Aaron Douglas
Director of Market Intelligence, HFO Investment Real Estate
Portland, OR 97214
Apartment market analysis for private and institutional investors in the Pacific Northwest; a regular source for local media.
Phone (503) 241-5541
Mobile (503) 307-7869
Apartment market analysis for private and institutional investors in the Pacific Northwest; a regular source for local media.
Property Types
Land, Multifamily
Markets
Portland
Languages
English
Bio
What I do
I research the multifamily market in Oregon and Southwest Washington. That means reading everything published about the region's apartment market, pulling data from CoStar, and filing public records requests with local governments to track permit pipelines that aren't sitting in any database. Then I turn it into something investors, owners, and developers can actually use. I've been at this for more than 20 years at HFO.
A recent win
I joined the Rental Housing Journal as a contributing writer, which puts the work in front of roughly 30,000 readers across the Pacific Northwest. That's on top of the two weekly newsletters I write for HFO, the Multifamily Marketwatch® for Oregon and SW Washington, and the Washington Multifamily Marketwatch®, both of which go to a serious investor and owner audience. HFO partner Greg Frick and I are also regularly contacted by reporters covering this market.
How I work
I am stubborn about the numbers. If a stat looks off, I chase it down before it goes anywhere near a newsletter or a post. I check sources twice, and I will kill a story rather than run something I'm not sure about. Some of my relationships with local reporters go back 25 years, and that didn't happen by accident; they trust me because the data holds up. I'm also the one booking guests for HFO's Multifamily Marketwatch® YouTube channel, (formerly HFO-TV), which has been running for 15 years and gives me a standing reason to talk with the people actually moving this market. Outside the day job, I serve on the boards of the University Club of Portland and Broadway Rose Theatre Company. I'm also a storyteller, co-writing a new musical with Joel Cobbs of Atlanta called "Among the Stars" (working title). It's a story about finding family in uncertain times that gets a two-week workshop this August with Bridgetown Conservatory of Musical Theatre, and I'm finishing a true-crime book titled Pieces on the Floor: The True Story of Murder and a Missing Mijo.
When to reach out
If you need the real story on the Portland metro or Vancouver, Washington multifamily market, what permits are actually pulling, where rents are moving, which policies are about to bite you in the operations, send it over. I'm on the Multifamily NW Government and Public Affairs Committee, take calls from local media on market conditions, and post regularly to a LinkedIn audience of multifamily investors, owners, and developers. Bring me the question your spreadsheet can't answer. Our team is happy to help.
Education
Awards
