Study: Portlanders need 92 weekly work hours to afford a home

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — A new study reports that Portlanders have to work more hours than New Yorkers, Bostonians and Las Vegans to afford a median-priced home in their city.

Moving company HireAHelper compiled data from Bureau of Labor Statistics’ 2021 Occupational and Employment and Wage Statistics and Zillow’s Home Value Index to rank
nearly 400 cities based on how many weekly work hours were needed to buy a home in that metro area.

Using the common rule that mortgage payments should take up just 30% of one’s income, HireAHelper determined that West Coast workers needed to work more than those in any other region.

More specifically, the website ranked the Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro area as the 12th large metro area that required the most weekly hours of its employed residents. Portlanders need to log 92 hours each week to afford a home, according to the study’s findings.

Here is the data that researchers found on wages and home prices in Portland.

• Monthly mortgage payment for a median-priced home: $2,784
• Median home price: $560,474
• Median hourly wage: $23.26
• Median annual wage: $48,380

The San Francisco, San Jose, Urban Honolulu, Los Angeles and San Diego areas were named the top five big cities with the most weekly work hours required for a median-priced home.

Although Portland made the top 15 in the large metro rankings, the Bend-Redmond area actually outranked the Rose City overall.

According to the list that includes 372 cities of all sizes, Bend is the 19th U.S. city where residents need to work more hours each week. Portland fell to No. 47 in the general rankings.

The analysis shows that Bend residents need to work 120 weekly work hours to afford a home.

Here is HireAHelper’s full data on homes and wages in the city.

• Monthly mortgage payment for a median-priced home: $3,323
• Median home price: $668,903
• Median hourly wage: $21.30
• Median annual wage: $44,300

Home sale prices have finally begun to decline since the steep increases brought on by the pandemic, but the cost has already encouraged more people to rent homes instead of buying them.

“Real median hourly wages have grown by 11.4% since 2000,” HireAHelper said. “However, home prices have risen even faster; the real median home price has grown by nearly 44% over the same period. While workers' wages are rising, home prices — and price levels overall — are eating away at these earnings gains.”