Where did people leaving Portland go?
December 12, 2023
By: Josh Lehner, Oregon Office of Economic Analysis
In 2022, 77,400 Oregonians who were living in Clackamas, Multnomah, or Washington counties packed up and left the state. This represented 31,200 households.
In total, 9,300 Portland area household moved north to Washington (30% of all out-migrants), including 5,500 to Clark County specifically (18%). Another 5,900 households moved south to California (19%), with about a 60/40 split between northern and southern California destinations. After that, the major destinations for former Portland area households in order are Arizona, Texas, New York, Colorado, Utah, Florida, Idaho, and Illinois.
It is becoming increasingly clear that housing costs are a major factor in recent migration trends. The table below provides a breakdown of where former Portland area households moved to, including relative housing costs. These housing costs are estimates based on median home values in the PUMA (geographic areas of about 100,00 residents) in which they now live, compared to the median home value in which of the three Oregon counties they moved away from. (In the data you can get these households' current housing costs -- rents or home value -- but you cannot get their former Portland costs, so we are using median values here to get the big picture relative cost differences.)