I lived in a downtrodden area of one of the expensive, coastal Dem run cities for years. It was being gentrified and one by one the sweet old buildings were bought up, and usually sat vacant for years before being torn down and turned into luxury condos.

The properties were usually bought by out of town LLCs for development, so no one was looking after them and there's an enormous community of anarchist squatters in the city that move into the vacant buildings until they're turfed out - which generally doesn't happen until right before the building's demolition is being planned.

There was a squat across the street from me for several months, and I'd say that property was worth at minimum 500-700k. It was just an ordinary house that had seen better days; the value was just the location. It's all luxury housing on that lot now.

I'm sure the same thing goes on in Portland, too.

I lived in a downtrodden area of one of the expensive, coastal Dem run cities for years. It was being gentrified and one by one the sweet old buildings were bought up, and usually sat vacant for years before being torn down and turned into luxury condos. The properties were usually bought by out of town LLCs for development, so no one was looking after them and there's an enormous community of anarchist squatters in the city that move into the vacant buildings until they're turfed out - which generally doesn't happen until right before the building's demolition is being planned. There was a squat across the street from me for several months, and I'd say that property was worth at minimum 500-700k. It was just an ordinary house that had seen better days; the value was just the location. It's all luxury housing on that lot now. I'm sure the same thing goes on in Portland, too.