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Originally Posted by urbanlife
What everyone is saying is that these new developments aren't the reason why rents are going up
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Agreed. They're only part of it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by urbanlife
Portland being an attractive place to live combined with an extremely low vacancy rating is what makes the rents go up. The new developments just help with expanding supply.
In theory adding more units is what makes the rent go down, but that would require more units than demand for that to actually happen.
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Exactly. And building more units than the demand isn't possible, especially when you consider how development leads to even more demand in a specific neighborhood because, with more housing comes more people which leads to more pubs and shops and restaurants and action, which leads to more people wanting to live there - all of which, I should add, is good. We want vibrant walkable neighborhoods.
Portland is an attractive place to live, and that brings more people from across the country to the city as a whole, and each specific development increases the vibrancy of its specific neighborhood.
I'm surprised some seem to be misunderstanding what I'm getting at, so, let me put it this way:
In my experience, it seems that people from across the state and the country move to the Portland area. They move from Ohio to Beaverton, or Idaho to Vancouver, or maybe from New York into NW Portland. They arrive. That's stage one.
In stage two, people shift locally and settle into a neighborhood as they try to find where the action is, at least for a while until they shift and settle again. Maybe they moved to Vancouver because it was cheaper, but then after a year they realized Hawthorne is where they want to be, so they go there. Then, as new development starts popping up all over inner SE, they decide that's where the action is, so they move to be part of it. But they can't afford the shiny new high end apartments that rent for $1500 and up, so they jump on a sweet bargain they find for 900 in an older building. What they don't know - or even care about - is that the $900 apartment used to rent for $500 before the neighborhood became the Next Big Thing. And inner SE is going to be the next big thing. It has to be, frankly. There's too much opportunity there, and that's good. Hell, it's great! I've been wondering for over a decade why it hadn't happened already. There's so much potential there. But an unfortunate byproduct of all of the new development and the new pubs and shops and eateries and whatever else comes with an influx of new people is even more people. Nothing draws a crowd like a crowd. And that means even more competition for not just the new housing, but the old housing too. It drives prices up.
It's like when an Apple Store opens. All of a sudden, the retail spaces around that store become more valuable because foot traffic goes up.
Sadly, the only way I know of to push down prices is for an area to become undesirable - and none of us want that to happen. Obviously. I'm cheering for the new development that's on the way. BRING IT! I'm excited about Portland's future, but I'm nervous about the increasing cost of housing.
The challenge is, how do we keep Portland from pricing out Portlanders? I don't have an answer.