Portland Metro Apartment Rents in the News - Again

It seems no matter where you look right now, everyone is reporting on rental trends in and around the Rose City.

The National Real Estate Investor has a story about "Apartment Rents Growing Faster Than Incomes."

“Across most markets, renters are paying a higher percentage of their incomes in rent,” says Luis Mejia, director of U.S. multifamily research with the portfolio strategy division of research firm CoStar.

The Portland/Vancouver metro area is no exception to rising rents. While The Mercury featured a story in last week's edition about Portland-area renter concerns, recent surveys have placed both Vancouver, Washington and Portland, Oregon as the nation's fastest growing rental income markets. 

A story published on KGW.com used data from Apartment List rentonomics which indicated that Vancouver's rental rates were rising faster than Portland.  The Apartment List research concluded that July 2014-July 2015 rent increases were highest in Vancouver, followed by Miami, Seattle, and Portland. The survey reports Vancouver rents increased an average of 9.5% a 2-bedroom apartment. 

Meanwhile, in a survey released in August by YardiMatrix, Portland apartment rents were reported to have grown in excess of 16% from August 2014 to August 2015 among the 107 U.S. markets tracked by the company.

Portland, San Francisco, Denver, Sacramento, Seattle, Orlando and Atlanta lead the pack

At this point, regardless of who you ask, all signals seem to be pointing to the fact that the fastest rising rents in the U.S. are right here in river city.