I would say definitely researching that, and I see a lot of investors that come here that want a specific cap rate and they want a specific size of building, and we're limited on what sizes of buildings we have. It's not like, we're not a sprawling metro area, so we don't have a ton of options for six and above condo units, or you know, we do have duplexes and triplexes and fourplexes smattered throughout the city, but it's not like we have big condo building-type options for somebody or apartment-type options for somebody to buy a whole giant 100-unit building.
- Right.
- But I would also say that because we're still in a seller's market, a lot of investors wanna get a deal, and you don't get a deal in Oregon right now, regardless of what you're looking for.
- Yeah.
- It it what it is, and you can't expect to low-ball by $200,000 if that's what you're looking to do.
- And I think it all depends on what the goals of the investor are. You're gonna have some investors who are very astute, experienced, and say, okay, I'm looking for seven to 8% cap rate, I'm looking for a 15- or 20-unit apartment building, but then some might say we're looking for something that's gonna cash-flow with average leverage on financing.
- Or a single-family residence.
- You know, 30 to 40% down, and then we might move there at some point, and so it sounds like even though they might not get a huge deal on it, there would still be and opportunity for them. But like you said, it sounds like Oregon is very similar to California in that it favors heavily tenants, right, so it's something where obviously, if somebody wanted to get some more information on how that law works, you're not an attorney, but you can get them in touch with somebody who is an attorney that could kind of tell them a little bit more about what to look out for and what the limitations are and exposure, right?
- Yeah, I have several people that I just direct to because they're the experts, and I want clients to have the most accurate information, and I don't generally deal with that side. So I do have tons of references for that kind of information. One of the, there is a website that is my favorite to refer to client side, it's the Coalition Alliance of Tenants Law or something, and I love to send clients there because that is the laws that the tenants themselves and reading and comprehending and understanding. So it's kind of like looking at it from another perspective of what are the tenants viewing their rights at.
- Right.
- So I also have that as on option to help direct people if they're looking to do investments. But we also have that all the time, too, where people buy a home and sit on it until they're ready to retire there because it's more affordable to buy a home here than it is in the Bay Area, so they wanna put their money somewhere.
- Yeah, absolutely, and then everybody's situation is a little bit different with that. So okay, Kami, this has been awesome. Anything that maybe we didn't cover or that you wanna kinda mention that is of interest or maybe a commonly asked question that you get from people who are coming into the area?
- I think we've covered basically everything. The biggest questions that I get from my out-of-state buyers are just pretty much everything we've covered, what's the attraction there and what's the difference between Portland and Vancouver. That's the biggest one that I get.
- Yeah.
- And I think we've touched on that, and then where are the hot areas? We have them all over, so it just depends on what lifestyle you're looking for, we pretty much have it. Depending on what you're looking for, it's available here.
- That's great, and I think also, you know, the feedback that we get is that people are kind of in a exploratory stage. So some people might say, okay, I have an imminent move coming up because there's a life change, let's say there's a job change or something like that, and some people are thinking, you know, I'm retiring in three years or five years, and I wanna kind of just start doing my research, but I don't wanna make a commitment. So is that a situation where if somebody wanted to come up and just spend a day with you or one of your team members to kinda look around and get to know the area a little bit, is that something you guys can help them out with?
- Yeah, it depends on the situation, but oftentimes we'll refer 'em to specific areas, specific restaurants. We always tell people if you're gonna do that, come up here and stay in an Airbnb.
- Okay.
- We can help with an idea on which would be an area that sounds like it will fit you, but that way, you're living in the neighborhood instead of a hotel that's out by the airport or whatnot. You wanna be in--
- That's a great point. That's really good, I like that.
- Yeah, so that's one of the things that we do. And as far as doing a home tour itself, we're always happy to get into a smattering of homes so that they can kinda get a feel for what Portland markets look like, but we often just send them on more of a scavenger hunt, go check out this neighborhood and drive around it, go have dinner in this neighborhood, go watch a show in this neighborhood, and get a feel for what it is that you like to do, and then we can hone in on what areas look like.
- Yeah.
- Because there's so much to offer here, and what often people do is they move here and then they go, oh, actually, I like that neighborhood better, whereas if you're getting a chance beforehand to live it, and come up for a weekend. I mean, you guys aren't that far, so it's easy to pop up here for a weekend. Airfare's cheap, or even driving is not that bad.
- Yep.
- And that's kinda how we deal with this case by case. So we're always happy to show some houses and give some guidance on that, absolutely.
- Okay, awesome. All right, well, Kami, I think we're right on the dot or just about 12:45 here, so thank you so much for spending the 45 minutes with everybody today. And again, my name is Scott Fuller. If you have any questions on any of the information that we covered, you can reach out to us directly, info@LeavingTheBayArea.com. And Kami, we'll be in touch. Appreciate your time again, and take care.
- Thank you for having me. Goodbye, everybody!
- You're welcome. Okay, bye, everybody.
Cost of Living Comparisons
Portland, OR VS Los Angeles, CA
36.5% less
Cost to Rent
14.7% less
Utilities
0.4% less
Food & Groceries
3.9% less
Health Costs
21.4% less
Transportation
28.2% less
Auto Insurance (Annually)
100% less
Auto Sale Tax
2.8% less
Auto Registration (Annually)
100% less
Sales Tax
72.2% more
State Income Tax
3.2% more
Child Care
Commute Comparison
| Portland, OR | Los Angeles, CA | |
Average Commute Times |
24 mins | 31 mins |
Comparison of gas prices |
$3.39 | $3.79 |
Live Traffic Comparison
Portland, OR
Los Angeles, CA
Climate
Portland
Los Angeles
78
Average Summer High84
53
Average Summer Low62
48
Average Winter High67
36
Average Winter Low46
144
Sunny Days Per Year284
43
Rain (inches per year)16
3
Snow (inches per year)0
Current Temperature in Portland, OR
Portland Area Tour
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