I have no desire to be a landlord in Portland due to anti-landlord legislature, outrageous tax hikes, and the trend I  which both are going.

Just not a hip and trendy area.  

Plus the weather... hard to beat, however it looks like a lot of the trend is people bailing out of states that steal their freedoms to ones that protect.

Tonight our small investor group will start an open ended conversation about how to go about making an existing older neighborhood in our community into trendy and popular neighborhood with more of an urban identity.

@Jay Hinrichs the real interesting trend is HELOCs as a form of refi; regional banks are basically pitching the old 5-year interest-only ARMs as HELOCs to wrap up 1st and 2nd mortgages.

Frozen capital until the market resets to new normal.By summer economic vacancy of 15% becomes the new normal.Vegas condos in trendy hotels like Signature MGM, VDARA, Palms are selling for $150-250k.Hospitality assets will be trading on ten-x auctions and $1M will buy you a 100 key Quality Inn in a decent metro like Tucson, Houston, etc.Multifamily holds on the longest as operators scale back cap ex and race to the bottom on concessions, rent price, etc.Retail strip centers in urban sprawl suburbs sit vacant no debt market or tenancy demand. 

If something is amiss ask them to correct the condition of apartment before you agree to the roommate off lease.It worked perfect for us, we had high college student population and also were in a very trendy location, people at least asked if they could do this verses just plain both moving out.

Just reading the OP, the trend is quite obvious, and it's not in your favor.

Not trendy, just light and fresh and warm.But, if otherwise everything is functional and clean and not god-awful, you should be fine - assuming you're not in a really rich trendy area that absolutely demands granite countertops. 

I'd say current trend is minus 5-10%/yr for rent with a lot of job cuts in the oil industry.