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.

Portland Zip Code Map 2020 Update

April 6, 2020

“What’s the zip?” Zip codes are so much a part of everyday life that we hardly even notice them. Whether shopping for real estate, verifying a credit card or sending a piece of mail, Portland zip codes are a convenient shorthand for location. Also, if you’re new to a city and don’t yet know the zip codes, they can be frustrating! Enter the Portland Zip Code Map. Metro, the regional governing body for Portland and surrounding areas, has the definitive zip code map, available in full-size pdf for handy saving and printing by clicking the thumbnail below. It covers Portland, west to Forest Grove, north into the state of Washington, east to Troutdale and Estacada, and south as far as...

South Portland = New Official Oregon Address

March 23, 2020

In spring of 2020, the City of Portland is rolling out a new official address area: South Portland. Although it’s a small area, it contains important centers for jobs and healthcare, as well as a wide range of housing. In this blog post, we’ll take a look at how South Portland came to be, what defines it, and what the future is for real estate. Why a new South Portland address area? In addition to Southeast, Southwest, North, Northeast and Northwest, there is now a South Portland as an official address area of the city, just south of downtown on the Willamette River. (For real estate and other purposes, we also usually refer to everything east of 82nd Ave as...

Top 5 Portland Neighborhoods: 2020 update

February 17, 2020

Searching for a home in Portland in 2020, but not sure where to start? In this blog post, we give you an overview of where the neighborhoods are in Portland. Then, we name our top 5 hot picks for affordable, fun, and friendly places to live in the city. What are the Five Sections of Portland? To be prepared to look at homes in Portland, home buyers should familiarize themselves with the Big Five: The Southwest, Northwest, North, Northeast and Southeast sections of Portland. These areas are defined by rivers and major roads, and each has their own unique character. Check out PortlandNeighborhood.com for an incredible clickable Portland neighborhood map, and guide, as well.) Southwest. When you enter Portland from...

Top 5 Highest Rated Elementary Schools – Portland Metro 2020

February 10, 2020

Talk to five students attending any given school in the Portland area, and you’re likely to get five different answers to the question “Is this a good school?” The truth is, there are many factors impacting student performance in 2020, from teachers to administration, to the student’s own home life and level of interest.  On the other hand, there are schools that excel – and some that don’t – in measurable areas like graduation rates, student-to-teacher ratio, and staff turnover. While we can’t give a complete picture of what life is like in every school in the Portland metro area, what we’ve done here is gleaned the Top 5 public elementary schools, using two trusted online sources for school performance...

Is Portland Safe? – 2020 Update

January 13, 2020

Is Portland safe, is a legitimate question as Portland, Oregon has been in the news often as of late with many hours of newsreels focused on Antifa and Proud boys or Portland’s growing homeless population. I promise this will not be another polictically opinionated piece in response to that question, but a relaying of the facts. I’m a local real estate agent in Portland, licensed here since 2003, and so livability and quality of life, as you might imagine, is one of the most important things to my present and future clients. The question of whether Portland is safe or parts of Portland are safe, is an important one to my real estate profession. Portland Safety Ratings and Crime Map...

Top 3 Portland Neighborhoods for Highly Rated Elementary Schools: 2020 Update

January 6, 2020

Research shows that home values near top-performing schools are valued higher, (whether that is a good or bad thing is not being discussed here, rather reporting that it is a reality) and 50% of buyers say they’ll pay more for a home if it’s near a desirable school. The Portland area is home to hundreds of schools, but not all perform equally. We’ve sorted through the highest rated public elementary schools in the city and matched them with their Portland neighborhood. 1. Southwest Hills The schools: Ainsworth Elementary has a long history in Portland, going back to 1914. The three-story brick building is local landmark, and the school has a robust music and art program as well as a Spanish Immersion...

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...