Portland’s Rock-Bottom Ranking in the 2026 Emerging Trends Report: A Five-Alarm Wake-Up Call for Oregon

The influential Emerging Trends in Real Estate® 2026 report (PwC and the Urban Land Institute) dropped last week, and the headline for Oregon is brutal: Portland ranks 80th out of 81 U.S. markets for overall investment and development prospects — second-to-last place for the second year in a row, beating only Hartford, Connecticut.

That is not a rounding error. That is not “west-coast cities are struggling.” That is the collective verdict of ≈2,000 sophisticated investors, developers, lenders, and brokers who were asked, “Where would you put your money in 2026?” and almost everyone said anywhere but here.

City going downhill visually

Why Investors Are Still Saying “No Thanks” to Portland

The report does not mince words on the reasons:

• Downtown office vacancy remains stubbornly high (≈33 %) because of remote/hybrid work and lingering 2020-era reputational damage.

• Multnomah County’s property tax rates are among the highest in the nation for commercial property.

• Permitting and land-use regulations are perceived as slow and unpredictable.

• Population growth has flattened; the metro area is no longer gaining domestic migrants the way almost every Sunbelt city is.

  
  

Investors are not boycotting Portland because they dislike rain or bikes. They are boycotting it because the risk-adjusted returns look terrible compared with places that are actively rolling out the red carpet.

What Happens If Oregon Politicians Keep Doing Nothing?

Here is a realistic (non-hyperbolic) trajectory if the current policy inertia continues:

5 years out (2030)

• Downtown office district still half-empty → more conversions stall for lack of financing → surrounding retail and hospitality never recover.

• Multifamily construction stays anemic because cap rates do not justify the entitlement risk → rents keep rising → working-class exodus accelerates.

• State and local tax revenue growth lags peers → schools and infrastructure funding fights get uglier.

10 years out (2035)

• Portland loses another major corporate headquarters or two (we have already lost several in the last five years).

• The metro area slips from top-20 to top-40 in total employment.

• Young college graduates continue to leave for Texas, Tennessee, Florida, and the Carolinas at rates higher than almost anywhere else in the country.

• The “Portland premium” in housing becomes a discount as buyers vote with their feet.

25 years out (2050)

• Oregon becomes a high-tax, low-growth boutique state — beautiful, progressive, and increasingly irrelevant economically.

• Think present-day Upstate New York or post-industrial Midwest cities, but with better hiking.

• The economic base shrinks to government, health care, tourism, and a few niche manufacturers that stayed for legacy reasons.

• The state’s share of U.S. GDP continues its 30-year decline and the political clout that goes with it disappears.

  
  

That is not inevitable. It is simply what happens when capital consistently goes somewhere else for a generation.

What the Top-Ranked Cities Are Actually Doing (That Oregon Could Copy Tomorrow)

The #1 market for the second straight year is Dallas/Fort Worth. #3 is Miami. #5 is Houston. These are not accidents of geography. They are deliberate policy choices.

Dallas and Miami doing great

1. Texas-style Tax Abatements (Perfectly Legal and in Reach for Oregon Counties & Cities)

Texas Chapter 312/313 (and successor programs) allow cities and counties to abate up to 100 % of new property taxes for 10 years on qualifying projects that create jobs or investment above a threshold.

• Dallas, Fort Worth, Frisco, Plano, Austin — literally every major Texas city has a menu of “as-of-right” abatements you can model in an afternoon.

• Result: billions in new industrial, data-center, and headquarters projects that would never pencil out nowhere else.

  
  

Oregon already has enterprise-zone and strategic-investment-program (SIP) tools that work similarly, but they are under-used and over-complicated. Simplify them, make them as-of-right for downtown office-to-residential conversions or new industrial, and watch capital show up.

2. Long-Term PILOT Agreements (Jersey City / New York Metro Model)

Jersey City (#2 market) routinely grants 20- to 30-year Payments-in-Lieu-of-Taxes (PILOTs) that cap a developer’s tax bill at a fixed dollar amount per square foot or per unit. Developers can finance against that certainty; banks love it. Portland and Oregon could do the exact same thing tomorrow under existing statutes — we just choose not to.

3. Fast, Predictable Entitlements

Every top-10 Sunbelt market has either (a) by-right zoning in large districts or (b) a 90- to 180-day ministerial approval track for projects that meet objective standards. Portland’s discretionary Design Review and 400+ day timelines are simply not competitive. Fixing that is 100 % within local control.

4. Aggressive Marketing & Concierge Teams

Miami, Nashville, and Dallas have dedicated “business attraction” teams that meet investors at the airport, shepherd projects through approvals, and connect them with financing. Oregon’s Business Oregon is good at rural incentives but has almost no presence in the global capital markets. Fund a real team.

5. Opportunity Zone 2.0 (Federal + State Sweetener)

The original OZ program sunsets soon, but states can create their own versions. Texas and Florida are already designing successors. Oregon could match federal basis step-up with a modest state capital-gains break for projects in distressed census tracts (downtown Portland qualifies for days).

The Bottom Line

The 2026 Emerging Trends report is not a flashing red warning light. Capital is mobile. Talent follows capital. Population follows talent. Tax base follows population. We are currently on the wrong side of every one of those arrows.

The good news? Almost everything the top-ranked cities are doing is within the legal and fiscal toolbox Oregon and its cities already possess. It is a question of political will, not a question of authority.

If our elected officials want to keep pretending that Portland can tax and regulate its way to prosperity while the rest of the country sprints the other direction, the 2031, 2036, and 2051 editions of this report will look exactly the same — except Portland will probably be dead last.

The data is in. The playbook from the winners is public. The only thing missing is the decision to use it.

Sources & Links

1. PwC / ULI Emerging Trends in Real Estate® 2026 full report – https://knowledge.uli.org/en/reports/emerging-trends/2026/emerging-trends-in-real-estate-united-states-and-canada-2026

2. PwC press release & market summary – https://www.pwc.com/us/en/about-us/newsroom/press-releases/emerging-trends-in-real-estate-2026.html

3. Oregonian/OregonLive coverage of Portland ranking – https://www.oregonlive.com/business/2025/11/real-estate-investors-trounce-portland-in-new-survey.html

4. Texas Property Tax Code Chapter 312 tax abatements – https://comptroller.texas.gov/economy/development/prop-tax/ch312/

5. City of Dallas as-of-right tax abatement policy – https://www.dallasecodev.org/627/As-of-right-Tax-Abatements

6. City of Fort Worth tax abatement program – https://www.fortworthtexas.gov/departments/econdev/tax-abatements