Market News

The Oregon economy has regained its traditional job growth advantage relative to the nation with employment growth running about one percent higher than a typical state. With the expansion in employment—in concert with rising wages—the economy appears to be in good shape. Although not yet at full employment, the direction is very positive.

There has been a lot of buzz in the news recently suggesting that millennials will forever be renters and not homeowners. Reasons for this theory include amenities that apartments offer, flexibility when it comes to moving and changing jobs, and inability to afford a home given the crushing student debt load many are carrying. So will this be the renter generation? Let’s take a look at the data.

Washington state appears to be pretty much firing on all cylinders with annual employment growth well above 100,000 and the unemployment rate trending down toward 5%. A ll in all, it’s difficult to f ind something to worry about at the moment.

In addition to talking about housing bubbles, another topic that is becoming popular among housing scaremongers is the ongoing decline in the U.S. homeownership rate. Remarks range from the direct, “American homeownership is at its lowest level in more than two decades,” to the downright inflammatory, “Rental surge to drop homeownership rate to 61.3% by 2030”.