When we did the clean up of the house after her departure, we discovered she had kept a cat in the house in direct violation of our No Pets Policy and had extensively pock marked the newly refinished wood floors with her stiletto heel shoes.

I researched numbers of previous years and there seems to be a spike around this time before more houses come on the market and things settle down.The icing on the cake was that there was very little in our price range in a 2 mile radius when we came on the market.

Why the property spikes my interest: Rents in the area for a 2/1 are $850-900. 

My take is the City of Portland, the biggest landlord in Multnomah County, is the root cause of rent spiking drama.

Granted, we are dealing with a very small sample size and what (on the surface of your chart) appears to be an unusual spike, but that may just be the foreboding of things to come.

They have been super hot right for some of the investors that I have come across.The smart investors are covering (or even making more profit on top of) their holding period monthly/annual expenses (mortgage, property taxes, maintenance, etc.) by renting out the property as a short-term rental (more information here in this utlimate guide to short-term rentals that I recently helped collaborate on with some other professionals in the industry) while biding their time for the market to rise as Millennials and Empty-Nest Boomers continue to spike prices as they flock into theses cities in droves.

Even after fire rating the ceiling/floor assembly, high heels on laminate in the apartment above were still audible below (more could have been done for sound deadening during the renovation, but the owner was unaware ... and probably would not have spent the extra money anyway).

Probably a 25yr amortization, variable rate around prime rate (depending on your well-heeled sponsor), fixed rate for a few years, 5, 10 or 15yr maturity, and prepayment penalties.

I think almost everywhere is seeing this little spike in prices.

The problem was where the gutter spikes went into the facia.