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Compare Portland and Austin · readings as of September 16, 2026

Portland vs Austin

Portland rents for $1,818 a month against Austin's $1,622, unemployment is 4.9% against 4%, and 36% of 14 Austin locals would move there again; Portland has no locals' verdicts logged yet.

By The Honest Local · the same public series for both places, side by side · locals’ verdicts from each thread
The Portland skyline with the West Hills behind it under a moody sky, fall color in the foreground
City

Portland

No locals’ verdicts on record yet. Be the first.
0 in the thread · 0 open questions
Austin
City

Austin

36%of 14 locals would move here again
37 in the thread · 4 open questions
The numbers source and period under each reading; the better reading is marked
PortlandAustin
Median rent$1,818 /mo$1,622 /mo
Listing price$595,000$450,000
Typical home value$542,843$417,977
Unemployment4.9%4.0%
Cost of living, US = 100110.490.8
Violent crime, per 100k319349
Property crime, per 100k21841813
Regular gas$5.12$3.81
Air right nowAQI 39AQI 83
Temperature right now77°F101°F
Domestic migration, 2024-4,976+13,980

How to read this

Both columns come from the same public series read on the same day, so the comparison is fair even where the numbers are imperfect. Rent is Zillow’s observed rent index for the metro. Listing price is realtor.com’s median via FRED. Unemployment is the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ metro rate for the latest month. Crime is the FBI’s state rate until agency-level data is wired in, so two cities in one state read the same there. Taxes come from each guide’s sourced figures and are missing where a guide hasn’t been refreshed yet.

The verdict line at the top is written from these readings by a template, not by a model, and it changes only when the readings do.

Missing here. income_tax, sales_tax, property_tax, verdicts. We leave a gap rather than estimate.
Sources and method
  1. Median rent: Zillow · 2026-08; Zillow · 2026-08
  2. Listing price: FRED · 2026-08; FRED · 2026-08
  3. Typical home value: Zillow · 2026-08; Zillow · 2026-08
  4. Unemployment: BLS · 2026-07; BLS · 2026-07
  5. Cost of living, US = 100: MERIC · 2026Q2; MERIC · 2026Q2
  6. Violent crime, per 100k: FBI · 2025; FBI · 2025
  7. Property crime, per 100k: FBI · 2025; FBI · 2025
  8. Regular gas: AAA · 2026-09-16; EIA Weekly Retail Gasoline Prices · 2026-09-14
  9. Air right now: AirNow · 09/15/26; AirNow · 09/15/26
  10. Temperature right now: NWS · 2026-09-16; NWS · 2026-09-16
  11. Domestic migration, 2024: Census PEP vintage 2024 · 2024; Census PEP vintage 2024 · 2024

Compare pages are built from the tape and each place’s sourced guide figures and refreshed nightly. Pairs people actually search for are indexed; the rest are served but not indexed.