In 2015, Eric Thompson heard that his city of Portland, Oregon, was considering overhauling its low-density zoning. He joined the project’s advisory

In Portland, Oregon, the Paths to Homeownership Are Multiplying

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2022-06-23 16:30:09

In 2015, Eric Thompson heard that his city of Portland, Oregon, was considering overhauling its low-density zoning. He joined the project’s advisory committee with one paramount goal: to stop it.

Thompson had built a local business knocking down small old homes in fancy parts of town and replacing them with bigger new ones—3,000 square feet or so. Now, the city was looking to rechannel housing investment away from projects like those and toward smaller homes. It seemed like a dagger aimed at his livelihood.

"All I’d ever built for previously were the 5 percenters who could afford what today would be a million-dollar-plus house," Thompson recalls.

Portland loosened rules for backyard accessory homes, allowing up to two at 800 square feet each. They no longer have to be smaller than the existing home.

Seven years later, today’s Eric Thompson could tell his former self a thing or two. At his firm, Oregon Homeworks, permit applications are flying out the door. His team has 70 homes around the city in its pipeline, enough to keep themselves busy for the next year. They’re all in the same leafy, close-in neighborhoods Thompson has long built in—except his sale prices have fallen sharply, to $425,000 to $550,000. They’ll be the least expensive newly built homes on the block by far.