Tribune Runs PBA Response to My B-O-G-U-S OP Ed on Portland Housing Prices and Cost of Living.

Portland Tribune has run a response HERE [Family wage jobs are key to homeownership] from the Portland Business Alliance to my previous OP ED in which I said the housing data used was B-O-G-U-S in a PBA study that said that City of Portland housing costs were high compared to other cities.

I will let readers evaluate for themselves the complete PBA response. Several points I saw were: 

1. Portland is less affordable than our peer regions because our housing prices are high relative to our incomes, a point Mr. Cusack did not address.
2. Personal income in our region has been declining for more than a decade and now sits below the national average and is 16 percent to 21 percent lower than Seattle, Denver and Minneapolis metros.
3. [PBA is looking with private and public sector partners for] ....creative and collaborative ways to increase the number of higher paying, family-wage jobs in our region.

 My thoughts about PBA response:

1. With regard to 1st point, since it was clear that housing price index used was indeed B-O-G-U-S, PBA needs to come up with a DIFFERENT housing cost index from which more valid comparisons across cities can be made.
2. PBA continues to use "personal income" for comparison purposes. Since annual and three year American Community Survey data on household income is readily available AND includes data for both renters and homeowners I suggest that "household income" may be a better income standard to use. (I have no idea why PBA response is apparently now focused on "homeownership"; as I pointed out in my OP ED, the ACS indicates that homeowners are only 55.5% of City of Portland households). 
3. I suspect PBA is right that City of Portland incomes relative to national average and other peer cities may be falling, but partners and PBA need to look closely to see if there are any age/educational differences that help explain some of those differences. I am all for unsubsidized and transparent ways of increasing higher paying jobs, and encouraging families to live in the City, and it will be interesting to see what specific revenue neutral suggestions PBA and its partners present in the coming months.  

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.