Portland Neighborhoods and Suburbs

Out of Love for Portland

Portland, Oregon is an amazing place with distinct neighborhoods and suburbs, each with its own attractions and culture. We love our town! We enjoy writing about these unique spots, offering relocation tips and providing stats on Portland neighborhoods and suburb growth, development, schools, and more.

5 Best Cities (Not Suburbs) Near Portland – 2019 Update

November 5, 2019

Aren’t all suburbs cities? No! Driving around Portland’s metro area, it can be difficult to tell where one city ends and other begins. What some home buyers don’t realize is that some suburbs of Portland aren’t even cities at all. Should that matter to home buyers? We think so! Governance has a huge impact on quality of life and will impact your real estate investment down the road. City governments are local and tend to have better responsiveness for their citizens. Taxes collected locally will go directly back into the community.  Of course, that doesn’t mean you should avoid buying a home in an unincorporated community, but there are some things to be aware of. Unincorporated communities (also known as...

5 Things You Didn’t Know About Troutdale, Oregon

October 25, 2019

Located 12 miles east of Portland, at the confluence of the mighty Columbia river and its major tributary, the Sandy River, the city of Troutdale is known as the Gateway to the Gorge. You can bet that Troutdale is a tourism hotspot — but many Portland home buyers overlook it as a place to settle down.  They’re missing out. Here are five reasons why Troutdale is worth exploring for your real estate investment.  1. Troutdale is named for a fish for a reason. Dales of trout. Sea captain John Harlow bought the original land claim in the Troutdale area in 1872, and built an expansive estate. Ponds forming in the dales of his land held abundant populations of native trout...

Multnomah County. Bigger than Portland.

October 11, 2019

The name “Portland, Oregon” is known across the nation. But what about Multnomah County? This roughly banana-shaped jurisdiction follows the Oregon side of the Columbia River from Bonneville Dam to Sauvie Island. It stretches south to encompass most of the City of Portland.  Quick Facts about Multnomah County  Big little county: Area-wise, Multnomah County is the smallest of Oregon’s 36 counties. But it’s also the most populated, with an estimated 807,555 residents. Native roots: The word Multnomah (“down river” or “toward the great water”) is the name of the band of Chinookan people who originally resided in the Sauvie Island area.  We get around: In Multnomah County’s 431 square miles of land and 34 square miles of water, there are...

5 Things You Didn’t Know about Parkrose, Portland

September 23, 2019

Nestled in Northeast Portland, close to the hip Hollywood District and a short commute to downtown, Parkrose has just about anything a homebuyer could want in a Portland neighborhood. But what is it, exactly, that sets Parkrose apart as a real estate hot spot in 2019?  1. It’s even more affordable than you think. This summer, we did the research and brought you the ten 10 Most Affordable Neighborhoods to buy a home in Portland. If you haven’t read that blog post yet, here’s a spoiler alert: Northeast Portland, especially the Parkrose, Parkrose Heights, Hazelwood and Argay neighborhoods, are the most affordable in the whole city right now. Zillow estimates the median home value to be around $330K for this...

5 Amazing Features of Bethany – NW Portland

July 8, 2019

“Suburbs are cool again” proclaims the National Association of Realtors, and they’re not just talking about places to beat the summer heat! The last five years have seen the resurgence of the suburbs, while growth in major cities across the US has slowed. In fact, suburban areas now comprise close to 80% of the population of the top 50 metro areas in the US, according to a 2016 study. The Portland suburbs are booming as well. The community of Bethany, Oregon, is a textbook example of that pattern. Just outside of Portland and Beaverton, this suburb recently accounted for one of the largest expansions in the Portland metro area’s Urban Growth Boundary in recent history. Because Bethany is considered an unincorporated...

Best Portland Neighborhoods to Work from Home

June 7, 2019

Whether telecommuting, running a business or consulting, more and more people across the US are working from home. According to the US Census, 5.2% of the labor force worked from home in 2017, up from 3.3% at the turn of the century. And Forbes reports that at least 50% of Americans work from home at least part of the time.  As this trend emerges, so is the concept of the work-from-home city. Not surprisingly, the city at the heart of the Silicon Forest, Portland, is a leader of the pack. In fact, with 7.7% of Portland residents working from home, the city is No. 4 for remote workers among the top 50 metros, behind Raleigh, N.C., Austin, TX, and Denver....

New Max Line for Tigard, SW Portland Coming 2027.

May 20, 2019

Getting to the West Hills and suburbs southwest of Portland is going to be easier in a few years, thanks to a new MAX light rail line. The line will transform what’s known as the Southwest Corridor — Barbur Boulevard/Highway 99W going out to the cities of Tigard and Tualatin — with commercial development. And, if a coalition of Portland and Tigard planners get their way, there’ll be new housing to go along with it. Massive New Max Line The twelve-mile, yet-to-be-color-coded Southwest Corridor extension of the MAX system will be the longest line built since the completion of the Blue line in 1998. If all goes according to plan, the line will open in 2027 for a price tag...

Top 5 Most Affordable Portland Suburbs – 2019 Update

May 13, 2019

Affordability is a hot topic in Portland, a city with limited area and seemingly unlimited population growth. While the city struggles to keep up by building apartments, condos, and accessory dwelling units (read our article on the state of construction in Portland here), the suburbs are booming.  Why move to a Portland suburb? The tradition of moving to the suburbs from inner Portland dates back to the 1890s. Portland residents in need of more space flocked to early suburbs like Hawthorne, Irvington, and Mount Tabor (yes those were suburbs at one time) conveniently connected to the city via streetcar. Today, Portland suburbs extend south into the Willamette Valley approaching Salem, far west into Yamhill County, and far east to Corbett,...

“District” No More: Portland’s New Neighborhood

April 19, 2019

Lloyd District: A place where Portland goes to shop or attend events, with plenty of hotel rooms for out-of-town visitors. Does anybody actually live here? The answer is yes — according to the most recent census estimates, just over 2,000 people do. And they’re tired of being labeled a “commercial district”. Last year, a coalition of community groups announced that the neighborhood just across the river from the Pearl District would like to be known simply as Lloyd. The rebranding is a sign of bigger changes happening in Central Portland, with an emphasis not only on high-quality commercial and infrastructure development but on high-density housing as well.  Let’s take a look at the residential real estate opportunities happening in and...

Top 10 Portland Hottest Neighborhoods – 2019 Update

April 12, 2019

Over 9,400 homes sold in Portland in 2018, according to the RMLS, and a new analysis from Portland Monthly and geographers at Portland State University shows that most of those homes were in East Portland. The below list is based on the number of homes sold in a neighborhood last year, which means that more dense neighborhoods or those with higher populations are going to rank higher. So keep that in mind as you review the top 10 Portland neighborhoods for closed sales last year. A lot has changed in the Portland real estate market over the past couple of years. Notably, the average number of days a home spends on the market before it is sold has gone up,...