Trammell Crow is building out on the waterfront, too? God help you. Trammell Crow himself is a nice guy, and he's a perfect example of a self-made man. His son Harlan, who actually runs the company these days, though, is a real piece of work. To steal from Hunter Thompson's description of Richard Nixon, Harlan Crow is so crooked that he needs four people to help him screw his pants on every morning, and his universal response to even the slightest criticism is to cry like a little girl with a skinned knee while doing his best to have the critic punished. Any reporter who covers any TC fiasco can expect lots of screaming calls from Harlan to the reporter's editor, as well as TC staff going out and stealing and dumping copies of any publication that dare challenge King Harlan the Phleabitten.

(Sorry: too many years of living in Dallas. As I pointed out before, Trammell Crow himself is a nice guy, even if he has a regular habit of buying some of the ugliest damn sculptures you've ever seen and "donating" them to the City of Dallas. Unfortunately, the same thing happened to his namesake company as what happened to Henry S. Miller, another once-respected real estate firm: they got taken over by scions who do little other than bully any and all opponents and brag about their "close personal friends" George W. Bush and Phil Gramm.)

The Oregonian says that that Gerding Edlen is just trying to "tap into a red-hot rental market."

Uh-huh.

Time to get rid of LLC protections -- the rentier class needs to be held personally liable for their greed.

What I keep wondering about is what these renters are going to do when/if the economy rebounds and their landlords suddenly realize they can make big $$$ selling these suckers as condos. Boom! Out on the street in no time.

"what these renters are going to do when/if the economy rebounds and their landlords suddenly realize they can make big $$$ selling these suckers as condos. Boom! Out on the street in no time."

Good reason to buy a home.

Oh, I forgot - houses in Portland cost double what they should due a shortage of buildable land caused by Metro's policies.

Too bad you will never be able to afford a home because Metro dictates that we must have a "compact urban form".

I’ll bet you bought the control sprawl line form the Portland developer class. Sucker.

I'm amazed that, here we are, clearly in the middle of a huge national housing bubble, and people still think Portland's high housing prices are due to the Urban Growth Boundary.

It's a bubble people. Even in Manhattan prices are falling drastically. A city with a much more permanent growth boundary, the Hudson River.

Portland's home prices are going to continue to fall until they reach historic price-to-income and price-to-rent ratios. Which probably means another 20% or so.

Jack:
I sort of get the disdain - it's sort of cultural/sociological - for people who choose to live in neighborhoods like Pearl and SoWa. But obviously many people do want to live in those kinds of places. So, GED takes a big risk - builds housing in new neighborhoods, does so w/ a pretty strong environmental ethos, for the most part (I think) doesn't rely on the kind of public investment/subsidy some other developers you scorn rely on - and ends up, at least until recently, making a big profit. Isn't that sort of how the free market is suppose to work? Are all big developers just bad, like all big corporations are just inherently bad? So, can you explain the vitriol you frequently aim their way? Thank you.

But obviously many people do want to live in those kinds of places.

Bull. SoWhat is half-empty, and many of the people who are stuck there would like to get out if they could. Suckers.

And for you to talk "free market" in the same breath as SoWhat is totally ludicrous. The taxpayers of Portland have poured many tens of millions into that particular disaster.

“I'm amazed that, here we are, clearly in the middle of a huge national housing bubble, and people still think Portland's high housing prices are due to the Urban Growth Boundary.”

It is.

The housing bubble isn’t everywhere - it is mostly where there are severe restrictions on building. Contrary to popular opinion, that includes California and parts of Washington.

If you understood basic economics (which you apparently don’t) you would realize that it is impossible to have a bubble when there are no limits on supply. In such circumstances, if demand increases, supply just increases (they build more houses) to fill any level of demand, without a price increase (beyond any natural increase in actual building costs.)

It's a mystery to me that there is apparently such a market for high-end luxury rentals. There is definitely a market for rentals in the $500-$700 range but for all intents and purposes they no longer exist in Portland.

The mantra of the developer and property management companies is "maximize the asset" and "market rate entitlement."

As long as upper income renters continue to snap up reconditioned bricker and courtyard apartments or luxury units in buildings situated on the bones of razed affordable apartment buildings, these opportunists will continue to cater to the upper end. There's less financial return in marketing to the people who really, desperately need affordable housing.

And, yes, since these buildings that are reluctantly going from condo to rental were built to condo standards (high quality/more expense) the developer/landlord has a huge incentive to sell them as condos rather than let them remain rental units. Conversely, whoever lives there in the interim is going to have a nicer apartment than if they had moved into a place that was built, from the beginning, to be rental apartments.

When these meant-to-be-condo buildings are eventually reintroduced as condo units, the current tenants will - no doubt - be offered first opportunity to purchase if they can afford to do so . . .

A dearth of lower income apartments is going to get worse . . . the contracts of several City-subsidized complexes are coming up for renewal between 2010 and 2012. A couple are playing coy with the city and have given their current tenants 2 years' notice in case they decide not to renew with the City. Just "keeping their options open."

The City and the people of Portland should not be pouring millions into the subsidy and development of upper-income and luxury apartment and condo complexes when there is a crying need for affordable housing.

I don't know what else the city needs to see . . . more families and individuals on the street . . . more workers forced far from their jobs into the outlying counties . . . half-finished condos and luxury developments in Portland and Bend as a result of bankruptcy among developers and a lack of home buyers . . . the writing is on the wall.