Confirmed Change in Investor Sentiment

Last month I wrote about a sharp decline in multifamily housing permits in Multnomah County that appears unexplained by COVID-19 restrictions because of its relative difference compared to other Oregon counties with large urban areas. My hat is now tipped to Nigel Jaquiss, one of Oregon’s best reporters, who this week reported that the City of Roses doesn’t look so rosy to real estate investors anymore.

The Urban Land Institute and Price Waterhouse Coopers report that Portland has dropped from the third-most desirable real estate market in 2017 to sixty-sixth today. That is a remarkable change in investor sentiment in such a short period of time. It cannot be explained by the pandemic, because all the other eighty cities that the Urban Land Institute surveyed are affected by COVID-19 as well.

I hope such a dire metric can be turned around. A dark cloud like that will affect many peoples’ livelihoods.

Eric Shierman lives in Salem and is the author of We were winning when I was there.