We think the answer is YES. Oregon and the Portland area continue to attract people from all over the country and the world as a desirable place to live. Our mild climate and lower cost of living than most parts of the US, abundant recreational opportunities, and pure scenic beauty, attract all types of people to the area. Second the Portland Area is under extreme pressure from a land availability perspective. Oregon has some pretty unique land use laws that stem from a major change of how Oregon land is managed that came about in 1973. The laws protect farm land and timber land above all else. Even schools have a hard time "taking" high valued farm land to build on. All cities in Oregon have what's called an Urban Growth Boundary. This perimeter is a hard line that prevents new subdivisions or industry from building outside the boundary. For the Portland area this is a "metro" Urban Grown Boundary rather than individual ones for each municipality. The process to increase this boundary is long and very public so it grows slowly and in defined areas. The result, when the area is in a growth phase as it is now, is a squeeze on available land. Metro is very conservative about adding additional land, partly to protect the areas around Portland as the law intended, but also because allowing uncontrolled spread of the city results in urban blight in the core areas (look at any major city in the eastern half of the country and you can see this. This pressure to better utilize the land inside the existing city boundaries results in major redevelopment projects all the time in Portland. The Pearl District, the South Waterfront, Alameda, Hawthorne, and many other neighborhoods have seen major projects being built and many new residents moving in.

What's Urban Growth Boundary Mean To The Investor?

Well that means that the scarcity of land and the high demand for housing has resulted in a very healthy growth in Portland Real Estate. Properties have continued to appreciate and inventory, while increasing, is still very low due to high demand. But the number of transactions is increasing year over year at the same time. These trends have been holding true for a couple of years now. Portland is a historically very stable Real Estate market and has never suffered wide spread declines in property values.