Two new houses under construction at 15th Avenue and Crittenden Street, photographed on Sept. 19, 2025.
What is it that drives the demand for ever more housing in Oregon even while deaths of residents far outnumber births? The obvious answer is that people are moving in from out of state, but why?
Every month the Linn County Board of Commissioners gets a report on deaths in the county as well as births. Usually there are almost twice as many deaths as births.
In August, for example, 105 people died in the county and only 61 babies were born, 33 boys and 28 girls. The numbers were almost the same the month before.
This is not a new phenomenon. According to the population center at Portland State, from 2020 through 2024, Linn County recorded 570 more deaths than births. In Benton County, with a smaller population, the difference was smaller too, just 404 more deaths than births.
And yet, in both mid-valley counties, the population overall grew over those four years, by 2,808 in Linn and 2,940 in Benton County. The cause for the increase was “net migration.”
The story was the same statewide. In Oregon as a whole, deaths outnumbered births by almost 16,000 from 2020 to ’24. And yet, because of “net migration,” the population grew by nearly 46,000, to an estimated total of 4,267,256.
So if we need more and more housing of all types, it’s not because of a surge in the resident population. It’s because in-migration continues despite the apparent housing shortage.
Which raises a question, doesn’t it? When housing is expensive and supposedly hard to find, why do people still move in? (hh)
The same houses in the Takena Estates Subdivision one month later, on Oct. 19, 2025.
When a person dies the house might become available right away but when a baby is born they may not need housing for 20 years when they move out of their parents house. Lower birth rates today mean fewer young adults will enter the housing market 20 to 30 years from now. So there is a time shift. A more accurate comparison would use birth data from 25 years ago.
It is unreal the amount of new housing ini the greater Albany area and still more being built.
Unfortunately its people from California selling their dumpy house for a million then moving up here.
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I heard recently that Portland’s vacancy rate is increasing with over 25,000 apartment units available and rents and house prices are dropping. What is Albany’s vacancy rate and are the local rents and house prices still going up?
Oregon’s housing emergency isn’t just a story of population growth—it’s a story of decades of underbuilding. Despite slower population gains (only about 0.4–0.5% annually since 2023), Oregon remains tens of thousands of homes short of what’s needed to stabilize prices and restore affordability.
The Oregon Housing Needs Analysis shows the state must build roughly 30,000 new homes a year just to meet current and future demand, including clearing an existing shortfall of nearly 96,000 homes. The demand isn’t driven by explosive growth but by changing demographics: aging residents, smaller households, and more single-occupant homes are all driving up the number of housing units required per capita.
While Salem has rolled out pro-housing reforms—like middle-housing zoning and new funding streams for affordable projects—bureaucratic friction still clogs the pipeline. Local permitting delays, high system development charges, and restrictive land-use rules keep supply throttled. Oregon’s policies have the right direction but not yet the right velocity.
To truly fix the imbalance, the state needs to cut red tape, expand buildable land, and align local governments with state housing goals. Until housing production catches up—especially for entry-level and “missing-middle” homes—the state’s so-called emergency will remain the new normal.
*Researched and summarized from Oregon’s Housing Needs Analysis and related 2025 housing policy reports.*
Thanks for the information. Really appreciate it.
Fine, but do they all need to be built HERE???
Retirement income stretches a lot further here then California.
They’re too broke to reach Idaho & Montana.
The out-of-staters are probably not realizing that Oregon has the most punitive estate tax in the country. Their heirs will be sorry, when these newcomers die.
Estate taxes are for the descendants.
Just transfer the property before they die.
It is often a mistake to transfer property before death, because the recipient has the same basis as the donor had. After death, the recipient gets a stepped-up basis. In the case of residential property, most people don’t want to give their house to their kids while they are still living there.
“….most people don’t want to give their house to their kids while they are still living there.”
Then if they don’t trust the kids they raised, why would they be concerned if the kids pay estate taxes?
And herein lies the issue: “To truly fix the imbalance, the state needs to cut red tape, expand buildable land, and align local governments with state housing goals.”
Get the state out of local government mandates and let local laws and ordinances dictate how the area/town/city will grow. Not every location wants to be like Portland/Salem/Eugene/Bend.
You are certainly correct.
I agree with this-Get the state out of local government mandates and let local laws and ordinances dictate how the area/town/city will grow. Not every location wants to be like Portland/Salem/Eugene/Bend. However that is exactly what the Real Estate industry did away with several years ago with HB 1573. Did away with local citizens making decisions about how they wanted their city to grow. I think Oregon is experiencing a lot of out of state move in because of Real Estate investing and marketing. We have almost 25% of our housing stock owned by real estate investors, many from out of state. By up housing in desirable places like the coast, Bend and put those on Airbnb. Make a fortune. This same thing has happened all over Europe and they are tired of it. It drives up housing costs while a few make a lot of money. Meanwhile, Bend is starting to experience the end result of this…housing sales are in a real slump.
The process you describe is called Capitalism. Housing sales are only in a slump because people are asking too much for their houses to what the current market will support. Eventually the prices will drop to a level that people will want to buy them…of course the sellers won’t be happy since they won’t make a huge windfall and/or may lose money but that’s the result of buying on the upswing.