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Hillsboro is pretty much a company town (well, there are some datacenters now, but those don't need a lot of employees). Actually the whole of Washington County
by UncleOxidant 1y ago
Hillsboro is pretty much a company town (well, there are some datacenters now, but those don't need a lot of employees). Actually the whole of Washington County is heavily dependent on Intel. There's also Nike, but it's also heading for significantly lower headcount than it's had in a while. So it's kind of a double-whammy here (Triple if you count federal government funding cuts hitting places like OHSU (Oregon Health Sciences University)).
I was contracting out at Intel Jones Farm campus in Hillsboro in 2004 and I'd walk around the (then) new neighborhood there by the campus and I distinctly recall thinking "What if something were to happen to Intel in, say 25 or 30 years? What would happen to these neighborhoods?" It was just kind of a thought experiment at the time, but now it seems like we're going to find out.
- insane_dreamer 1y agoThere are hundreds of new homes being built in/near Hillsboro -- probably planned a few years ago when Intel "promised" it was expanding its Oregon facilities. Can't see them selling now. The local economy's going to take a major hit.
- chneu 1y agoI live in Hillsboro. Home sales are fine. There are whole subdivisions selling out before they are finished. The $180k figure is also inflated. Most folks being laid off don't make over $100k.
- sverhagen 1y agoI don't think they're talking about actual home sales prices up to this point, but rather the situation going forward, over a longer period of time.
- lotsofpulp 1y agoPrice per sq ft in Oregon (except Bend) have been flat or down for a few years already (more than other markets).
- Wohlf 1y agoHillsboro real estate has slowed down and prices have come down a bit but the whole metro is short on housing, and Hillsboro is on the light rail lines.
- cloverich 1y agoMaybe, but Oregon as a whole is far behind on housing, and prices are inflated in the area especially relative to the available jobs. I think more likely it just drives home prices downward. There's plenty of holdouts (myself included) that would happily move sooner if prices came down.
- insane_dreamer 1y agoI think it’s interest rates that are keeping that from happening , not housing prices, which have been flat for the past 2-3 years. Since these are new homes not sure how much it will drive prices down as developers expect a certain profit. But you may be right!
- wvh 1y agoNot unlike what happened to Finland when Nokia went down. That took a long time to recover from, and some would say we're still trying to overcome, though it's hard to say what could have been post-Coved with the current state of the world economy.
- selimthegrim 1y agoI used to commute from Tigard to JF5 as a contractor and I too wondered what would happen to everything I drove past.
- jermberj 1y ago> Hillsboro is pretty much a company town No, it's not. Not even close. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_town https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_town