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 neighborhood 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.
102 cost of living index
131 cost of living index
112 cost of living index
126 cost of living index
139 cost of living index
128 cost of living index
129 cost of living index
117 cost of living index
145 cost of living index
133 cost of living index
The receipts
Compare the top ten
Pick a metric. The bars rescale. The red line is Oregon’s statewide median.
Saturday Night Science
Methodology: How we determined the cheapest Portland hoods in 2026
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, Haden Island.
We updated this article for 2026. Skip to the end to see the list of all the neighborhoods in the city, from cheapest to most expensive.
The full plate
Detailed list of the cheapest neighborhoods to live in Portland for 2026
Click any column to sort. Search by neighborhood name.
| Rank | Neighborhood | Cost Of Living Index |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Haden Island | 102 |
| 2 | Sunderland | 131 |
| 3 | Saintjohns | 112 |
| 4 | Maplewood-Ashcreek | 126 |
| 5 | Ross Island | 139 |
| 6 | Argay | 128 |
| 7 | Cathedral Park | 129 |
| 8 | Mill Park | 117 |
| 9 | Linnton | 145 |
| 10 | Pleasant Valley | 133 |
| 11 | Government Island | 122 |
| 12 | Center | 134 |
| 12 | Arbor Lodge | 144 |
| 14 | Wilkes | 128 |
| 15 | Foster Powell | 116 |
| 16 | Powellhurst | 106 |
| 17 | Bridgeton | 127 |
| 18 | Forest Park | 160 |
| 19 | Alameda | 178 |
| 20 | Mount Scott | 133 |
| 21 | Roseway | 140 |
| 22 | Lents | 129 |
| 23 | Madison South | 128 |
| 24 | Cully | 130 |
| 25 | Brentwood-Darlington | 127 |
| 25 | Woodlawn | 142 |
| 27 | Parkrose | 124 |
| 27 | Southwest Hills | 187 |
| 29 | South Tabor | 136 |
| 29 | Hillsdale | 162 |
| 31 | Portsmith | 114 |
| 32 | Hosford | 135 |
| 33 | Bridlemile | 159 |
| 34 | Eastmoreland | 182 |
| 35 | Overlook | 149 |
| 36 | Kenton | 137 |
| 37 | Centennial | 119 |
| 38 | Sellwood-Moreland | 146 |
| 39 | Brooklyn | 143 |
| 40 | Hayhurst | 153 |
| 41 | Irvington | 164 |
| 41 | Hazelwood | 122 |
| 43 | Creston-Kenilworth | 137 |
| 44 | Woodstock | 147 |
| 45 | Mount Tabor | 150 |
| 45 | Montavilla | 132 |
| 45 | Richmond | 155 |
| 48 | Concordia | 154 |
| 49 | Pearl District | 161 |
| 50 | Homestead | 164 |
| 50 | Boise | 142 |
| 52 | University Park | 148 |
| 53 | Far Southwest | 140 |
| 53 | Corbett-Terwilliger-Lair Hill | 159 |
| 55 | Reed | 157 |
| 56 | Eliot | 151 |
| 57 | Old Town-Chinatown | 131 |
| 58 | Lloyd | 140 |
| 59 | Buckman | 145 |
| 60 | King | 152 |
| 61 | Northwest | 159 |
| 62 | Downtown | 143 |
| 63 | Kerns | 152 |
Source: U.S. Census ACS 2020-2024. All 63 Portland neighborhoods.
Summary
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 Haden Island, Sunderland, Saintjohns, Maplewood-Ashcreek, Ross Island, Argay, Cathedral Park, Mill Park, Linnton, and Pleasant Valley.
As mentioned earlier, the neighborhoods in Portland aren’t all cheap. Kerns takes the title of the most expensive neighborhood to live in Portland.
We ranked the neighborhoods from cheapest to most expensive in the chart below. Not sold on Oregon? Take the two-minute Find Your Place quiz and see which state actually fits you.
Questions and answers
Cheapest Neighborhoods In Portland FAQs
What is the cheapest neighborhood in Portland?
Haden Island is the cheapest neighborhood in Portland for 2026. It posts the best combination of overall cost of living, rent against income, and home prices against income. Sunderland and Saintjohns are next.
What are the cheapest neighborhoods in Portland?
The cheapest neighborhoods in Portland are Haden Island, Sunderland, Saintjohns, Maplewood-Ashcreek, Ross Island, Argay, Cathedral Park, Mill Park, Linnton, and Pleasant Valley. We ranked all 63 neighborhoods in the city.
How do you decide which neighborhoods are cheapest?
Three measures: an overall cost of living index, rent-to-income, and home-value-to-income, all from Census tract data. Scoring costs against local incomes keeps one luxury tower from skewing the math.
Is a cheap neighborhood a bad neighborhood?
Not necessarily — this ranking measures what things cost relative to income, nothing else. Check our safest neighborhoods in Portland ranking before you sign a lease, because cheap and safe are separate questions.
What is the most expensive neighborhood in Portland?
Kerns lands at the expensive end of the 63 neighborhoods we scored. If your budget disagrees with it, the rest of the list runs cheaper.
