So You Want To Move To Portland? LOL! (Corvallis: real estate, renter)

[urbanlife78]

Originally Posted by Minervah

She has already addressed that question. Why do you keep asking?

So basically between now and Christmas. That works for me.

[thedownlow]

Originally Posted by PNWdreamin

And, on the bright side, Portland is not one of the top 10 US cities with the worst Homelessness rate!

Top 10 U.S. Cities With A High Homelessness Rate

Not sure I agree with that. With Portland they are just more out in the open, in your face. Everywhere. The most I've seen.

I've been to LA, NYC, Chicago. Sure they may have more obviously, but the populations are way higher. They don't seem to be all over the city like here. More tucked away. Some exceptions of course.

[urbanlife78]

Originally Posted by thedownlow

Not sure I agree with that. With Portland they are just more out in the open, in your face. Everywhere. The most I've seen.

I've been to LA, NYC, Chicago. Sure they may have more obviously, but the populations are way higher. They don't seem to be all over the city like here. More tucked away. Some exceptions of course.

That may be the case, but hiding the homeless isn't the answer to this issue. Having it out in the open is also a great reminder to us that there is still more to be done even if it isn't as bad as other places.

[patches403]

Originally Posted by Raisinet

1. I've never seen so many homeless people in my life. Portland is America's Homeless Camp. And it's perfectly legal. It's also disgusting and dangerous. There's literally hordes of seriously mentally ill people roaming the streets.

2. Rents, rent increases, and home prices are out of control. Worse, there's no justification for it. Your landlord is constantly raising rents while you've got the homeless sleeping in front of your apartment building and breaking glass on the sidewalks.

3. Did they tell you about the "big earthquake" potential here? Do you know there's been a lack of building code to protect you from this coming earthquake?

They didn't even have earthquake building codes at all until 1993.

4. There's no shortage of gang activity, to include regular shootings.

5. The traffic is flat out awful, and the car insurance rates are high. And finding a place to park your car is a nightmare.

In response:

1) There are a lot of homeless within parts of the city, mainly downtown and the close-in East side neighborhoods. If you don't take public transit and you live in the suburbs or the parts of Portland away from the Max line, you won't see much of any homeless. They certainly won't be camped outside your front door. I hardly ever see any homeless unless I go downtown, which I try to do as little as possible.

2) I won't disagree with you on this one. For households making under $100,000 a year, unless they have a paid off house, they probably aren't exactly enjoying very many of the activities Portland has to offer since such a huge chuck of their funds are going towards housing.

3) This is true enough, but there weren't any building codes until 1993 because no one had any idea before then that large earthquakes were even possible here. It's not as if they knew and ignored the risk for 100 years before changing the building codes.

Besides, if you asked people who live in the Mid-West if they would rather deal with a very small chance of a major earthquake or a big chance of a major tornado in any given year, I bet most of them would take the earthquake. Same with hurricanes on the East and Gulf coasts. And, how many people in the Mid-West know there's just as good of odds that there will be a major earthquake on the New Madrid fault line (located where the borders of Missouri, Arkansas, Illinois, Kentucky, and Tennessee meet) as there is of a Northwest earthquake and unlike here I can guarantee you virtually no one near the New Madrid fault line is building any new construction that can handle a 8+ earthquake.

4) Only affects certain pockets of certain high crime neighborhoods. Your average Portlander's only exposure to gang activity is from watching it on the news.

5) Don't disagree with you on the traffic and the parking in certain downtown and close-in neighborhoods. Traffic is terrible and is only going to continue to get worse since geographic limitations and money pretty much prevent the roads from ever being fixed to actually handle the volume.

Car insurance isn't any higher here than any other major metro area and probably lower than many of them. Your insurance is probably high because you're young and have claims on your record (or bad credit), not because you live in Portland.

[Raisinet]

Originally Posted by ccjarider

Geez- quite the rant. Reading between the lines, seems like you may not be very happy with the decisions you've made in life. Lot's of rationalizing going on. I hope you understand that you pay a lot for the clogged toilet "convenience."

Your call though. Thanks for answering my question.

Your zero mobility comment is crap. We have moved across country through several states for job changes. Selling and buying housing was easy. Owning houses never kept from pursuit of economic opportunities. I have never viewed any house as an investment, just a place to live that cost less ( in some cases a lot less) than renting. Don't really care if price goes up or down.

Property Taxes are cheap and you pay them too btw.

Here, I saved this for your return.

10 places where renting a home beats buying - Page 7 - CBS News

It's actually cheaper to rent in Portland than it is to buy. And I can bank the difference.

And again, the Portland problem isn't the high rent, it's that I'm not getting any value for those high-rent dollars.

Take last night for example: I had a four-piece, drunken homeless band playing a guitar (quite badly, I might add) and hooting and hollering outside my apartment building at 12:30 a.m.

[Raisinet]

Originally Posted by PNWdreamin

And, on the bright side, Portland is not one of the top 10 US cities with the worst Homelessness rate!

Top 10 U.S. Cities With A High Homelessness Rate

I'll pose the same question to you that I posed to the other deflectors that didn't answer it: what does the homeless rates in other cities have to do with MY quality of life RIGHT HERE in Portland?

I don't live in Cleveland. The homeless in Cleveland aren't sitting outside my building or sleeping on the sidewalk, or begging in front of my building. The homeless in Portland are.

[urbanlife78]

Originally Posted by Raisinet

I'll pose the same question to you that I posed to the other deflectors that didn't answer it: what does the homeless rates in other cities have to do with MY quality of life RIGHT HERE in Portland?

I don't live in Cleveland. The homeless in Cleveland aren't sitting outside my building or sleeping on the sidewalk, or begging in front of my building. The homeless in Portland are.

Oh, so this is all about YOUR quality of life....I hate to break it to you, but that is your issue because it is your problem. It was quiet at my apartment last night, and I bet I pay less for more space than you do.

[Hockeygirl063]

Originally Posted by CanuckInPortland

I'd say the rent increases would be the biggest potential issue that people moving to Portland should think about--that and the fact that housing prices continue to go up has made living here more expensive year over year. But rental prices are really up and not even going up in relation to taxes or the increase of property values--they're up over 15% on average since last year--it's basically a lot of landlords cashing in(and new private investors getting into the rental market). People are really frustrated with how much rent has gone up recently--lots of calls for rent control or new regulations. It's not even cheap to just rent a room with other housemates these days--prices are close to what I paid for a 1 bedroom apartment when I first moved here.

A lot of the other things mentioned including price increases are issues to varying degrees in other cities as well though, and it's going to vary how much those affect you. Crime for example happens near my neighborhood as far as theft, though I'm not fearing for my life walking anywhere in Portland and gang activity most likely won't impact you unless you're involved with gangs or hanging out around them. Homeless will be visible around downtown and inner SE and then rarer further out--the problem is out of control downtown though and just over the river from downtown. Traffic is awful if you commute from suburb to city or city to suburb, though if you commute in the same general area and don't cross over the Columbia or West Hills not as bad. I rarely spend more than 10 to 15 minutes looking for parking even in crowded areas(easier than many other cities, though some people don't seem to know how to parallel park here).

Every place has issues and benefits, Portland is hit or miss depending on your personal situation basically. The job market is better here these days, though a lot of people seem to lack any real marketable skills or connections and have trouble finding much. Plenty of people enjoy living here and plenty are frustrated, wherever you live though you will have to probably compromise on some level.

Earthquakes have everyone scared, though it's a sort of once in a lifetime chance that something happens--you've got far greater odds of cancer or heart disease taking your life.

Iagree the rent in Portland is getting out of hand. This isn't Los Angeles or SF but it seems like rents are rising very fast. Several months ago I was looking to move and the place I wanted the rent was slightly higher than what we pay but worth it because it was a townhouse and had a garage. We ended up not moving and that same place hiked their rent at least $500.

[Hockeygirl063]

Portland is big and the homeless is mostly in the downtown area and yes gangs but pretty restricted to certain areas of the city.

I have lived here for 20 + years and I at the point where i don't like it anymore. I can't say it is anything specific other than rent is stupid ridiculous. If I could move I would.

But it does have some nice things so anyone wanting to move should do as much research and ask questions on this forum. If nothing else you get many opinions as to the state of PDX. If possible live in one of the many suburbs. The light rail is pretty nice and the Saturday Market is always fun to go to and look around at local artists etc.,

[sloyd]

just let this thread end, there's 10 people coming for every 1 that leaves, prices will still go up