Comments on: Generation Y driving Portland multifamily /news/2010/10/29/generation-y-driving-portland-multifamily-market/ Building and Construction News in Portland, Oregon and the Pacific Northwest Tue, 02 Nov 2010 17:39:55 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.6.6 By: Max Rockbin /news/2010/10/29/generation-y-driving-portland-multifamily-market/#comment-43995 Tue, 02 Nov 2010 17:39:55 +0000 /?p=61343#comment-43995 This article is awfully confusing. North Portland is the place to build because vacancy rates are low in NW Portland? Maybe that was written by someone who doesn’t live here.
For the record, North Portland is not Northwest Portland. They are at opposite ends of the rental market spectrum. What’s the vacancy rate in North Portland? How about at the new building highlighted in the article? What are the rents like compared to other new developments, in, say, NW Portland?

Even the reference to vacancy rates downtown is a bit vacuous. Pearl buildings seem always to be left out when it’s convenient (they’re condos when counting vacancy rate, but apartments when tallying average rent levels). Why are so many of these buildings offering 6 weeks free rent if things are so wonderful?

Even the main premise of the article – that generation Y is driving development – seems a little odd. The apartment biz in general – outside of retirement communities and mobile home parks – and Manhattan – has always been driven by young people. Is there something new here?

How’s Park 19 doing? That was a new development targeting a theoretical eco-youth market? From their vacancy listings, the words “cold” and “desperate” come to mind.

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