What salary do you need to live in Portland, OR?

Rent, home values and prices in Portland

A one-bedroom in Portland rents for a median of $1,516 a month, utilities the tenant pays included; a two-bedroom goes for $1,739 and a three-bedroom for $2,147. Over a full year, the two-bedroom median comes to $20,868.

On the ownership side, the typical owner-occupied home is valued at $559,400. Local median household income is $97,436, so the median home is 5.7× a typical income — high enough that ownership weighs heavily in the score unless income is well above the median.

The Regional Price Parity, BEA's index of local prices with the US at 100, is 105.4 here. Above 100 means a paycheck stretches less: $100,000 in Portland has the buying power of roughly $94,858 at national average prices.

How much you need to earn in Portland

With a two-bedroom at the median rent, the score enters Tight at $77,000, Okay at $154,000 and Comfortable at $309,000 a year before tax. At the Comfortable line, a year of rent takes 7% of income and the median home is 1.8× income.

Royal, the top band, starts at $955,000. At that income rent is 2% of pay and the median home 0.6× income.

These lines come straight from the calculator's formula: the income is raised until the two-bedroom score crosses each cutoff, then rounded up to the next $1,000.

Portland at four common salaries

At $75,000, a one-bedroom scores 27 (Tight), a two-bedroom 25 (Stretched) and a three-bedroom 21 (Stretched). The $7,572 a year between the smallest and largest home is what moves the grade.

Comfortable is above every row of the table here. At $150,000 a two-bedroom still grades Tight, with rent taking 14% of income.

Where Portland falls nationally

On price level Portland is 27th of 387 (1 = most expensive); on two-bedroom rent it is 30th, and on median home value 28th. The two rankings agree, both falling among the priciest tenth.

For a sense of scale, the metros just above and below it on two-bedroom rent are Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, CA ($1,758) and Trenton-Princeton, NJ ($1,734).

Portland in a Oregon context

Compared with Oregon as a whole, two-bedroom rent in Portland is 14% higher ($1,739 vs. $1,523) and the median home is 17% higher ($559,400 vs. $477,600). Because the metro spans Oregon and Washington, the comparison uses Oregon, where Portland itself is.

Scored the same way, the statewide figures turn Comfortable at $255,000, so Portland needs $54,000 more than Oregon overall.

Looking for somewhere comparable without leaving Oregon? Bend, OR, Corvallis, OR, and Salem, OR have the closest mix of rent and overall prices.

Portland's median income on the scale

What about a typical local household? Census puts median household income here at $97,436, which grades Tight (32) for a two-bedroom at the median rent. Reaching Comfortable would take $211,564 more than the median household earns. Statewide, the Oregon median household ($83,011) grades Tight on the state's own medians. Household income can include more than one earner, so a single salary of the same size goes less far.

All figures are pre-tax estimates from public data, not financial advice.