Portland Real Estate in the Crystal Ball

A November 2005 Business 2.0 magazine article, The $25 Trillion Land Grab, reports that over the next 25 years in the U.S., planners predict we will build out 200 billion square feet of housing to accommodate 70 million more people at the cost of $25 trillion.

Virginia Tech urban planning professor Robert Lang believes that the bulk of investment will be in 10 major metropolitan areas he calls ‘megapolitans’. These supercities will be created as mergers of existing metro/suburban areas with common economic characteristics and development potential. Examples include Norcal (Sacramento/San Francisco), Valley of the Sun (Phoenix/Tucson), and I-85 Corridor (Raleigh-Durham/Atlanta).

Lang also highlights Cascadia, a megaregion encompassing the corridor of Eugene, Portland, and Seattle. To quote:

“Vast quantities of cheap, prime greenfield surrounding Seattle, Portland, and Eugene give the Northwest megapolitan explosive growth potential. By 2030 the three metro regions will be intertwined.”

Researcher’s best residential real estate bet? $200,000 homes in small towns 30 minutes outside Portland, beyond the urban-growth boundary.

A related article, Unarrested Development, points to Beaverton, with its Nike and Intel job bases, as one of the country’s most likely cities to experience hypergrowth.

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1 comment October 31st, 2005