Who’s Moving to Oregon?

The Oregon Office of Economic Analysis recently published their research – via their “Graph of the Week” posts on oregon.gov – on who has been migrating to Oregon over the last several years. The full article can be found HERE. I’ve also taken the liberty of summarizing some of the findings below:

• Oregon is seeing a net of 40,000 new migrants per years.
• The largest group of individuals moving to Oregon is in the 25-34 age bracket; the article looks at this as a positive, as this age group is associated with functioning as the working age population.
• While the two biggest reasons people move are work and housing, the article also notes that the population moving to Oregon also bears some additional characteristics: single, young, unemployed, lower income, and higher educational attainment. The author admits that this gives some credence to the “Portlandia” stereotype but also finds the fact that these individuals are looking to start careers in Oregon encouraging.
• As population natural increase slows (this is due to a vast variety of factors that are outside the scope of this study), migration is becoming the driving force behind population growth in Oregon.
• In addition to population statistics, examining in the net flow of income as a result of migration is also valuable. According to the second graph in the article, while Oregon does lose migrants and income to Washington, those losses are more than offset by incoming Californians.

Let me know your thoughts and if you have any questions! I’d be happy to discuss with you how this pertains to the Portland real estate market specifically.

– Bill