The 10 Cheapest Portland, OR Neighborhoods To Live In For 2024


The cheapest Portland neighborhoods are Sunderland and Haden Island for 2024 based on Saturday Night Science.

Worst Neighborhoods In Portland
Source: Wikipedia User Visitor7 | CC BY-SA 3.0

Everything else equal, we can all agree that living in a cheaper place is better than living in a more expensive place.

I’d much rather pay $500/mo in rent than $1,000. And I’d rather pay $2 for coffee than $5.

And while every neighbhorhood in Portland might be more expensive than living in rural Oregon, there are certain neighborhoods that are definitely cheaper.

What exactly are those Portland neighborhoods where your dollar goes a little further — you can get that one bedroom instead of the studio?

Instead of relying on public opinion and speculation, we wanted to get the facts straight and determine which neighborhoods in Portland are the cheapest using Saturday Night Science.

The Cheapest Neighborhoods In Portland For 2024

  1. Sunderland
  2. Haden Island
  3. Saintjohns
  4. Pleasant Valley
  5. Argay
  6. Maplewood-Ashcreek
  7. Cathedral Park
  8. Mill Park
  9. Arbor Lodge
  10. Lents

What’s the cheapest neighborhood to live in Portland for 2024? According to the most recent census data, Sunderland looks to be the cheapest Portland neighborhood to live in.

At this point, we should make it clear that you do get what you pay for — some of these neighborhoods might not be the best places to live in Portland. You could be sacrificing location or crime rates for more space and cheaper groceries.

Read on to see how we determined the places around Portland that deserve a little bragging rights, or maybe you’re interested in the worst neighborhoods in Portland.

For more Oregon reading, check out:


Table Of Contents: Top Ten | Methodology | Summary | Table


The 10 Cheapest Neighborhoods To Live In Portland For 2024

Overall SnackAbility

6
/10

Population: 492
Cost Of Living Index: 109 (5th cheapest)
Home Value To Income Ratio: 3.5 (2nd cheapest)
Rent To Income Ratio: 0.01 (3rd cheapest)
More on Sunderland: Data | Real Estate

Overall SnackAbility

6
/10

Population: 565
Cost Of Living Index: 104 (2nd cheapest)
Home Value To Income Ratio: 2.5 (cheapest)
Rent To Income Ratio: 0.015 (16th cheapest)
More on Haden Island: Data | Real Estate

Overall SnackAbility

6
/10

Population: 7,933
Cost Of Living Index: 114 (14th cheapest)
Home Value To Income Ratio: 3.8 (3rd cheapest)
Rent To Income Ratio: 0.017 (22nd cheapest)
More on Saintjohns: Data | Real Estate

Overall SnackAbility

8
/10

Population: 12,150
Cost Of Living Index: 113 (12th cheapest)
Home Value To Income Ratio: 4.1 (5th cheapest)
Rent To Income Ratio: 0.018 (32nd cheapest)
More on Pleasant Valley: Data | Real Estate

Overall SnackAbility

7
/10

Population: 5,466
Cost Of Living Index: 115 (16th cheapest)
Home Value To Income Ratio: 4.8 (22nd cheapest)
Rent To Income Ratio: 0.015 (15th cheapest)
More on Argay: Data | Real Estate

Overall SnackAbility

9
/10

Population: 17,712
Cost Of Living Index: 128 (38th cheapest)
Home Value To Income Ratio: 4.6 (11th cheapest)
Rent To Income Ratio: 0.012 (8th cheapest)
More on Maplewood-Ashcreek: Data | Real Estate

Overall SnackAbility

8
/10

Population: 3,556
Cost Of Living Index: 117 (2cheapest)
Home Value To Income Ratio: 4.6 (13th cheapest)
Rent To Income Ratio: 0.017 (24th cheapest)
More on Cathedral Park: Data | Real Estate

Overall SnackAbility

7
/10

Population: 9,784
Cost Of Living Index: 111 (8th cheapest)
Home Value To Income Ratio: 4.6 (12th cheapest)
Rent To Income Ratio: 0.019 (39th cheapest)
More on Mill Park: Data | Real Estate

Overall SnackAbility

9
/10

Population: 7,552
Cost Of Living Index: 126 (35th cheapest)
Home Value To Income Ratio: 4.4 (8th cheapest)
Rent To Income Ratio: 0.017 (25th cheapest)
More on Arbor Lodge: Data | Real Estate

Overall SnackAbility

8
/10

Population: 20,735
Cost Of Living Index: 110 (6th cheapest)
Home Value To Income Ratio: 5.0 (24th cheapest)
Rent To Income Ratio: 0.02 (43rd cheapest)
More on Lents: Data | Real Estate

Methodology: How We Determined The Cheapest Portland Hoods In 2024

To rank the cheapest places to live in Portland, we had to determine what criteria define “cheap” and then apply Saturday Night Science.

Using Census and extrapolated BLS data, we arrived at the following set of criteria:

  • Overall Cost Of Living
  • Rent To Income Ratio
  • Median Home Value To Income Ratio

We then ranked each neighborhood with scores from 1 to 63 in each category, where 1 was the cheapest.

Next, we averaged the rankings for each neighborhood to create a cheap neighborhood index.

And finally, we crowned the neighborhood with the lowest cheapest neighborhood index, the “Cheapest City Neighborhood In Portland.” We’re lookin’ at you, Sunderland.

We updated this article for 2024. This is our fourth time ranking the cheapest neighborhoods to live in Portland. Skip to the end to see the list of all the neighborhoods in the city, from cheapest to most expensive.

Summary: Lowest Cost Places To Live In Portland

If you’re measuring the neighborhoods in Portland where prices are low, and it’s cheap to live, this is an accurate list.

The most affordable neighborhoods in Portland are Sunderland, Haden Island, Saintjohns, Pleasant Valley, Argay, Maplewood-Ashcreek, Cathedral Park, Mill Park, Arbor Lodge, and Lents.

As mentioned earlier, the neighborhoods in Portland aren’t all cheap. Far Southwest takes the title of the most expensive neighborhood to live in Portland.

The most expensive neighborhoods in Portland are Far Southwest, King, Northwest, Kerns, and Lloyd.

We ranked the neighborhoods from cheapest to most expensive in the chart below.

For more Oregon reading, check out:

Detailed List Of The Cheapest Neighborhoods To Live In Portland For 2024

Rank Neighborhood Cost Of Living Index
1 Sunderland 109
2 Haden Island 104
3 Saintjohns 114
4 Pleasant Valley 113
5 Argay 115
6 Maplewood-Ashcreek 128
7 Cathedral Park 117
8 Mill Park 111
9 Arbor Lodge 126
10 Lents 110
11 Ross Island 141
12 Wilkes 116
13 Bridgeton 113
14 Powellhurst 108
15 Mount Scott 117
16 Linnton 148
17 Alameda 156
18 Eastmoreland 137
19 Woodlawn 124
20 Brentwood-Darlington 112
21 Forest Park 163
22 Parkrose 111
23 Madison South 115
24 Hillsdale 142
25 Southwest Hills 159
26 Government Island 124
27 Overlook 125
28 Roseway 130
29 Pearl District 124
30 South Tabor 124
31 Foster Powell 118
32 Hayhurst 128
33 Kenton 118
34 Center 137
35 Bridlemile 147
36 Cully 122
37 Centennial 105
38 Portsmith 116
39 Woodstock 125
40 Brooklyn 127
41 Irvington 144
42 Hazelwood 111
43 Creston-Kenilworth 121
44 Sellwood-Moreland 135
45 Concordia 133
46 Richmond 135
47 Montavilla 117
48 Hosford 137
49 Mount Tabor 134
50 Homestead 152
51 University Park 129
52 Buckman 116
53 Old Town-Chinatown 101
54 Reed 129
55 Corbett-Terwilliger-Lair Hill 137
56 Boise 131
57 Downtown 113
58 Eliot 132
59 Lloyd 118
60 Kerns 119
61 Northwest 141
62 King 139
63 Far Southwest 140
About Chris Kolmar

Chris Kolmar has been in the real estate business for almost ten years now. He originally worked for Movoto Real Estate as the director of marketing before founding HomeSnacks.

He believes the key to finding the right place to live comes down to looking at the data, reading about things to do, and, most importantly, checking it out yourself before you move.

If you've been looking for a place to live in the past several years, you've probably stumbled upon his writing already.

You can find out more about him on LinkedIn or his website.