Portland, Oregon Investers How are you?

Question

Hello PDX (and surrounding area) investor friends! My wife and I are coming into the scene here and would love to start a conversation with like-minded local folks.

We currently do not own any rentals yet, however, we purchased our first SFH in January and are looking for creative ways to leverage that property in order to move into the rental market.

Our primary goal is to be in Multi-Family, however it seems the inventory on the RMLS and sites like Trulia or Zillow are few and far between for anything over duplex.

Has anyone found a better source for locating tri or four-plex properties?

How about the Vancouver market? Does anyone have experience crossing the river?

We look forward to making some connections and hopefully building some relationships with other local investors. Hope to hear from you soon!

Thanks in advance,

Ryan

Neal Collins · Answer

@Bovard Doerschuk-Tiberi HB2001 is merely a drop of water in a large pool, even if you combine it with Portland's Residential Infill Project.85% of Portland is zoned for single family occupancy and is primarily owner occupied. I don't see many of these owners chomping at the bit to chop their property in half to create a duplex. Accordingly, the increased supply of rentals that comes from this will be negligible, and frankly welcomed. The only new supply coming on the market is at the high end, and if you are an owner of C or B class properties and now have to compete with 3 months off on class A apartment buildings then good luck.As real estate investors it's a double edged sword to see rental rates consistently and aggressively increase year over year. It causes housing instability, half-baked political policies, and an ever increasing ego of sellers. No matter what the days of an "affordable" Portland is long gone. Looks towards secondary or tertiary markets if that is your game. Opportunity is still here in Portland, but you'd better sharpen your sword and be prepared to compete amongst the small cap rate players that know how to ball.

Bovard Doerschuk-Tiberi · Answer

@Tim Marr How do you think HB2001 will affect the multifamily space? My initial take:From my reading of HB2001, all Single Family (at least in Portland and surrounding areas) will now be required to allow duplexes. So the supply of duplexes will start to drastically increase in certain areas where the rents support it. This would have a downward pressure on both rents and duplex prices. Not great for existing duplex owners.In addition there is a LOT of Single Family zoning, which means that any time the duplex prices start to creep up (or rent starts to creep up), it might "activate" another area to make it worth converting Single Family to duplexes. Pushing down duplex and rent.This seems to be in line with the aims of HB2001.After a number of years, all the places that make sense have been converted to duplexes and prices/rents will start to creep up again.Perhaps this will end up increasing the value of the single family homes that remain? At least if there is enough consumer preference to SF vs MF.

Neal Collins · Answer

@Tim Marr The economics behind converting all SFRs to duplexes simply isn't there. It's like Portlanders with signs in their yards that say "Stop Demolishing Portland." Not every single family in Portland will work to convert to a multifamily property. Naturally it will cause the needle to budge somewhat, but likely in the same amounts, if not less, than the rate ADU's have proliferated in Portland.I do think that as the city develops we are going to be seeing SFR values increase. You can already see that now. We now have the demographics to support this (both good and bad I guess).

Ryan Jones · Answer

Wow sorry for the spacing, wrote this post on mobile and the formatting came out awkward.

Danna Gramme · Answer

Hi Ryan, my husband and are are looking for our second primary home. We are downsizing. We are going to rent the house we live in once we find out a new home. Pickings are slim in Vancouver, WA. We are seeking creative ways to find off-market properties. I hesitate to say 'deals' the market here is hot. Driving for dollars is one tactic we are doing on weekends. We are still learning: reading books on real estate investing, watching Youtube videos, listening to Podcasts. I've enrolled in @meetKevin course online (he is a youtuber- I do recommend his videos!). I can't believe how much I've learned so far. So much more than reading and listening to videos/podcasts. I'm not recommending you spend $ on any program - because we all have our own ways of learning. I prefer multiple variation in education. He does live broadcasts and answers question to those 'students' that are enrolled in his program. Melissa direct is a source I've used. I purchased a small list and asking if they are interested in selling. Also, I'm searching Facebook and joining private Facebook groups of investors to network in. And we're a member of the Northwest RIEA group and the Washington State Landlord Association. They have free lease agreements and so much more! There is a lot to learn and would we would welcome doing meetups etc.

Danna Gramme · Answer

@Ryan Jones Here is the WA Landlord https://www.walandlord.org/become-a-member.htmland the Northwest REIA group https://www.northwestreia.com/We look forward to seeing you there!

Ryan Jones · Answer

@Danna Gramme thanks for the comment! Do you happen to have links to those groups so we can check them out?

Jay Hinrichs · Answer

Agreed what is allowed by zoning and what reality are differ greatly. It reminds me of a house I had on Cooper mt.. it was one acre all estate lots million plus.. I happen to be in the planning department of WA county looking at something else and caught that are property had been brought into the UGB as 5k lots no sewer mind you within a mile.So I ask the planner you guys take all this credit for brining in development land. but when you look at the reality of chopping it up who is going to take their one acre estate lot with a million dollar plus 5k sq ft house and then chop up 5k sq ft lots on it.. answer NO one so this whole 200 acres of our development that you get to count as buildable lands is just window dressing.

Ryan Jones · Answer

@Ashton Levarek thanks for the comment! I would love to talk about your AZ investments and the military. I sent you a message but I'm not sure if it went through...

Ashton Levarek · Answer

Hey @Ryan JonesI'm actually in the Tigard area, just south of PDX, and we are multifamily investors as well. But I can tell you now that I do not have, nor is it likely that I will ever have rentals along the west coast. The laws combined with the prices and taxes, they just do not compete with what we can find down south and along the mid Atlantic states. In fact almost all of our investments are in North Carolina, primarily Raleigh Durham area (although two are in AZ) but the purchase price vs rental prices out there just work better for us. And this is just reflective of the ever increasing job market out there, after all where ever the jobs go... the market grows.Hope that helps, if you have any other questions please feel free to reach out. All the best. Ashton