> True, housing in Portland is cheaper on a nominal basis than Seattle, NY, LA, etc. but prices have been rising more than 10% a year for the past 5 years or so

> True, housing in Portland is cheaper on a nominal basis than Seattle, NY, LA, etc. but prices have been rising more than 10% a year for the past 5 years or so. Pay scales have not kept pace. If you have a $500,000+ home to sell in a different market, you'll be able to buy here. If you are moving here hoping to be a first-time homebuyer, good luck. I think people forget that this is a nationwide problem in basically every city, not just a Portland problem. "Prices rising 50% over the past 5 years" and "pay scales have not kept pace" equally describes five different cities in basically-nowheresville-Michigan, not to mention all the multiple dozens of other cities in other states equally effected in this exact same manner (Denver, Salt Lake, Austin, Atlanta, Phoenix, Seattle, Minneapolis, Reno, etc) Portlandia gives Portland residents a convenient spectre to point fingers at. But if that show had never existed, Portland housing would still be every bit as broken, just as it is nearly everywhere across the country right now.