Portland’s central city’s office vacancy rate reached 30.2% by the end of 2023.
"According to Colliers, more than 1.4 million square feet of office space in downtown Portland was available for sublease at the end of 2023. The total available amount of space available for lease downtown was more than 32%. Collier expects that figure to reach 40% over the next year.
“We’re predicting vacancies to continue climbing into 2025,” Shields said. “Unlike other markets that are starting to see a turnaround, Portland hasn’t hit the bottom yet.”"
Would be really nice if more of that office space were apartments. So long as work from home numbers don't decrease too much, I can imagine those building will slowly turn to condominiums and apartments.
There are plenty of living spaces in Portland. People are leaving the core city because it's a dumpster fire. Building more housing would only make that worse.
That doesn't explain the very high price for housing. Why would the price remain so high, if nobody wants to live there? I'd argue people still want to live there.
People still think their crap Is worth a lot or they don’t want to take a loss. There is a large inventory sitting with a high dom in the down town area. That doesn’t show a large demand.
Outside of downtown, I’d agree there is a large demand.
I could agree that that may be the reason for the continued high pricing. Regardless, more housing anywhere will help maintain a lower housing price, the US is lacking housing, and portland nor Oregon are an exception to this rule.
One main reason is the influx of California money. They could get into stupid bidding wars. Covid seemed to spike the houses like crazy.
Historically Oregon has been fairly affordable. It’s only recently it’s become stupid.
Portland is seeing a population decline. I expect that to continue until the city take serious steps to restore the core.