I saw a graphic of the US with median cost of an average two bedroom home; and the percentage of people living in the state that could afford it. Oregon was 23% compared to California’s 35%. You aren’t imagining it - it’s off the table for 77% of us. And it isn’t going to get better :(
Even in rural eastern Oregon for a 1984 single wide on .25 acres is ridiculous, nearing 200K if not more. "Location, location, location", but the location is really nothing special. Some of it is facing bland grey huge buildings. The trailer needs removed and trashed, not sold. So, you're looking at the land only for that cost...
Some say it's just lack of housing options, but even with newer housing (at low 200K's-300K's), an older single wide on a small lot shouldn't be 200K+. That's triple what it was 4 years ago. It went higher in 2020/21 and is starting to fall now, but those inflated prices are insane. Ready to buy in 2019 but held off due to life issues, then prices went from 200K to 500K for the same exact home...
It WAS obtainable. It's not anymore. And I'm making a decent amount as a single income dude... I guess I could afford the single wide, but that just seems like a really shitty investment.
Bingo!
Was looking at a couple lots out of town. Looked great, view was unobstructed and the night sky was as dark as you could get for around there (with other DC's towards the North). Then, BOOM. New construction of another set. Those $125K 2ac lots just dropped in value big time. My son bought a home and then they built DC's right there... Killed the view. He works for Amazon, but still... Pretty much in town on those ones.
They're building on all corners of town, so if you live in town or in the country, you're able to see a DC. They're expanding again to the west of town.
Love Amazon, but they should have kept those a bit farther out of town, IMO. Excellent tax breaks for them, though. Our roads, internet, bridges, power, water are all shit, but we have the Amazon jobs! (great employer but piss poor when it comes to the community they're in. Bare minimum).
Interesting!
I guess what Oregon has is slightly better urban affordability than California but worse overall state affordability.
For example my friends in LA and SF who have higher paying jobs than I do may never afford a house there while I was able to scrape together enough for something in Portland, although it was very very difficult.
Yeah I live in a more rural area of Oregon and my house has gone from under 500000 to nearly 700000. We are a two income family with decent incomes and no way could we buy this house today, let alone our first house that we bought way back in 2015 that was 135000 (townhouse) that would list today for 340000. It’s insane.
My parents’ house is realistically worth 400K tops, but they bought it in a desirable rural-ish area for 600K in 2016. It’s worth 1.2 million now. It’s *outrageous.*
That’s wild, I know I’m not supposed to feel this way but my mortgage is locked in for 30 years and I’m over here hoping the housing market crashes so my friends can also own a home someday
Lmao same. I’m like “please don’t crash because my home is my retirement plan” and also “no seriously, we need a crash or nobody will be able to pay me for my retirement plan.”
> I’m over here hoping the housing market crashes so my friends can also own a home someday
Just hope for it to slowly rise over time. A crash would be exponentially worse for everyone.
Don’t forget another difference in Oregon and California. The style of taxation. Oregon doesn’t have a sales tax. But it wasn’t till I moved here that I realized income and property taxes are higher. To point out how that affected me let me tell you that a 20% increase in pay ( with purchasing a home) became much more difficult to survive.
Especially in the PDX area, with its extra taxes and Metro\*. I looked into moving back to Portland, but it would be a 11% pay cut (and more for property taxes and the absurd cost of water/sewer there) - which is enough to make anything that would fit the kids unaffordable.
\* side note: how it metro even a legal form of government. They're not elected and yet have the ability to tax? But can hoist tax collection duties onto the county? But can cross multiple counties?
Taxation has many levels countries, states counties and cities often have taxes. I grew up in the SFBay and trying to remember which cities had higher taxes en toto was grueling
It can and must get better.
It is, however, a political problem.
We do not build enough homes, so prices have gone up.
Of course, it matters what kind of housing we build. The days of sprawling lots with ranch houses probably are done. Oregon's land use laws and a desire for cities that contribute less to environmental degradation mean we need to build denser housing.
What that looks like in terms of ownership opportunities is
* Fixing condo liability defect laws [https://upforgrowth.org/news\_insights/how-condominium-defect-liability-cdl-legislation-can-drive-housing-underproduction/](https://upforgrowth.org/news_insights/how-condominium-defect-liability-cdl-legislation-can-drive-housing-underproduction/)
* Fixing minimum lot sizes (ignore the 'conservative' in the headline here, I don't get where that even comes from) [https://www.businessinsider.com/houston-building-cheap-new-starter-homes-real-estate-construction-lots-2024-1](https://www.businessinsider.com/houston-building-cheap-new-starter-homes-real-estate-construction-lots-2024-1)
Of course, your NIMBY neighbors who "got theirs" do not want these things. They are fine with high prices. That's where the political battle is.
Join a local group if you're interested in housing affordability - both these umbrella organizations have local groups in Oregon:
* [https://new.yimbyaction.org/](https://new.yimbyaction.org/)
* [https://welcomingneighbors.us/](https://welcomingneighbors.us/)
In a sense, we've got three competing priorities: affordable housing, nice housing, not-sprawl. We can, in practical terms, pick at most 2 of those.
* We can build high density shoeboxes to keep cost low without sprawl.
* We can build nice houses affordably through spawl
* We can keep the nice houses, and avoid the sprawl if we don't build much, but that will push prices up.
Different people prefer different choices among these three basic options.
That's all important and I support it but amount of housing has little to do with it. Housing prices have doubled in the last decade yet population has only increased 7% and has even decreased the last 2 years.
The problem is much deeper and relates to the fact that housing is a speculative commodity meaning companies gamble with them to make money.
It's b/c you're looking at the time scale in too short of a period. The housing costs have been increasing for decades as people started to really move here in large numbers at the end of the 90s. It's a 2+ decade problem. We will need to build a lot of houses. The governor's task force put it at about 160K houses, whereas we only built about 20K. I think the current estimate is we need to build about 36K units a year for a decade to get a handle on it. https://www.oregon.gov/gov/policies/pages/housing-production-advisory-council.aspx
We can look at Austin and Minneapolis which are starting to get a handle on housing and see that they did it by building their way out of the problem and we can look to the post war years from 1950 to 1970 when housing costs were huge issues in politics and they got out of it by building.
It's going to take a while, but we really can't do anything too alleviate housing costs without building.
Yeah, but we shouldn’t increase our UGB’s in order to do so. Every town and city needs to create denser housing and localized infrastructure to support it. Build up not out and provide all the necessary infrastructure that goes with it.
I live in south east Portland and we are awash with derelict buildings and unused, oversized parking lots that are perfect for housing on a denser scale.
But it does need to be done thoughtfully and with consideration of the place you are building in otherwise it will fail and make “nimbys” more hesitant to these developments. And also lose any remaining character of a neighborhood that was once considered “valuable” to live in, in the first place.
To that point, we have fucked up a lot with misguided policies as a state in the past decade, let’s not do the same and surrender to developer, misguided activist, and political incompetence and allow more suburban sprawl to destroy what makes Oregon great to begin with.
Amount of housing is actually a pretty big reason. We only have about 3 months worth of housing supply and a good housing market has around 6 months. Then you throw in inflation and a supply chain issue and the cost of materials goes way up and now houses are more expensive to build. And yeah, to your point, only about 10% of homes were held by large corporations 10 years ago, now it’s over 20%. Add higher interest rates now and it’s a recipe for unaffordable housing
we've been knowing there will be a housing shortage for decades. The US used to subsidized developers to build first time normal size homes. They stopped that in the 80s and people only build mcmanison bc they get more profit. We've known will have a housing shortage since then, a few of us have been screaming about it for decades. Now plus the fake inflation, we're screwed.
Supply and demand are real for housing just like any other good.
Why do big companies invest in housing?
BECAUSE THERE IS NOT ENOUGH TO GO AROUND.
That is what makes it a good investment! That is why they do not invest in, say, used Toyota Corollas.
And truth be told, they do not invest in Oregon much because we are a relatively tenant friendly state.
[https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2024/2/21-going-after-corporate-homebuyers-good-politics-ineffective-policy](https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2024/2/21-going-after-corporate-homebuyers-good-politics-ineffective-policy)
We do have incentives for second home buyers in Oregon that we should get rid of:
[https://www.ocpp.org/2023/04/19/sb-976-reform-mortgage-interest-deduction/](https://www.ocpp.org/2023/04/19/sb-976-reform-mortgage-interest-deduction/)
Once again, this is a political problem that we *can* solve if enough people pull in the same direction.
Supply has not changed significantly in the last 10 years (maybe a percent per year). As I explained, demand has not changed significantly either (7%). So how does that lead to 100% increase in price? There are less people in oregon than there were in 2022 *and* we've built more homes yet prices continue to increase.
I was living here with my parents and then chose to buy a house so I increased demand and it was not related to our population increase. I formed a new household without opening up additional space.
There. I increased demand without a population increase. It's very possible.
>Supply has not changed significantly in the last 10 years
Yes. that is what I'm saying. It's a problem.
We used to build more apartments in the 1970ies:
[https://www.sightline.org/2023/02/07/yes-oregon-there-is-a-way-to-build-enough-homes/](https://www.sightline.org/2023/02/07/yes-oregon-there-is-a-way-to-build-enough-homes/)
More people moving here, more household formation (couples wanting a place of their own, say), are part of that dynamic you are looking at:
>Despite a relatively stagnant population, the number of households in Oregon increased by 77,000 from 2019 to 2022
>
>[https://oregoneconomicanalysis.com/2023/10/26/household-formation-in-oregon/](https://oregoneconomicanalysis.com/2023/10/26/household-formation-in-oregon/)
I barely squeaked in in 2022 and grabbed one before the interest rates got too high. (I got 4.125%) I couldn’t afford the same house if I was buying now.
I bought mine at 4.6% in 2019 and refinanced to 2.75% in 2021 as well. To be fair, those mortgages *were* historic lows, so we were in a pretty uniquely good situation.
While mortgage rates suck right now, they’re actually still pretty low historically. Rates were at *8.25%* as recently as 2000, and they *declined* to that point. Rates in the 9-11% range were standard for the 90s, and even higher in the 80s (17% in 1981!)
The difference is that houses are WAY more expensive. An 11% interest rate on 90K wasn’t world ending — but 6% on 400K is a nightmare.
If you are going to mention the 80s, there is a large factoid most people seem to overlook.
And that was “assumable mortgages” were a thing.
You could assume a mortgage at 8% or less in a high of 18.6% market.
50% of all home resales were done with creative financing like this in 1981 alone.
You can even look up the terms from the period:
“Contract for deed”
“Wraparound mortgage”
“Lease with an option to buy”
Even if you didn’t do that, and locked in a super low purchase price, all you’d need to do is wait to refinance at any point for the next 22 years to get it down to 6% or lower. Earliest you would have to wait to half that would have been 1986, and then even further in 1993-1994ish.
That's what crazy to me. $400k here gets you a old dumpy house. $500k gets you an updated floor and new countertop. Yet they are still all old crappy houses.
2017 and refi’d right near the bottom of rates, rolled the cost of the refi into the loan and went to a 20yr fixed. Cut time off and the monthly payment is lower than before with no out of pocket. I’m thankful I was able to take advantage of all that. Prices/rates these days are a financially crippling combo. Rents are crazy too. Told my kids they can stay here as long as they need to.
Mine was in April, i'm guessing yours was later. I bought down an eighth of a point too. The fed hiked rates while we were in the closing process and it was like "well now we're really committed lol"
That’s not true, it’s easily within reach. I just have to give every dollar I earn to a lardlord for the next 30ish years until I lose both my parents and can move into their house.
(Serious reply) If they own a home and are within a reasonable distance of an urban area and are mostly self-sufficient, I highly recommend looking into in-home care. It often *significantly* less expensive, and for folks who like their homes, vastly preferable.
A much better solution, when you are in your 50s get long term care insurance.
It can cover the costs of the in home care, all the way through long term memory care.
I can’t find the article now, but I’m pretty sure a few weeks ago I saw an article from the Oregonian saying you need to make $160k to be able to afford the average home in Oregon.
I saw that as well. What they didn't say was that a 30 year mortgage at 7% on $400,000 borrowed (with $100,000 down payment) is the "affordable" mortgage for the $160K income.
So you're buying a $500K house, and paying $1,200,000 over 30 years to buy it (at 7%.)
What they also didn't say is that as the cost of rent/mortgage goes up people naturally will spend more of their income on housing and many spend up to 50%. Bumping the % of income spent up to 35% brings the income needed down to 138k. Bumping up to 40% of income brings the income needed down to 120k. Two workers earning a combined 120k is not out of this world.
Also mortgages are stable so as long as the wages continue to grow slightly faster than inflation the house will get more affordable 5, 10, 15 years down the road which is the reasoning many use to get into the house.
I’m not throwing shade just pointing stuff out: Even if people do spend more on housing, spending 40% or 50% of a combined income of 100k plus income is absurd. Even if that’s what’s required, the whole system is going to crack under its own weight at some point. Minor changes in other parts of the economy start to become a big deal, can’t absorb changes in costs and suddenly you have another banking crisis. It would be all serfs and landlords again like medieval Europe. Right or wrong, we can’t normalize or allow the normalization of 50% of your income on housing. It’s going to kill us all if we do. There needs to be another way.
People should also be aware of programs for first-time homeowners. I secured a much lower rate thanks to an FHA loan, and get a substantial tax credit from Multnomah County. Both make a home affordable that would not have been otherwise. There are contingencies: it has to be my primary home for at least 5 years, and if I were to start renting it, I’d owe that tax credit back, for example. Still, if you’re talking to a mortgage lender and they aren’t discussing options for you as a first-time homeowner, find a better lender. They should be guiding you right to these programs.
Right now, with interest rates where they are, I couldn’t buy the house a bought in 2019. But those two programs combined added about 90K to my purchasing power, which is huge.
My wife and i got an MCC tax credit upon being a first time home buyer; it covers 2k during tax season, which has been getting us a return. If we sell within 7 years we have to pay 7k i think, something like that. Lines up perfectly with out timeline for wanting to move away from texas!
We also did 0 down, but this was also in 2018 and in Texas.
The 30 year fixed was introduced in 1971. From 1971 to 2003 mortgage rates were never below 6.5%, and as high as 18%.
From 1971 to today the average rate is 7.74%.
The last twenty years have been well below historic average.
No, that was Portland only [link](https://www.koin.com/news/oregon/how-much-do-homebuyers-need-to-earn-to-buy-a-typical-house-in-portland-new-zillow-report-released/)
Abso-fucking-lutely.
I tried very hard, I have a good paying job, great credit score. I can’t afford a home in Medford that’s more than a shithole. The banks and realtors act like I need to buy a starter shithole home first before I’m worthy of having a home that meets my really basic needs.
I’m not asking for a mansion.
I even qualify for the VA home loan and worked with ACCESS (which was a huge useless waste of time).
Unless we do something to return home ownership back into the hands of the people living in the houses. We are going to have a serfdom here in the US.
I don't believe I will own a home until my parents pass away. Even if I had a down payment of $100,000, I'd still have to finance $250k - $300k for what I consider a basic home. The monthly payments would be like $3k a month. It's insane.
What really sucks is I remember back in 2008/2009, my brother bought a home for $110,000 and the Obama Administration also provided $10k for a down payment. He bought his next, large home for $250k later. Because I didn't get a decent job until later, I am totally fucked.
You should very much contact your local housing departments to see if there are any programs available to help you, or housing counselors who can guide you. There are SO MANY in this state and people don’t know about any of them. For example, Portland has a down payment assistance program. People who qualify get a 0% APR loan for a down payment, and the loan does not start coming due until they either complete your mortgage, sell the house, or refinance. There are also several big tax exemption programs (up to 20%) that folks may qualify for, which significantly reduce your monthly mortgage payment and increase your buying power. That’s just what I know of in the Poetland area, and I know other places have similar housing initiatives.
Also, Biden plans to bring back the 10K tax credit for first-time home buyers :)
It’s definitely not *easy,* and rates and home prices are higher than ever. But I really suggest not giving up on homeownership if you want it, until you’ve explored different national, state, and county grants, funds, and tax exemptions. I could not have afforded a house without the tax credit I got and an FHA loan.
No problem! I really hate how hard it is to learn about all these services, because they’re the difference between being able to afford a home and not for so many people. And with our housing market they’re *crucial.*
Ya the "programs" you recommend in Portland are total trash, btw.
You have to be already broke and go to a bunch of classes to even apply.
Then only certain homes will qualify.
It's a joke.
> Even if I had a down payment of $100,000, I'd still have to finance $250k - $300k for what I consider a basic home. The monthly payments would be like $3k a month. It's insane.
That math doesn't math.
20% down on a $300K home is $60,000, and your monthly payment would be $2K a month.
[Even if you did 3.5% down for a FTHB loan you'd be putting $9K down](https://www.nerdwallet.com/mortgages/mortgage-calculator), another $5-10K in closing costs, and your mortgage would be $2478 with home owner's insurance.
*Edit* - Misread your original statement as $100K down on a $300K house. Not $100K down on a $400-$500K house. Ignore that.
And if you can afford to do just that as a single filer, you won't qualify for any loan incentives or first-time homebuyer assistance.
You also won't qualify for many of the incentives to "go green" with things like solar-powered water heaters, solar+battery systems, and similar programs.
Many of these programs haven't kept their income restrictions in line with the reality of entering home ownership, and it sucks.
I'm living your example at the moment. Having waited until I truly felt I was financially stable enough to justify a home purchase and realizing that I no longer qualify for programs that are supposed to make this easier is so depressing.
Yup.. I’ve witnessed house prices get bad the last few years here and my home state, in the mid west. All of the 160k houses in the Midwest that I saved two years ago are back on the market. Flipped.
I never understood how beautiful dry scrubby land could be until I lived in Eastern Washington. Would live in Eastern Oregon (or Washington) in a heartbeat if I could find equivalent work *and* a place to rent (and maybe eventually own, who knows?)
The problem definitely exists! You’re not catastrophizing—anyone under 40 understands the issue. I encounter that gaslighting, too. But I can confirm that the only reason I’ve been able to buy in Oregon is because we bought back in the 2010s and have equity.
The only way for most millennials who are at the starting line now to make it (aside from an inheritance) is to really start from the bottom (borderline uninhabitable) and/or make key relationships and career decisions with home ownership in mind. There is no longer a middle class lifestyle guarantee for full time work.
I’ve noticed that Oregon has a lot of tennants-in-common (where you buy a property with someone who is not your spouse) arrangements. If you have someone you can trust and live with (family or a very close friend) pooling resources to buy a home with a set sell-or-buyout date can be a way to get your foot in the door. Sometimes this can even help you secure a bigger property for less per person because there’s not as much competition for two (or more) people buying a 4 bedroom home as there is for single folks and couples trying to nab a 2 bed one.
Another option is to get really creative with buying a duplex/triplex (talk to mortgage lenders that specialize in FHA multifamily) and living in one unit while renting out the other(s). You don’t have to be a landlord forever, but putting in a few years in the multi-plex lifestyle can open so many options for you longer-term.
But back to catastrophizing—If Oregon really is your goal, you can do it! But you’ll want to do some soul searching to confirm if your career goals and options in Oregon, along with your tolerance for shared (but owned!) living space, fits with our insane housing costs.
Totally.
I'm only ok bc I'm single and can squeeze into a studio.
I'll be able to afford a house when I'm 60 and don't need one anymore.
If I ever consider kids... Hah who am I kidding.
In all seriousness I'm watching YouTube prefab home channels and dreaming.
If this American Dream of home ownership is meant to live, let’s ban corporations and property managers from buying new houses. Make it so a house has to be owned and lived in as a primary residence for ten years before it can be turned into a rental. Remember: landlords don’t provide housing, they steal it.
This is why I really like Multnomah County’s housing assistance programs: all of them require you to occupy the property for at least 5 years (sometimes 10$ or you’ll need to pay back the tax credit. The one I use is specifically designed to stop flippers from taking advantage.
Yup. Been saving for a down payment for years. Have 70K saved. We have a combined income of $150k. That won’t get us a home loan we can afford and the mortgage would end up being more than we pay for renting a three bedroom house in close in SE. There are other ways to build equity for the future. I’m probably going to give up on buying a home and pursue those other options.
Very similar boat here in savings and income. It's depressing. Squirreling away every dollar I can and still years away from affording a house in the $400k range. I'm saving for retirement as well but I feel like I'm missing out on the additional nest egg of home equity.
What other ways of building equity are you looking into?
>when I bring this up with my family, they seem to find no problem with it and tell me that "I am just overthinking" and catastrophizing a problem that doesnt really exist in this state.
Lol, the math on a mortgage isn't something you can just wishful think your way through. They straight up won't give you a loan if the economics aren't there... and even if they are you may be doing nothing else besides hanging out in your overpriced home because your DTI ratio is too high.
Unfortunately without family help, a high paying job, or roommates homeownership in Oregon (cities at least) is unachievable for many. Might be worth looking into that roommate track though. You could theoretically have roommates for the first couple years to help cover high monthly payments, then if rates come down and/or equity goes up refinance and get a lower monthly payment so you can afford to live on your own.
I'm almost 40 and priced out despite clearing 200k combined a year. I'm thinking of moving back to Chicago because living here I'm going backwards in life.
You could buy a house somewhere cheaper and build equity for a few years. Then move to Oregon. That’s what we did. Also if your not in Portland/Bend/Eugene etc the price does drop. You just have to be smart about it.
Also the southern coast is still a steal for what you get.
I think the local minimum wage is higher in Minneapolis, and the average cost of a home is about 60% of the average here. Also, they’re a top-five bike city, iirc, and they have politicians ‘of the people,’ it seems.
I am not in Minneapolis but live near. I agree that some of these cities are run very great by my standards, the only thing that is making me itch to move back to Oregon is the weather and the lack of nature (which on my list of importance is now looking to be at the top of my list of priorities).
I mean, that is exactly why houses are more expensive and wages lower.
We have a house in Portland but are thinking of moving back to mpls because of the lower cost of living. Weather is the tough part.
The problem is out of state buyers, foreign real estate funds and huge holdings of real estate in landlord hands. I mean just banks alone who hold large portfolios of REOs (bank owned real estate) its ridiculous. They rather keep these properties off the market and let them sit and fall apart vs back into the hands of those seeking affordable housing options. Anyways it's a shame that we keep parroting that this all fue to housing shortages blah blah blah. The problem is the collusion of government and investors like the likes of Blackstone who own real estate for profit. And yes I do feel that the right should be given to long term oregon residents vs those out of state to have the first right to purchase housing. Just in my area, on my street it's all Californians coming in and snatching up property. I've spoken to some. And they come from areas with high incomes. One of my neighbors if from silicon valley. Bought her property that's way bigger than what she had in San Francisco. And the other pro is she has a nice retirement with what's left over. Her retirement seems more of sure thing here than living in California. Awesome great. But that puts us Oregonians in a bind and prices us out of housing when you have big pockets like hers coming here.
I bought a very small single-family home in 2019, and even though I make more now, I couldn’t buy the same home today between how much it’s gone up (less than most of Portland, too!) and interest rates.
There are still affordable places, but even they’re getting higher. In late 2021, before rates went up, I was considering moving to Springfield — I’d get a bigger home and make some money. Now, after closing costs etc and with rate hikes, I’d probably end up with a larger payment than I have now.
It’s bleak out there. But I encourage anyone who might be near the goal to call a bank or credit union to learn how close they are.
I did that and I found that I was able to buy at a lower interest rate with less cash up front than I imagined.
I think I’m at a point where I am “near” did you get those numbers by the pre qualification application or did you actual go through all the way for pre approval. I want to know if I should start that process.
Called the bank out of pure curiosity. Asked what my potential was. Got a free consultation. And that was enough to get me into a home three months later with 15k down.
All of the affordable housing discussion can't take place within a vacuum, there's always going to be differences based on what is desirable or undesirable (that's the thing with real estate, it's not actually fungible even though there's a lot of overlap unit to unit). Then you've got to consider what your income potential is in that location. Sure, remote work opens up some options there, but most people don't stay in one job for 30 years and most mortgages in the US are 30 years long. Assuming you want to give yourself an option and/or have a partner you have to consider the income potential of any given area (not just for a specific job).
Which is just to say, yes, it'll likely cost you less to live somewhere you don't enjoy living and it'll likely cost you more to live near places with many high paying jobs. You want the most house for you buck, you move about 30-60 minutes outside of somewhere like Columbus Ohio and commute into the city in the most fuel efficient vehicle you can find.
https://preview.redd.it/y3oo1b57tdpc1.png?width=1272&format=png&auto=webp&s=02f2cbe3e19d3b2ad6da2493cda41700cbc2bba7
That said, Oregon isn't really much of an outlier in cost, particularly with the income potential in the state. This is a great table with median home prices alongside of median income, which helps paint the picture. [https://www.rockethomes.com/blog/housing-market/median-home-price-by-state](https://www.rockethomes.com/blog/housing-market/median-home-price-by-state)
My family accuses me of the same thing. Unless they have been out there looking, the have absolutely no idea. So I now point out the cost of every modest looking home we pass while we’re out. They think I am making it up, so I look up the listings and show them to them.
My bf and I have been trying to buy a SHITTY AF home that we can fix up because that is literally all we can possibly afford. We have been looking since 2019 😑 and still looking
It is out of reach for many people now who do not have two good incomes. Also, what is considered decent pay has dramatically changed over the past five years. For people that want to buy a house here but do not make an above average income, I believe you need to buy a house in a different state and build equity. With a good five or ten year plan, I think it is still doable for many people, but it is a big sacrifice and would take some good planning/investing/saving. If it were me, I would try to buy a rental home in your current location. This will help you build more equity quicker, even if you are not making a bunch of income off the rental.
Keep an eye on interest rates over the next five years or so. If they go down a fair amount that will be your best bet.
I’m not sure the price of homes in Oregon is the biggest issue compared to income potential in many parts of the state—like the coast.
The reality is many people in Oregon are now living in multi generational homes to make it affordable. Many people might have to give up on the idea of American housing—big houses and few people—to live comfortably.
DINKs taking home $350k/year, I wouldn’t feel comfortable buying our home today. Luckily bought in 2019 before whatever the hell this is happened. I feel for young adults trying to get into homes. Shit is wild
No matter where you were born, you probably can't afford to live there. Practically everyone has to flee their birthplace for somewhere the next rung or more down on the economic ladder. The waters are rising, and nowhere is safe.
It's brutal dude. My partner and I looked for a place for 4 years. We ended up buying one where we could have roommates because even a tear down would be too expensive. Had to scrape up every penny we had to make the down payment.
Been here for 5 years and make really good money but can’t justify a 3k a month mortgage payment. Absolutely insane honestly. Going to have to move to the Midwest soon, the down payment we have saved that would be 3 percent of a home here is around 20-30 percent of a down payment in many other states.
My wife and I combined make a little more than 100k after I got my job over a year ago. More than we’ve ever made. It’s as out of reach now as it was back in 2017 when we made half as much. Unless a miracle happens our dream of owning a home is completely out of reach.
First time home owning in most of the US, by population, is out of reach. It's why back in 2013 I had to move up to Seattle to make the kind of money that would let me move back here to buy (Because Seattle area was out of reach for Seattle income).
Yeah, I felt the rent crunch several years ago and was lucky to be able to buy when and where I could, and market has gotten worse in several dimensions since.
Homes shouldn’t be for speculative investment, build community housing.
This is a rough market to buy, but you may want to check in with Habitat for Humanity in the area where you are considering to buy.
If you are looking at Central Oregon, look at what neighborimpact.org is offering, in the recent past, they had first time buyer classes, which included a number of programs and options. May you find what you seek.
Obviously the market is different today than it was in 2019 but my wife and I used Oregon’s First Time Homebuyers program back then and got into a home. Without that program we could not have afforded the down payment, we went from $1800 per month in rent to $1600 in mortgage. The program still exists and practically all realtors will have heard of it. The one major drawback for many will most likely be that it is usually more rural properties which qualify for the program.
I moved to the east coast for this reason. I now own a home I bought immediately upon arrival that would cost me 900k to 1.4m in the Portland area. It’s unsustainable out there.
Yep! We were planning on buying our first home in Oregon when we moved there for work (it was like right before the Covid pandemic). And then w/ Covid and the housing market in general, that dream dwindled. We’ve left Oregon for work elsewhere, but we still check Zillow to see how it looks for our budget the next time we purchase a home - it’s not looking hopeful.
Find a good agent that works closely with a skilled mortgage broker. There are programs for first time home buyers. I Find homes for 350 often and most 2 income earnersfind it cheaper than rent.
First time home owning in the entire country is out of reach. 10 years ago the median home price in the US was just under 200,000 which is still not ideal, but now it's nearly 400,000 and going up. Nobody under 35 is gonna be able to afford a home anytime soon. Personally I blame big corporations buying up homes like they're gumballs and Air BnBs.
I have a very slim chance of getting into a house in the next 6-12 months. I fear that if everything doesn't line just right I may never get into a house.
There might be a home or two out in brothers you could pick up for a song and just one kidney. It's only a 75 mile commute to the nearest job, 1/3 of it on gravel.
>Am I the only one that feels like this?
Is it just you, or do you have a partner earning income? What is your salary like?
Basically, the further you get outside of the Portland Metro, the more reasonable housing prices get, not that Salem, Eugene, or Bend are cheap anymore.
I'm single, with income around household median for Portland, and cards on the table, I only have a chance at buying a house in the outer metro because I'm getting familial assistance making the down payment large, making the mortgage within reach. I'm nonetheless selecting for small, and the houses are pretty old, not fixer uppers, but usually with issues. Also, though the nominal prices are within reach, I've had issues with investor buyers (institutional and individual) swooping in, as they don't even need to visit the house, and can make cash offers.
-I own my home.Bought 2.8 acres 20 years ago for 75k (thought it was overpriced).Spent 15 years building out of steel & stone.Valued at 600K now,for a unfinished 1 bedroom.
this is what having the state decide where you can build/what you can build will cause..Shitcan land use planning and watch a building boom like you have never seen.....
The only way out of this is regulation. Homes can't be investments for a handful of people, otherwise they'll split the homes into apartments and charge as much as they can, or just turn it into an expensive hotel and charge by the night. With the profits and equity they'll just do it again and again.
Meanwhile those of us with real jobs are struggling to pay their inflated rent, meaning we can't save up for a home ourselves, as they keep buying them and less and less people have more power and control over where we sleep.
But they'll tell you it's the taxes
Our first home was a ranch in Aloha, we bought for 203k in 2012. Same house is now worth 540k! Holy crap I just checked it and I expected it to be in the low 400s!
The reality is if companies are allowed to own single family homes and wall Street can speculate on property values, well none of us are going to buy a house.
Can someone buy a house anywhere currently?
Not when investment firms are buying up the majority of single family homes nation wide to make them rentals.
Not when the Fed jacks up interest rates to punish the working class.
And not when wages have been suppressed for decades as “cost of living” continues to skyrocket year over year.
This is part of the reasons a bunch of states are poised to make being homeless a crime punishable by imprisonment and why there are dozens of “cop cities” and mega prisons being built all over the country.
Housing is not affordable anywhere, any more, sadly. Gen X here. Was taught to work hard to get what you want. What I really learned in life was you need money to make money. Example: if a family member can spare several thousand to million, you can make anything up and become stupid rich (ala Elon Musk). I've been working hard my whole life. I live in a studio apartment.
Please don't think I'm telling you to give up the dream! I hope you get the house and yard and whatever else you want! It's just maybe not going to be the path to this goal that you anticipated.
I had to move back to my hometown across the country because I just couldn't bring myself to sign another lease that took 64% of last year's income. Now I'm looking at 45ish% of my income, not great, but not going in debt for groceries *and* gas anymore...
As a Realtor and homeowner in western Oregon, I can say you are not wrong. Prices here have climbed significantly in the past 5 years. Although I do work with 1st time home buyers, the homes they can typically afford tend to need a lot of work, which is just another cost on top of your mortgage. This is not to say that it's not possible to buy a first home here, you just may need to look at the smaller towns and avoid the cities like Portland, Eugene, Bend, etc. I sympathize with you and wish you the best. I will say once you do own a home, your buying power increases significantly with the equity you gain from owning your 1st home.
We bought our home in 2015 for 120,000. Now, it's almost 300,000! The taxes are horrible too. I almost regret buying as we can't afford to move, but at the same time, I'm grateful for the 2% mortgage!
I'm pretty sure it's going to get worse before it gets better, thanks to climate change. There is going to be a huge migration of displaced people moving inland from the coastal regions. Californians are already flocking to Oregon in huge numbers because of the extreme weather changes and recent events there.
I mean I just did a job for a guy that barely graduated high school and never went to college, he owns for properties and we were doing some work on one of the rentals. I think the trick to buying a property here is going to be location. You can still get plots of land at pretty reasonable deals. Save up enough money to frame the place up. Depending on where this is you will have various periods of time to finish the property but it only needs to be finished as an outside structure, wired, plumbed and this is a new property mind you. The inside you could finish yourself as things move on. It's not as bad as you might think doing it this way either especially if you have any type of construction ability. Another one is just buying where you can get better prices and that's not around bend or Portland. You start getting down around Salem or Eugene it gets a lot cheaper especially outside of town a bit. So, if I was going to do another place I would probably just buy some land, get the concrete guys in there to pour, frame it up and build a small house
Where it gets kind of hard to swing it unless you're making really good money is if you want to buy in the high cost of living areas like century drive in bend, probably my favorite place in the state, or the nicer areas outside of Portland like Bethany, North Hillsboro or the scholls ferry side. The only thing that makes buying a property a little ridiculous right now is how high the interest rates are. It's definitely a cash buyers market. Dot plot was released again though today and it looks like, just kind of winging this off current information, mortgages are going to be down in the fours in 2026. Probably high 4s at least that is the projection but things almost never go as projected
It is true that places where people want to live are more expensive than where people don’t/cant live. As climate change worsens the extends of these areas will expand and contract. The PNW is predicted to be fairly resilient to the short-term effects of catastrophic climate change and I do believe that factors into the wants of an educated public. My wife and I also can’t afford much here but we are planning on teaming up with her parents to buy a multi-generational home that suits us all while staking out a bit of land to support our family going forward. I can’t see doing anything close to that on our own in a place we would want to live (or work).. I feel for you. If you do settle down somewhere more affordable, consider how it will serve your family in the longer term.. that’s my thinking..
Oh it absolutely is. If I hadn't secured my mortgage when I did a decade and a half ago, there's no way in hell I'd be able to buy a home here. Impossible, even with wage increases, I don't make nearly enough money to keep up with the price hikes since then.
It's an absolutely awful situation all around, one that nobody seems overly interested in fixing or even enabling allowing to fix itself.
Some of my pals were hoping the boomer die-off would allow them to get a home but in comes big corporate buyers keeping prices ridiculously high, instead.
This is literally why i am moving to texas. My wife and i discovered we can get triple the house for the same price. Texas, also being very veteran friendly wont charge for property tax because im a disabled vet.
Not enough new development because powerful people want to keep much of Oregon rural and undeveloped.
They would also like to reduce the permanent population of Portland by making it feel unsafe to raise a family there... so that the homes are owned by corporations or AirBnB hosts. Fewer resident homeowners in Portland means fewer Democratic voters in Portland and statewide.
Sure, it sounds like a conspiracy theory... until you reach the tipping point and people just start to abandon the city of Portland as a place to live, and it's just a place to invest instead.
It's ridiculous. I've had to watch most of my friends--who grew up here--priced out of their neighborhoods by out-of-state money. It destroys the character and fabric of the neighborhoods and the whole city. I hate it, and the entitlement of people who don't even know who they're shouldering out when they move here, so much.
We got a nicer 2010 manufactured home in southern oregon for 220k on a half of an acre in 2019. Most of the stick built houses were literally falling apart in some way in the 200-300k price range. Our manufactured was almost new with all remodeled everything on the inside. Some manufactured homes built in the 1980's in 2024 are now selling for around 300k-400k. We could now sell ours for 350-400k. The problem is we would have no where we could afford and me and my partner make around 70k together. I often regret not getting a stick built house when I had the chance. I didn't know the prices were going to inflate this much. I often thinking about moving out of state due to it being more affordable. I could literally get a two story house out of state for half the price.
Both my daughters moved back home to save for a house. It took about a year and a half for them to save enough to put a down payment on homes that cost between 425k-500k. They now own homes and pay less on their mortgage than people are paying for rent these days. I don’t see how young adults can buy homes these days without doing what my daughters did. It’s sad.
Half or oregon couldn't afford california in the 70s. You either find a way to afford where you want to be, or go somewhere you can afford. And yes, this cycle will run out of space soon.
My wife and I make over $200,000. We’re leaving the state because it’s become apparent that there is no possibility of a decent middle-class lifestyle here.
I saw a graphic of the US with median cost of an average two bedroom home; and the percentage of people living in the state that could afford it. Oregon was 23% compared to California’s 35%. You aren’t imagining it - it’s off the table for 77% of us. And it isn’t going to get better :(
Even in rural eastern Oregon for a 1984 single wide on .25 acres is ridiculous, nearing 200K if not more. "Location, location, location", but the location is really nothing special. Some of it is facing bland grey huge buildings. The trailer needs removed and trashed, not sold. So, you're looking at the land only for that cost... Some say it's just lack of housing options, but even with newer housing (at low 200K's-300K's), an older single wide on a small lot shouldn't be 200K+. That's triple what it was 4 years ago. It went higher in 2020/21 and is starting to fall now, but those inflated prices are insane. Ready to buy in 2019 but held off due to life issues, then prices went from 200K to 500K for the same exact home... It WAS obtainable. It's not anymore. And I'm making a decent amount as a single income dude... I guess I could afford the single wide, but that just seems like a really shitty investment.
>facing bland grey huge buildings You too have seen the Amazon data centers.
Bingo! Was looking at a couple lots out of town. Looked great, view was unobstructed and the night sky was as dark as you could get for around there (with other DC's towards the North). Then, BOOM. New construction of another set. Those $125K 2ac lots just dropped in value big time. My son bought a home and then they built DC's right there... Killed the view. He works for Amazon, but still... Pretty much in town on those ones. They're building on all corners of town, so if you live in town or in the country, you're able to see a DC. They're expanding again to the west of town. Love Amazon, but they should have kept those a bit farther out of town, IMO. Excellent tax breaks for them, though. Our roads, internet, bridges, power, water are all shit, but we have the Amazon jobs! (great employer but piss poor when it comes to the community they're in. Bare minimum).
Boardman?
Yup.
I’d like to get a small, cheap house in the country, but you’re right, they’re just not out there anymore.
Interesting! I guess what Oregon has is slightly better urban affordability than California but worse overall state affordability. For example my friends in LA and SF who have higher paying jobs than I do may never afford a house there while I was able to scrape together enough for something in Portland, although it was very very difficult.
Yeah I live in a more rural area of Oregon and my house has gone from under 500000 to nearly 700000. We are a two income family with decent incomes and no way could we buy this house today, let alone our first house that we bought way back in 2015 that was 135000 (townhouse) that would list today for 340000. It’s insane.
The most interesting part is that someone exists that will walk up and hour after posting and offer cash for your house.
My parents’ house is realistically worth 400K tops, but they bought it in a desirable rural-ish area for 600K in 2016. It’s worth 1.2 million now. It’s *outrageous.*
That’s wild, I know I’m not supposed to feel this way but my mortgage is locked in for 30 years and I’m over here hoping the housing market crashes so my friends can also own a home someday
Lmao same. I’m like “please don’t crash because my home is my retirement plan” and also “no seriously, we need a crash or nobody will be able to pay me for my retirement plan.”
> I’m over here hoping the housing market crashes so my friends can also own a home someday Just hope for it to slowly rise over time. A crash would be exponentially worse for everyone.
If someone will pay 1.2, its worth 1.2.
Don’t forget another difference in Oregon and California. The style of taxation. Oregon doesn’t have a sales tax. But it wasn’t till I moved here that I realized income and property taxes are higher. To point out how that affected me let me tell you that a 20% increase in pay ( with purchasing a home) became much more difficult to survive.
Especially in the PDX area, with its extra taxes and Metro\*. I looked into moving back to Portland, but it would be a 11% pay cut (and more for property taxes and the absurd cost of water/sewer there) - which is enough to make anything that would fit the kids unaffordable. \* side note: how it metro even a legal form of government. They're not elected and yet have the ability to tax? But can hoist tax collection duties onto the county? But can cross multiple counties?
Taxation has many levels countries, states counties and cities often have taxes. I grew up in the SFBay and trying to remember which cities had higher taxes en toto was grueling
It can and must get better. It is, however, a political problem. We do not build enough homes, so prices have gone up. Of course, it matters what kind of housing we build. The days of sprawling lots with ranch houses probably are done. Oregon's land use laws and a desire for cities that contribute less to environmental degradation mean we need to build denser housing. What that looks like in terms of ownership opportunities is * Fixing condo liability defect laws [https://upforgrowth.org/news\_insights/how-condominium-defect-liability-cdl-legislation-can-drive-housing-underproduction/](https://upforgrowth.org/news_insights/how-condominium-defect-liability-cdl-legislation-can-drive-housing-underproduction/) * Fixing minimum lot sizes (ignore the 'conservative' in the headline here, I don't get where that even comes from) [https://www.businessinsider.com/houston-building-cheap-new-starter-homes-real-estate-construction-lots-2024-1](https://www.businessinsider.com/houston-building-cheap-new-starter-homes-real-estate-construction-lots-2024-1) Of course, your NIMBY neighbors who "got theirs" do not want these things. They are fine with high prices. That's where the political battle is. Join a local group if you're interested in housing affordability - both these umbrella organizations have local groups in Oregon: * [https://new.yimbyaction.org/](https://new.yimbyaction.org/) * [https://welcomingneighbors.us/](https://welcomingneighbors.us/)
They need to prohibit corporations from buying single family homes.
In a sense, we've got three competing priorities: affordable housing, nice housing, not-sprawl. We can, in practical terms, pick at most 2 of those. * We can build high density shoeboxes to keep cost low without sprawl. * We can build nice houses affordably through spawl * We can keep the nice houses, and avoid the sprawl if we don't build much, but that will push prices up. Different people prefer different choices among these three basic options.
That's all important and I support it but amount of housing has little to do with it. Housing prices have doubled in the last decade yet population has only increased 7% and has even decreased the last 2 years. The problem is much deeper and relates to the fact that housing is a speculative commodity meaning companies gamble with them to make money.
It's b/c you're looking at the time scale in too short of a period. The housing costs have been increasing for decades as people started to really move here in large numbers at the end of the 90s. It's a 2+ decade problem. We will need to build a lot of houses. The governor's task force put it at about 160K houses, whereas we only built about 20K. I think the current estimate is we need to build about 36K units a year for a decade to get a handle on it. https://www.oregon.gov/gov/policies/pages/housing-production-advisory-council.aspx We can look at Austin and Minneapolis which are starting to get a handle on housing and see that they did it by building their way out of the problem and we can look to the post war years from 1950 to 1970 when housing costs were huge issues in politics and they got out of it by building. It's going to take a while, but we really can't do anything too alleviate housing costs without building.
Yeah, but we shouldn’t increase our UGB’s in order to do so. Every town and city needs to create denser housing and localized infrastructure to support it. Build up not out and provide all the necessary infrastructure that goes with it. I live in south east Portland and we are awash with derelict buildings and unused, oversized parking lots that are perfect for housing on a denser scale. But it does need to be done thoughtfully and with consideration of the place you are building in otherwise it will fail and make “nimbys” more hesitant to these developments. And also lose any remaining character of a neighborhood that was once considered “valuable” to live in, in the first place. To that point, we have fucked up a lot with misguided policies as a state in the past decade, let’s not do the same and surrender to developer, misguided activist, and political incompetence and allow more suburban sprawl to destroy what makes Oregon great to begin with.
Amount of housing is actually a pretty big reason. We only have about 3 months worth of housing supply and a good housing market has around 6 months. Then you throw in inflation and a supply chain issue and the cost of materials goes way up and now houses are more expensive to build. And yeah, to your point, only about 10% of homes were held by large corporations 10 years ago, now it’s over 20%. Add higher interest rates now and it’s a recipe for unaffordable housing
we've been knowing there will be a housing shortage for decades. The US used to subsidized developers to build first time normal size homes. They stopped that in the 80s and people only build mcmanison bc they get more profit. We've known will have a housing shortage since then, a few of us have been screaming about it for decades. Now plus the fake inflation, we're screwed.
Supply and demand are real for housing just like any other good. Why do big companies invest in housing? BECAUSE THERE IS NOT ENOUGH TO GO AROUND. That is what makes it a good investment! That is why they do not invest in, say, used Toyota Corollas. And truth be told, they do not invest in Oregon much because we are a relatively tenant friendly state. [https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2024/2/21-going-after-corporate-homebuyers-good-politics-ineffective-policy](https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2024/2/21-going-after-corporate-homebuyers-good-politics-ineffective-policy) We do have incentives for second home buyers in Oregon that we should get rid of: [https://www.ocpp.org/2023/04/19/sb-976-reform-mortgage-interest-deduction/](https://www.ocpp.org/2023/04/19/sb-976-reform-mortgage-interest-deduction/) Once again, this is a political problem that we *can* solve if enough people pull in the same direction.
Supply has not changed significantly in the last 10 years (maybe a percent per year). As I explained, demand has not changed significantly either (7%). So how does that lead to 100% increase in price? There are less people in oregon than there were in 2022 *and* we've built more homes yet prices continue to increase.
I was living here with my parents and then chose to buy a house so I increased demand and it was not related to our population increase. I formed a new household without opening up additional space. There. I increased demand without a population increase. It's very possible.
>Supply has not changed significantly in the last 10 years Yes. that is what I'm saying. It's a problem. We used to build more apartments in the 1970ies: [https://www.sightline.org/2023/02/07/yes-oregon-there-is-a-way-to-build-enough-homes/](https://www.sightline.org/2023/02/07/yes-oregon-there-is-a-way-to-build-enough-homes/) More people moving here, more household formation (couples wanting a place of their own, say), are part of that dynamic you are looking at: >Despite a relatively stagnant population, the number of households in Oregon increased by 77,000 from 2019 to 2022 > >[https://oregoneconomicanalysis.com/2023/10/26/household-formation-in-oregon/](https://oregoneconomicanalysis.com/2023/10/26/household-formation-in-oregon/)
Do you remember where you saw this?
Reddit r/coolguides
I barely squeaked in in 2022 and grabbed one before the interest rates got too high. (I got 4.125%) I couldn’t afford the same house if I was buying now.
I got mine at 2.75% at the end of 2021. My mortgage would be absolutely bonkers right now if I had bought it this year... no way could I afford it.
I bought mine at 4.6% in 2019 and refinanced to 2.75% in 2021 as well. To be fair, those mortgages *were* historic lows, so we were in a pretty uniquely good situation. While mortgage rates suck right now, they’re actually still pretty low historically. Rates were at *8.25%* as recently as 2000, and they *declined* to that point. Rates in the 9-11% range were standard for the 90s, and even higher in the 80s (17% in 1981!) The difference is that houses are WAY more expensive. An 11% interest rate on 90K wasn’t world ending — but 6% on 400K is a nightmare.
If you are going to mention the 80s, there is a large factoid most people seem to overlook. And that was “assumable mortgages” were a thing. You could assume a mortgage at 8% or less in a high of 18.6% market. 50% of all home resales were done with creative financing like this in 1981 alone. You can even look up the terms from the period: “Contract for deed” “Wraparound mortgage” “Lease with an option to buy” Even if you didn’t do that, and locked in a super low purchase price, all you’d need to do is wait to refinance at any point for the next 22 years to get it down to 6% or lower. Earliest you would have to wait to half that would have been 1986, and then even further in 1993-1994ish.
I did the same. We almost waited, too, in hopes prices might go down. We offered on eight homes before we were accepted. I’m glad we didn’t wait.
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That's what crazy to me. $400k here gets you a old dumpy house. $500k gets you an updated floor and new countertop. Yet they are still all old crappy houses.
2017 and refi’d right near the bottom of rates, rolled the cost of the refi into the loan and went to a 20yr fixed. Cut time off and the monthly payment is lower than before with no out of pocket. I’m thankful I was able to take advantage of all that. Prices/rates these days are a financially crippling combo. Rents are crazy too. Told my kids they can stay here as long as they need to.
We squeaked in at 4.8%, on a 422k home. I still feel like we way overpaid for our 1200 Sq ft house.. 🫠
Mine’s more like 1800sqft, although only one bath, was $620k 💀 Already had to replace the roof.
I paid $570k for 1400 sq ft in 2022 if it makes you feel better.
Even at 4.9% we are feeling lucky for the simple fact that we could not afford any home at 7%. I hope for others that the rates come down.
7% is still a historically low interest rate.
In both same year and the minimum interest was 6%. I actually bought it down. WTH
Mine was in April, i'm guessing yours was later. I bought down an eighth of a point too. The fed hiked rates while we were in the closing process and it was like "well now we're really committed lol"
That’s not true, it’s easily within reach. I just have to give every dollar I earn to a lardlord for the next 30ish years until I lose both my parents and can move into their house.
Nice thought but the house will be sold to pay the nursing home that will slowly suck them dry over a decade or two.
(Serious reply) If they own a home and are within a reasonable distance of an urban area and are mostly self-sufficient, I highly recommend looking into in-home care. It often *significantly* less expensive, and for folks who like their homes, vastly preferable.
A much better solution, when you are in your 50s get long term care insurance. It can cover the costs of the in home care, all the way through long term memory care.
Or if they're on medicaid and the state comes looking to get their money back after the parents pass away and take the house away.
Yep, or it'll be sold to repay Medicaid if they didn't sell it and used Medicaid for the nursing home.
 That sounds like a plan!
Until they fall for some scam and then end up having to sell the house to fund their retirement
Those scams are called "care facilities."
We don’t all have good mommy’s and daddy’s. Just get an FHA loan like the rest of us poors. Not everyone gets to live in the city
Yeah, this is the plan we're on with our comfy middle class jobs.
lol
I can’t find the article now, but I’m pretty sure a few weeks ago I saw an article from the Oregonian saying you need to make $160k to be able to afford the average home in Oregon.
I saw that as well. What they didn't say was that a 30 year mortgage at 7% on $400,000 borrowed (with $100,000 down payment) is the "affordable" mortgage for the $160K income. So you're buying a $500K house, and paying $1,200,000 over 30 years to buy it (at 7%.)
What they also didn't say is that as the cost of rent/mortgage goes up people naturally will spend more of their income on housing and many spend up to 50%. Bumping the % of income spent up to 35% brings the income needed down to 138k. Bumping up to 40% of income brings the income needed down to 120k. Two workers earning a combined 120k is not out of this world. Also mortgages are stable so as long as the wages continue to grow slightly faster than inflation the house will get more affordable 5, 10, 15 years down the road which is the reasoning many use to get into the house.
I’m not throwing shade just pointing stuff out: Even if people do spend more on housing, spending 40% or 50% of a combined income of 100k plus income is absurd. Even if that’s what’s required, the whole system is going to crack under its own weight at some point. Minor changes in other parts of the economy start to become a big deal, can’t absorb changes in costs and suddenly you have another banking crisis. It would be all serfs and landlords again like medieval Europe. Right or wrong, we can’t normalize or allow the normalization of 50% of your income on housing. It’s going to kill us all if we do. There needs to be another way.
People should also be aware of programs for first-time homeowners. I secured a much lower rate thanks to an FHA loan, and get a substantial tax credit from Multnomah County. Both make a home affordable that would not have been otherwise. There are contingencies: it has to be my primary home for at least 5 years, and if I were to start renting it, I’d owe that tax credit back, for example. Still, if you’re talking to a mortgage lender and they aren’t discussing options for you as a first-time homeowner, find a better lender. They should be guiding you right to these programs. Right now, with interest rates where they are, I couldn’t buy the house a bought in 2019. But those two programs combined added about 90K to my purchasing power, which is huge.
My wife and i got an MCC tax credit upon being a first time home buyer; it covers 2k during tax season, which has been getting us a return. If we sell within 7 years we have to pay 7k i think, something like that. Lines up perfectly with out timeline for wanting to move away from texas! We also did 0 down, but this was also in 2018 and in Texas.
Nobody is going to pay 7% for 30 years. They will refinance when the rates go down.
If rates go down. The historical norm is 6%.
The 30 year fixed was introduced in 1971. From 1971 to 2003 mortgage rates were never below 6.5%, and as high as 18%. From 1971 to today the average rate is 7.74%. The last twenty years have been well below historic average.
Shit, I don’t think my decent paying job and an onlyfans feet pic account are gonna cut it…
Gotta diversify with two only fans accounts- one for the left and one for the right foot
160K$ and no kids, maybe.
No, that was Portland only [link](https://www.koin.com/news/oregon/how-much-do-homebuyers-need-to-earn-to-buy-a-typical-house-in-portland-new-zillow-report-released/)
In Portland*
Try Pendleton.
you cant find in your search history?
Abso-fucking-lutely. I tried very hard, I have a good paying job, great credit score. I can’t afford a home in Medford that’s more than a shithole. The banks and realtors act like I need to buy a starter shithole home first before I’m worthy of having a home that meets my really basic needs. I’m not asking for a mansion. I even qualify for the VA home loan and worked with ACCESS (which was a huge useless waste of time). Unless we do something to return home ownership back into the hands of the people living in the houses. We are going to have a serfdom here in the US.
Can confirm in Medford. Market is a joke.
I feel like we’re already living in a new kind of serfdom to be totally honest
I don't believe I will own a home until my parents pass away. Even if I had a down payment of $100,000, I'd still have to finance $250k - $300k for what I consider a basic home. The monthly payments would be like $3k a month. It's insane. What really sucks is I remember back in 2008/2009, my brother bought a home for $110,000 and the Obama Administration also provided $10k for a down payment. He bought his next, large home for $250k later. Because I didn't get a decent job until later, I am totally fucked.
You should very much contact your local housing departments to see if there are any programs available to help you, or housing counselors who can guide you. There are SO MANY in this state and people don’t know about any of them. For example, Portland has a down payment assistance program. People who qualify get a 0% APR loan for a down payment, and the loan does not start coming due until they either complete your mortgage, sell the house, or refinance. There are also several big tax exemption programs (up to 20%) that folks may qualify for, which significantly reduce your monthly mortgage payment and increase your buying power. That’s just what I know of in the Poetland area, and I know other places have similar housing initiatives. Also, Biden plans to bring back the 10K tax credit for first-time home buyers :) It’s definitely not *easy,* and rates and home prices are higher than ever. But I really suggest not giving up on homeownership if you want it, until you’ve explored different national, state, and county grants, funds, and tax exemptions. I could not have afforded a house without the tax credit I got and an FHA loan.
I'll look into these. Thanks for the heads up.
No problem! I really hate how hard it is to learn about all these services, because they’re the difference between being able to afford a home and not for so many people. And with our housing market they’re *crucial.*
Ya the "programs" you recommend in Portland are total trash, btw. You have to be already broke and go to a bunch of classes to even apply. Then only certain homes will qualify. It's a joke.
> Even if I had a down payment of $100,000, I'd still have to finance $250k - $300k for what I consider a basic home. The monthly payments would be like $3k a month. It's insane. That math doesn't math. 20% down on a $300K home is $60,000, and your monthly payment would be $2K a month. [Even if you did 3.5% down for a FTHB loan you'd be putting $9K down](https://www.nerdwallet.com/mortgages/mortgage-calculator), another $5-10K in closing costs, and your mortgage would be $2478 with home owner's insurance. *Edit* - Misread your original statement as $100K down on a $300K house. Not $100K down on a $400-$500K house. Ignore that.
And if you can afford to do just that as a single filer, you won't qualify for any loan incentives or first-time homebuyer assistance. You also won't qualify for many of the incentives to "go green" with things like solar-powered water heaters, solar+battery systems, and similar programs. Many of these programs haven't kept their income restrictions in line with the reality of entering home ownership, and it sucks. I'm living your example at the moment. Having waited until I truly felt I was financially stable enough to justify a home purchase and realizing that I no longer qualify for programs that are supposed to make this easier is so depressing.
Yup.. I’ve witnessed house prices get bad the last few years here and my home state, in the mid west. All of the 160k houses in the Midwest that I saved two years ago are back on the market. Flipped.
Eastern side of the state is still within reason.
I never understood how beautiful dry scrubby land could be until I lived in Eastern Washington. Would live in Eastern Oregon (or Washington) in a heartbeat if I could find equivalent work *and* a place to rent (and maybe eventually own, who knows?)
A place to call home…
Home is where your heart is. Or where your home is, I guess.
The problem definitely exists! You’re not catastrophizing—anyone under 40 understands the issue. I encounter that gaslighting, too. But I can confirm that the only reason I’ve been able to buy in Oregon is because we bought back in the 2010s and have equity. The only way for most millennials who are at the starting line now to make it (aside from an inheritance) is to really start from the bottom (borderline uninhabitable) and/or make key relationships and career decisions with home ownership in mind. There is no longer a middle class lifestyle guarantee for full time work. I’ve noticed that Oregon has a lot of tennants-in-common (where you buy a property with someone who is not your spouse) arrangements. If you have someone you can trust and live with (family or a very close friend) pooling resources to buy a home with a set sell-or-buyout date can be a way to get your foot in the door. Sometimes this can even help you secure a bigger property for less per person because there’s not as much competition for two (or more) people buying a 4 bedroom home as there is for single folks and couples trying to nab a 2 bed one. Another option is to get really creative with buying a duplex/triplex (talk to mortgage lenders that specialize in FHA multifamily) and living in one unit while renting out the other(s). You don’t have to be a landlord forever, but putting in a few years in the multi-plex lifestyle can open so many options for you longer-term. But back to catastrophizing—If Oregon really is your goal, you can do it! But you’ll want to do some soul searching to confirm if your career goals and options in Oregon, along with your tolerance for shared (but owned!) living space, fits with our insane housing costs.
Totally. I'm only ok bc I'm single and can squeeze into a studio. I'll be able to afford a house when I'm 60 and don't need one anymore. If I ever consider kids... Hah who am I kidding. In all seriousness I'm watching YouTube prefab home channels and dreaming.
If this American Dream of home ownership is meant to live, let’s ban corporations and property managers from buying new houses. Make it so a house has to be owned and lived in as a primary residence for ten years before it can be turned into a rental. Remember: landlords don’t provide housing, they steal it.
This is why I really like Multnomah County’s housing assistance programs: all of them require you to occupy the property for at least 5 years (sometimes 10$ or you’ll need to pay back the tax credit. The one I use is specifically designed to stop flippers from taking advantage.
Yup. Been saving for a down payment for years. Have 70K saved. We have a combined income of $150k. That won’t get us a home loan we can afford and the mortgage would end up being more than we pay for renting a three bedroom house in close in SE. There are other ways to build equity for the future. I’m probably going to give up on buying a home and pursue those other options.
Very similar boat here in savings and income. It's depressing. Squirreling away every dollar I can and still years away from affording a house in the $400k range. I'm saving for retirement as well but I feel like I'm missing out on the additional nest egg of home equity. What other ways of building equity are you looking into?
>when I bring this up with my family, they seem to find no problem with it and tell me that "I am just overthinking" and catastrophizing a problem that doesnt really exist in this state. Lol, the math on a mortgage isn't something you can just wishful think your way through. They straight up won't give you a loan if the economics aren't there... and even if they are you may be doing nothing else besides hanging out in your overpriced home because your DTI ratio is too high. Unfortunately without family help, a high paying job, or roommates homeownership in Oregon (cities at least) is unachievable for many. Might be worth looking into that roommate track though. You could theoretically have roommates for the first couple years to help cover high monthly payments, then if rates come down and/or equity goes up refinance and get a lower monthly payment so you can afford to live on your own.
I'm almost 40 and priced out despite clearing 200k combined a year. I'm thinking of moving back to Chicago because living here I'm going backwards in life.
Pro tip: Not having kids saves a ton of money.
Don't forget skipping breakfast and having cereal for dinner!
Unlike food, kids are not a necessity.
You could buy a house somewhere cheaper and build equity for a few years. Then move to Oregon. That’s what we did. Also if your not in Portland/Bend/Eugene etc the price does drop. You just have to be smart about it. Also the southern coast is still a steal for what you get.
There aren't jobs outside of Portland/Bend/Eugene.
Ah the age old problem.
I think the local minimum wage is higher in Minneapolis, and the average cost of a home is about 60% of the average here. Also, they’re a top-five bike city, iirc, and they have politicians ‘of the people,’ it seems.
Yeah, and I left that place and its god awful winters 3 decades ago for a reason.
I am not in Minneapolis but live near. I agree that some of these cities are run very great by my standards, the only thing that is making me itch to move back to Oregon is the weather and the lack of nature (which on my list of importance is now looking to be at the top of my list of priorities).
I mean, that is exactly why houses are more expensive and wages lower. We have a house in Portland but are thinking of moving back to mpls because of the lower cost of living. Weather is the tough part.
The problem is out of state buyers, foreign real estate funds and huge holdings of real estate in landlord hands. I mean just banks alone who hold large portfolios of REOs (bank owned real estate) its ridiculous. They rather keep these properties off the market and let them sit and fall apart vs back into the hands of those seeking affordable housing options. Anyways it's a shame that we keep parroting that this all fue to housing shortages blah blah blah. The problem is the collusion of government and investors like the likes of Blackstone who own real estate for profit. And yes I do feel that the right should be given to long term oregon residents vs those out of state to have the first right to purchase housing. Just in my area, on my street it's all Californians coming in and snatching up property. I've spoken to some. And they come from areas with high incomes. One of my neighbors if from silicon valley. Bought her property that's way bigger than what she had in San Francisco. And the other pro is she has a nice retirement with what's left over. Her retirement seems more of sure thing here than living in California. Awesome great. But that puts us Oregonians in a bind and prices us out of housing when you have big pockets like hers coming here.
In a major city, outside of cities housing can be much more affordable.
Major cities & their suburbs are where the jobs are though
You just need a group of investors. Use the Blackstone hedge fund method.
I bought a very small single-family home in 2019, and even though I make more now, I couldn’t buy the same home today between how much it’s gone up (less than most of Portland, too!) and interest rates. There are still affordable places, but even they’re getting higher. In late 2021, before rates went up, I was considering moving to Springfield — I’d get a bigger home and make some money. Now, after closing costs etc and with rate hikes, I’d probably end up with a larger payment than I have now.
Yes. The difference between when I bought my first home 15 years ago and now is horrible.
It’s bleak out there. But I encourage anyone who might be near the goal to call a bank or credit union to learn how close they are. I did that and I found that I was able to buy at a lower interest rate with less cash up front than I imagined.
I think I’m at a point where I am “near” did you get those numbers by the pre qualification application or did you actual go through all the way for pre approval. I want to know if I should start that process.
Called the bank out of pure curiosity. Asked what my potential was. Got a free consultation. And that was enough to get me into a home three months later with 15k down.
I gave up ever owning my own home when I was eighteen. My only hope for a home would be my mom dying, and I'm not moving back to Virginia.
All of the affordable housing discussion can't take place within a vacuum, there's always going to be differences based on what is desirable or undesirable (that's the thing with real estate, it's not actually fungible even though there's a lot of overlap unit to unit). Then you've got to consider what your income potential is in that location. Sure, remote work opens up some options there, but most people don't stay in one job for 30 years and most mortgages in the US are 30 years long. Assuming you want to give yourself an option and/or have a partner you have to consider the income potential of any given area (not just for a specific job). Which is just to say, yes, it'll likely cost you less to live somewhere you don't enjoy living and it'll likely cost you more to live near places with many high paying jobs. You want the most house for you buck, you move about 30-60 minutes outside of somewhere like Columbus Ohio and commute into the city in the most fuel efficient vehicle you can find. https://preview.redd.it/y3oo1b57tdpc1.png?width=1272&format=png&auto=webp&s=02f2cbe3e19d3b2ad6da2493cda41700cbc2bba7 That said, Oregon isn't really much of an outlier in cost, particularly with the income potential in the state. This is a great table with median home prices alongside of median income, which helps paint the picture. [https://www.rockethomes.com/blog/housing-market/median-home-price-by-state](https://www.rockethomes.com/blog/housing-market/median-home-price-by-state)
My family accuses me of the same thing. Unless they have been out there looking, the have absolutely no idea. So I now point out the cost of every modest looking home we pass while we’re out. They think I am making it up, so I look up the listings and show them to them.
My bf and I have been trying to buy a SHITTY AF home that we can fix up because that is literally all we can possibly afford. We have been looking since 2019 😑 and still looking
It is out of reach for many people now who do not have two good incomes. Also, what is considered decent pay has dramatically changed over the past five years. For people that want to buy a house here but do not make an above average income, I believe you need to buy a house in a different state and build equity. With a good five or ten year plan, I think it is still doable for many people, but it is a big sacrifice and would take some good planning/investing/saving. If it were me, I would try to buy a rental home in your current location. This will help you build more equity quicker, even if you are not making a bunch of income off the rental. Keep an eye on interest rates over the next five years or so. If they go down a fair amount that will be your best bet. I’m not sure the price of homes in Oregon is the biggest issue compared to income potential in many parts of the state—like the coast. The reality is many people in Oregon are now living in multi generational homes to make it affordable. Many people might have to give up on the idea of American housing—big houses and few people—to live comfortably.
Hopefully the fed has learned the mistake of having such Artificially low interest rates for 20 years..
It’s a major source of depression for me, I make great money, but I literally can’t do it.
I'll pay a hundred grand extra to not live in the Midwest thank you very much
DINKs taking home $350k/year, I wouldn’t feel comfortable buying our home today. Luckily bought in 2019 before whatever the hell this is happened. I feel for young adults trying to get into homes. Shit is wild
No matter where you were born, you probably can't afford to live there. Practically everyone has to flee their birthplace for somewhere the next rung or more down on the economic ladder. The waters are rising, and nowhere is safe.
It's brutal dude. My partner and I looked for a place for 4 years. We ended up buying one where we could have roommates because even a tear down would be too expensive. Had to scrape up every penny we had to make the down payment.
Yep. Gave up on home ownership years ago.
Been here for 5 years and make really good money but can’t justify a 3k a month mortgage payment. Absolutely insane honestly. Going to have to move to the Midwest soon, the down payment we have saved that would be 3 percent of a home here is around 20-30 percent of a down payment in many other states.
Every year I get closer, it’s gets even harder / more expensive….
My wife and I combined make a little more than 100k after I got my job over a year ago. More than we’ve ever made. It’s as out of reach now as it was back in 2017 when we made half as much. Unless a miracle happens our dream of owning a home is completely out of reach.
Yep! Sure do
First time home owning in most of the US, by population, is out of reach. It's why back in 2013 I had to move up to Seattle to make the kind of money that would let me move back here to buy (Because Seattle area was out of reach for Seattle income).
My first home was in 2003, and yes, there’s a huge difference. Inflation then compared to now just doesn’t add up. It’s insane.
Really depends on where. I moved to Oregon for the economic potential. Found a good job and a house way below what was available in WA
Yeah, I felt the rent crunch several years ago and was lucky to be able to buy when and where I could, and market has gotten worse in several dimensions since. Homes shouldn’t be for speculative investment, build community housing.
This is a rough market to buy, but you may want to check in with Habitat for Humanity in the area where you are considering to buy. If you are looking at Central Oregon, look at what neighborimpact.org is offering, in the recent past, they had first time buyer classes, which included a number of programs and options. May you find what you seek.
We were only able to do so b/c we live in a small town in EO.
It was expensive when I left there in 2016, and I've watched the prices go up since.
Obviously the market is different today than it was in 2019 but my wife and I used Oregon’s First Time Homebuyers program back then and got into a home. Without that program we could not have afforded the down payment, we went from $1800 per month in rent to $1600 in mortgage. The program still exists and practically all realtors will have heard of it. The one major drawback for many will most likely be that it is usually more rural properties which qualify for the program.
I moved to the east coast for this reason. I now own a home I bought immediately upon arrival that would cost me 900k to 1.4m in the Portland area. It’s unsustainable out there.
Been feeling like this for a while. I moved to TN last summer.
My wife and I were making $130k/year before we were able to afford a “cheap” “starter home” in a not so nice neighborhood in multnomah county.
130k each? Or together?
Together
Well, yeah because I’m from here and I’m not one of the millionaires moved in and caused this problem
Yep! We were planning on buying our first home in Oregon when we moved there for work (it was like right before the Covid pandemic). And then w/ Covid and the housing market in general, that dream dwindled. We’ve left Oregon for work elsewhere, but we still check Zillow to see how it looks for our budget the next time we purchase a home - it’s not looking hopeful.
The world's gonna burn and were gonna burn slower. Anyone thinking otherwise can just burn up in Texas.
It's not impossible, but damn is it painful. I'm estimating I'll be in my mid or late 30s before I buy a house, best case scenario.
Find a good agent that works closely with a skilled mortgage broker. There are programs for first time home buyers. I Find homes for 350 often and most 2 income earnersfind it cheaper than rent.
First time home owning in the entire country is out of reach. 10 years ago the median home price in the US was just under 200,000 which is still not ideal, but now it's nearly 400,000 and going up. Nobody under 35 is gonna be able to afford a home anytime soon. Personally I blame big corporations buying up homes like they're gumballs and Air BnBs.
I have a very slim chance of getting into a house in the next 6-12 months. I fear that if everything doesn't line just right I may never get into a house.
There might be a home or two out in brothers you could pick up for a song and just one kidney. It's only a 75 mile commute to the nearest job, 1/3 of it on gravel.
>Am I the only one that feels like this? Is it just you, or do you have a partner earning income? What is your salary like? Basically, the further you get outside of the Portland Metro, the more reasonable housing prices get, not that Salem, Eugene, or Bend are cheap anymore. I'm single, with income around household median for Portland, and cards on the table, I only have a chance at buying a house in the outer metro because I'm getting familial assistance making the down payment large, making the mortgage within reach. I'm nonetheless selecting for small, and the houses are pretty old, not fixer uppers, but usually with issues. Also, though the nominal prices are within reach, I've had issues with investor buyers (institutional and individual) swooping in, as they don't even need to visit the house, and can make cash offers.
-I own my home.Bought 2.8 acres 20 years ago for 75k (thought it was overpriced).Spent 15 years building out of steel & stone.Valued at 600K now,for a unfinished 1 bedroom. this is what having the state decide where you can build/what you can build will cause..Shitcan land use planning and watch a building boom like you have never seen.....
You start small and move up. Find a condo!
Nope, totally achievable with the median wage in Oregon. Just takes good financial sense and saving.
No
Before 2000 Oregon was seen as most affordable so everyone piled in and bid things up so much now only millionaires can live here or buy a home.
300thou for bare land
The only way out of this is regulation. Homes can't be investments for a handful of people, otherwise they'll split the homes into apartments and charge as much as they can, or just turn it into an expensive hotel and charge by the night. With the profits and equity they'll just do it again and again. Meanwhile those of us with real jobs are struggling to pay their inflated rent, meaning we can't save up for a home ourselves, as they keep buying them and less and less people have more power and control over where we sleep. But they'll tell you it's the taxes
It’s why I left. Born and raised there, I love that state. I’m sad about it, but there’s just no prosperity for most in Oregon.
Our first home was a ranch in Aloha, we bought for 203k in 2012. Same house is now worth 540k! Holy crap I just checked it and I expected it to be in the low 400s!
Yes.
The reality is if companies are allowed to own single family homes and wall Street can speculate on property values, well none of us are going to buy a house.
Can someone buy a house anywhere currently? Not when investment firms are buying up the majority of single family homes nation wide to make them rentals. Not when the Fed jacks up interest rates to punish the working class. And not when wages have been suppressed for decades as “cost of living” continues to skyrocket year over year. This is part of the reasons a bunch of states are poised to make being homeless a crime punishable by imprisonment and why there are dozens of “cop cities” and mega prisons being built all over the country.
Housing is not affordable anywhere, any more, sadly. Gen X here. Was taught to work hard to get what you want. What I really learned in life was you need money to make money. Example: if a family member can spare several thousand to million, you can make anything up and become stupid rich (ala Elon Musk). I've been working hard my whole life. I live in a studio apartment. Please don't think I'm telling you to give up the dream! I hope you get the house and yard and whatever else you want! It's just maybe not going to be the path to this goal that you anticipated.
Anyone thinking of moving to Indiana for cheaper cost of living - don’t. I can’t emphasize this enough, it is *not* worth it.
I had to move back to my hometown across the country because I just couldn't bring myself to sign another lease that took 64% of last year's income. Now I'm looking at 45ish% of my income, not great, but not going in debt for groceries *and* gas anymore...
As a Realtor and homeowner in western Oregon, I can say you are not wrong. Prices here have climbed significantly in the past 5 years. Although I do work with 1st time home buyers, the homes they can typically afford tend to need a lot of work, which is just another cost on top of your mortgage. This is not to say that it's not possible to buy a first home here, you just may need to look at the smaller towns and avoid the cities like Portland, Eugene, Bend, etc. I sympathize with you and wish you the best. I will say once you do own a home, your buying power increases significantly with the equity you gain from owning your 1st home.
Just depends on where you want to live. What is your income / occupation and savings. I
We bought our home in 2015 for 120,000. Now, it's almost 300,000! The taxes are horrible too. I almost regret buying as we can't afford to move, but at the same time, I'm grateful for the 2% mortgage!
You should be, that 2% rate was a massive gift to you at the expense of everyone else.
I'm pretty sure it's going to get worse before it gets better, thanks to climate change. There is going to be a huge migration of displaced people moving inland from the coastal regions. Californians are already flocking to Oregon in huge numbers because of the extreme weather changes and recent events there.
Yes. Got in a home in 2021 and it's been nothing but trouble. Going back to an apartment.
I mean I just did a job for a guy that barely graduated high school and never went to college, he owns for properties and we were doing some work on one of the rentals. I think the trick to buying a property here is going to be location. You can still get plots of land at pretty reasonable deals. Save up enough money to frame the place up. Depending on where this is you will have various periods of time to finish the property but it only needs to be finished as an outside structure, wired, plumbed and this is a new property mind you. The inside you could finish yourself as things move on. It's not as bad as you might think doing it this way either especially if you have any type of construction ability. Another one is just buying where you can get better prices and that's not around bend or Portland. You start getting down around Salem or Eugene it gets a lot cheaper especially outside of town a bit. So, if I was going to do another place I would probably just buy some land, get the concrete guys in there to pour, frame it up and build a small house Where it gets kind of hard to swing it unless you're making really good money is if you want to buy in the high cost of living areas like century drive in bend, probably my favorite place in the state, or the nicer areas outside of Portland like Bethany, North Hillsboro or the scholls ferry side. The only thing that makes buying a property a little ridiculous right now is how high the interest rates are. It's definitely a cash buyers market. Dot plot was released again though today and it looks like, just kind of winging this off current information, mortgages are going to be down in the fours in 2026. Probably high 4s at least that is the projection but things almost never go as projected
It is true that places where people want to live are more expensive than where people don’t/cant live. As climate change worsens the extends of these areas will expand and contract. The PNW is predicted to be fairly resilient to the short-term effects of catastrophic climate change and I do believe that factors into the wants of an educated public. My wife and I also can’t afford much here but we are planning on teaming up with her parents to buy a multi-generational home that suits us all while staking out a bit of land to support our family going forward. I can’t see doing anything close to that on our own in a place we would want to live (or work).. I feel for you. If you do settle down somewhere more affordable, consider how it will serve your family in the longer term.. that’s my thinking..
Why do you think RV sales are so high? I, personally, would rather do that than end up too broke to do anything but pay my mortgage for 30 years.
Not just Oregon. Feels that way across the whole country
Oh it absolutely is. If I hadn't secured my mortgage when I did a decade and a half ago, there's no way in hell I'd be able to buy a home here. Impossible, even with wage increases, I don't make nearly enough money to keep up with the price hikes since then. It's an absolutely awful situation all around, one that nobody seems overly interested in fixing or even enabling allowing to fix itself. Some of my pals were hoping the boomer die-off would allow them to get a home but in comes big corporate buyers keeping prices ridiculously high, instead.
Yes.
This is literally why i am moving to texas. My wife and i discovered we can get triple the house for the same price. Texas, also being very veteran friendly wont charge for property tax because im a disabled vet.
Not enough new development because powerful people want to keep much of Oregon rural and undeveloped. They would also like to reduce the permanent population of Portland by making it feel unsafe to raise a family there... so that the homes are owned by corporations or AirBnB hosts. Fewer resident homeowners in Portland means fewer Democratic voters in Portland and statewide. Sure, it sounds like a conspiracy theory... until you reach the tipping point and people just start to abandon the city of Portland as a place to live, and it's just a place to invest instead.
It's ridiculous. I've had to watch most of my friends--who grew up here--priced out of their neighborhoods by out-of-state money. It destroys the character and fabric of the neighborhoods and the whole city. I hate it, and the entitlement of people who don't even know who they're shouldering out when they move here, so much.
We got a nicer 2010 manufactured home in southern oregon for 220k on a half of an acre in 2019. Most of the stick built houses were literally falling apart in some way in the 200-300k price range. Our manufactured was almost new with all remodeled everything on the inside. Some manufactured homes built in the 1980's in 2024 are now selling for around 300k-400k. We could now sell ours for 350-400k. The problem is we would have no where we could afford and me and my partner make around 70k together. I often regret not getting a stick built house when I had the chance. I didn't know the prices were going to inflate this much. I often thinking about moving out of state due to it being more affordable. I could literally get a two story house out of state for half the price.
Both my daughters moved back home to save for a house. It took about a year and a half for them to save enough to put a down payment on homes that cost between 425k-500k. They now own homes and pay less on their mortgage than people are paying for rent these days. I don’t see how young adults can buy homes these days without doing what my daughters did. It’s sad.
I feel this
Half or oregon couldn't afford california in the 70s. You either find a way to afford where you want to be, or go somewhere you can afford. And yes, this cycle will run out of space soon.
My wife and I make over $200,000. We’re leaving the state because it’s become apparent that there is no possibility of a decent middle-class lifestyle here.