This is “Rick’s Tips” with Rick Bean, Principle Broker at Rose City Commercial Real Estate, rosecitycre.com. This episode we’ll learn why the Portland, Oregon multifamily commercial real estate market is a great investment right now.
The reason why Portland multifamily is so hot, is that Portland is enjoying a great reputation for returns from investors not just locally, but nationally. There’s a lot of money pouring into Portland and one of the reasons why is the last five years we’ve had extremely low vacancy rates. Even though there’s a lot of product being built now, anywhere you go you see it. Over the last ten years has been very little built, so even that is not destroying the vacancy rate.
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Even with lots of new multifamily units being built in Portland, vacancy rates are staying low and demand is staying high?
Huge demand. As a matter of fact, millennials are loving Portland. It is a preferred destination. Also, our tech industry is booming here. Nike’s doing well, Oregon is doing well as a whole. Oregon has lead the beacon survey, that’s the ratio of people moving out versus the people moving in. Oregon’s lead the nation the last four years and I don’t think it’s any surprise that Portland has been the driver of that.
New construction in Portland has been slow. Is that changing now, and will that raise vacancy rates?
Over the last ten years there’s been very little built. Now certainly the last few months there’s been a huge increase. Even that is not enough to wipe out all the years that there was nothing built combined with the influx of population. Portland’s the new hip place to be. Young millennials are flocking here in droves. Even with all the product being built, vacancy rates have not soared. We would expect them to soar with the amount of product currently being built, but that’s not happening.
What’s happening next in Portland multifamily real estate?
I see for the near term for vacancy rates to stay relatively low. I don’t think we’re going to see as rapid an increase in lease rates, but I think it will be somewhat stable. I think it will continue to go up. There are some laws that are not entirely favorable to investors, and yet people are still moving here and it has not changed the availability at all. One of the hardest things to find right now in Portland, is an apartment complex for sale. One of the reasons for that is they’re so desirable to multifamily investors.
There you have it…in just about the time it takes to enjoy a cup of coffee you’ve expanded your knowledge of commercial real estate. To learn more about leasing, buying, selling or investing in commercial real estate, contact Rick Bean at 503.577.1034 or sales@rosecitycre.com.