How Do I Find a Rental in Portland? PSU Back-To-School Edition

May 30, 2017 12:05 PM

I'll be attending graduate school at Portland State University starting in September. I understand the rental market in PDX is generally pretty tight, so any tips for how/when/where to scope out rentals between now and September?

Currently living in DC where the rental market is stupidly expensive and competitive. I'll be moving with my significant other who will be working full-time from home while I'm in school. We have one well-behaved cat.

I'd like to plan a trip soon to go check out some neighborhoods and apartments, and hopefully sign a lease. Any advice on the timing of a good weekend to go look at apartments is appreciated.

We're planning on driving out to Portland mid-August and hoping to start a lease around September 1st. We both have excellent credit and by Portland standards pretty high income (of course, mine will be down to $0 once I start school). We're both used to the grind of DC commuting, me on the red line (which only catches fire some of the time) and the SO drives 45 minutes each way to Maryland in horrendous traffic.

- I don't drive, so must be accessible to PSU via public transit/walking/biking
- 30 minutes or less to PSU would be ideal, but I can deal with up to a 1 hour commute
- Two bedrooms is a must, since one of us will be studying and the other will be working from home we'll need some dedicated office space
- Max budget of around $2,000 per month but closer to $1600 would be ideal
- Must be pretty quiet, I'm too damn old to deal with undergraduate party noise on a Tuesday
- In order of preference: small house, townhouse, duplex, garden apartment, apartment building
- In unit washer/drier would be incredible
- ANY outdoor space would be incredible

I've been to Portland a few times and I liked the Kearns neighborhood quite a bit, but I'm going to be more focused on school than on going out so I'd rather be closer to campus even if that means a more boring residential area.

And if by any chance anyone is looking for two quiet, responsible tenants please MeMail me!

posted by forkisbetter to Travel & Transportation around Portland, OR (11 answers total)

I think a lot of this depends on your priorities regarding public transportation, walking or biking to PSU and the 30 minute commute. Which transportation you prefer will have an impact on what housing type you'll be able to get and what neighborhood you're restricted to.

For example, the easiest thing would be to just get an apt in one of those big new eco-friendly kinds of places like Burnside Lofts or an apt close to the park blocks downtown - you can likely get one of these 1600-2000 for a two bedroom, you'd probably be able to secure the lease in advance, and it would probably be either walkable, or close enough to a MAX line or bus that wouldn't require a transfer to get downtown to PSU. But you're not going to have really any outdoor space.

Your price range could also get you a little house or duplex - but it would have to be much farther out. This would likely put you over the 30 min - 1 hr commute time if you want to do bus/MAX. But if you're committed to biking, it's probably doable.

My experience renting in portland is that it's basically insane. A LOT of renting happens by knowing someone. Otherwise it's a lot of Craigslist, which is usually like see a post, go that day, race to get your stuff in, move in like the next week type of situation. The bigger management company type places will be more amenable to signing a lease far in advance. And while these places are sort of bemoaned by Portlanders and kind of douchey in their own way, after having lots of bad experiences with flaky Portland landlords I would be tempted to rent from one of these places just because it would be less hassle and less uncertainty. Which will be nice since you're in graduate school.

There's a ton of great neighborhoods in Portland and you could live in any of them and be perfectly happy and reasonably close to PSU. Portland tends to be all boring residential places but each has it's little street or pocket of cool hip stuff, which is why it's such a fucking lovely place. I lived in the Northeast (Mississippi) and regularly commuted by bike to PSU and it was quite convenient. I have lots of friends who live in St John's, which tends to be cheaper, and getting downtown is actually quite easy from that neighborhood by bus. As long as you are reasonably close-in, a half hour commute, especially by bike, will not be a problem.
posted by Lutoslawski at 1:01 PM on May 30, 2017 [1 favorite]

We just did this in Eugene, which I believe is a similar if smaller market. I think you will need to go closer to September. We just went in mid May for a July 1 lease and most places didn't know yet about their July availability. You may have to either be willing to move in sooner or make another trip later, like mid-late July
posted by nakedmolerats at 1:10 PM on May 30, 2017

I assume you checked out this PDF from pdx.edu/housing? It's from 2014 but would assume a lot of the information is still pretty relevant. Looks like the housing web site itself has some good graduate student specific info as well.
posted by bowmaniac at 1:10 PM on May 30, 2017

I know it sounds counter intuitive to go later, I thought so too, but I highly doubt we'd have found anything on the market yet in Eugene any earlier.
posted by nakedmolerats at 1:14 PM on May 30, 2017

Best answer: You should be just fine getting a duplex-ish thing for your budget, and pretty close in too. If you look a little further out, you can easily find a house. People complain about the pricing here because it's been historically really low compared to other cities. We're just catching up; it's still not super expensive, especially compared to some of the larger metro areas out there, unless you really want to live in the hippest of the hip neighborhoods. Getting close in will be fairly important given your commute requirements. I mean, just check out craigslist with the lower end of your budget. You can land a solid duplex really close in to Buckman/Kearns. But if you move a bit further out to Foster/Powell, you can find a whole house for rent within your budget. When people are lamenting about 'how expensive portland is' it's because some of those same places used to be half that just a few years ago. I mean, 10 years ago I had a 1br apartment in the Buckman neighborhood for $495/mo. Which even then, was just insane for any city. If you're looking for 1600-2000, you're really going to be fine.

Speaking of, Craigslist is the best way to hunt until you have a local network built up. Seattle freeze is more intense, but Portland Freeze is trying to give it a run for it's money. Most folks who land in Portland end up moving to a better spot once you have a local network. Friend moves out of their slammin spot, you move in. Lots of the best rental units get handed down to friends and never really hit 'the market.' There are apartments and houses for rent in Portland for very, very cheap, they're just never advertised. Your first rental shouldn't be your last, unless you've already got a network here and you're getting a hookup.

I would also suggest, if you can, having enough in savings to be able to facilitate an inter-portland move. If your renting a house, it might very well get sold. A close friend of mine has had to move 3 times in the past year because his rentals keep getting sold by the owners. This is a really reality for renters right now, unfortunately. It really sucks, but it's better to plan for it than to be scrambling to find a place quick. There's been some city-level legislative stuff to prevent

Quiet depends very largely on what block you're on. There aren't any real dedicated pockets away from 'main' streets that are what I would consider 'undergraduate' levels of party...it happens on a house by house basis. It's not like a university town or anything where all the students and kids live and party in specific areas. Maybe there are some pockets of that up near University of Portland? It's really decentralized in that way here. Quite frankly, you'll have more problems finding out that your neighbor likes to fix his bike late at night with only two tools; a hammer and a double digit blood alcohol content. Meth-y neighbors are more common than bro's partying IME.

The commute can be kind of weird if you're relying on transit. Lutoslawski is right: your commute times will be very different based on how you're doing it and where you are. Transit is good here, but there are some gaps, and some neighborhoods that get neglected. The lightrail here is also kind of silly sometimes. Like, I'm pretty close to a max stop, and if I took that to PSU it would actually add 20-30 minutes to go there over taking a bus directly to PSU. The transit here is good, but not really intuitive like it is in some cities.

But if you're biking? You can get to PSU in 30 minutes from as far east as 52nd-ish and as far south as Duke, maybe as far north as 84? that's a pretty wide area. Your bus commute times will be a bit longer, but not past the hour mark.
posted by furnace.heart at 1:21 PM on May 30, 2017

Ha, dang that duplex would be perfect for you guys - one cat ok, backyard, washer and dryer, two bedrooms, basically in Kearns, $1600 and probably 10 minutes by bike.
posted by Lutoslawski at 1:30 PM on May 30, 2017

Best answer: Ha, dang that duplex would be perfect for you guys - one cat ok, backyard, washer and dryer, two bedrooms, basically in Kearns, $1600 and probably 10 minutes by bike.

My finders fee is a 6 pack, and/or a high five.
posted by furnace.heart at 2:29 PM on May 30, 2017

Look in Beaverton too. There are places within walking distance of the Max lines that will get you to PSU in a timely fashion, and might be cheaper than Portland proper.
posted by tofu_crouton at 2:48 PM on May 30, 2017 [2 favorites]

Best answer: With that budget you should have no trouble finding a suitable apartment within walking distance of PSU. I lived in a complex that was a 5-minute walk from there--Memail me if you want the address.
posted by Automocar at 4:33 PM on May 30, 2017

Best answer: MeMail me and let's stay in touch. Current graduate student at PSU and 20 year resident of Portland. I live in NE near 42nd and Alberta and it takes me about 35 minutes to get to PSU by bike via several bike streets.

Connections are quite useful. Our friend found her place through a tepid posting we found on NextDoor.
posted by MonsieurBon at 9:20 PM on May 30, 2017

Seconding tofu_crouton, there are some suburban areas that have excellent public transportation access to Portland but cost significantly less. You'll have to deal with people giving you flak for living "all the way out there" but your wallet will thank you.
posted by Dr. Twist at 8:40 AM on May 31, 2017 [1 favorite]