MEDIAN INCOME*

$82,380

MEDIAN HOME VALUE

$528,148

AVERAGE RENT

$1742/month

Population

100,559

*Statistics Sources

About Beaverton

The city of Beaverton is a suburb west of Portland. It is bordered by Portland to the north and east, Tigard to the south, and Hillsboro to the west.

Beaverton may be best known as home to the world headquarters of Nike, Inc (although technically Nike sits outside the city limits on unincorporated land). Along with it’s neighbor Hillsboro, Beaverton is part of the “Silicon Forest”, a cluster of high-tech companies mostly located along a corridor stretching from the northern part of Beaverton west into Hillsboro. Numerous tech companies have locations and/or headquarters in Beaverton including Tektronix, Vtech, Planar, Merix, and many more.

Beaverton is located on the eastern edge of the Tualatin Valley. Most of the city was originally farmland and is fairly flat except for the westernmost neighborhoods such as Sexton Mountain and Neighbors Southwest (Murrayhill area). These neighborhoods are characterized by their hilly roads, large HOAs, and high price tags.

There are numerous small parks throughout the city. A couple that are worth calling out are the Westside Trail (more commonly referred to as the Powerline Trail) and Tualatin Hills Nature Park.

The Westside Trail is an ambitious project to create a 25 mile paved bike/run/walk trail spanning from the Tualatin River near King City all the way North through Beaverton to the Willamette River in Portland’s Northwest Industrial neighborhood. It was originally known as the Beaverton Powerline Trail and most of it, in it’s current iteration, is still referred to colloquially as “the Powerline Trail”.

Currently the trail can be followed from a southern end point at Progress Ridge in Tigard, north up through Tualatin Hills Nature Park in Beaverton/Aloha and even further north until it peters out just south of Highway 26. The majority of the trail winds around major north-south powerlines, and I can’t imagine people ever referring to it as anything other than the Powerline Trail.

It’s difficult to find a website that reliably shows the whole current length of the trail, but if you Google Map “Westside Trail” in Beaverton, it will lead you to a section in the Tualatin Hills Nature Park, and you can follow the line of the trail south to see how long it stretches. New segments of the trail continue to be built as funds become available, but already you can enjoy more than 8 miles of trail. Also, from the southern terminus in Progress Ridge, you could follow SW Walnut Street east over to the Fanno Creek trail, adding more than 4.5 miles of paved trail fun.

One benefit of the Powerline Trail is that unlike most homes that back to major powerlines, in Beaverton the homes here tend to sell without any significant discount.

Beaverton is a sprawling suburban town, but it has even more ambitions beyond the Westside Trail. In recent years, Beaverton has been aggressively revitalizing the downtown area and these efforts have yielded real fruit. Numerous new restaurants have opened in “Restaurant Row” including The Sudra, Ex Novo Brewing Company, Nak Won, Syndicate Wine Bar, Top Burmese Bistro Royale, and much more.

Sure, there are still plenty of auto dealerships and strip malls scattered about Beaverton, but there’s also a great deal of culture and diversity.

The Beaverton School District is a large system with 54 schools and nearly 40,000 students. Ratings and programs vary widely from school to school so for parents it’s worth doing some research before a house-hunt in order to narrow down the options. Also, never trust that the schools on a real estate listing are accurate. The Beaverton School District has an excellent search tool so that you can verify school districts (although it’s worth contacting the schools to make sure boundaries aren’t due to change).

It's worth mentioning that the Beaverton School District also serves parts of Aloha and parts of Portland that are in Washington County (such as the Bethany, Oak Hills, Rock Creek, and Raleigh Hills areas).

Aloha is an unincorporated community in Washington County. The community is pronounced Uh-LOW-uh, NOT Ah-LOW-HA. Mispronouncing Aloha is the fastest way to identify someone from out of the area 

Though it is not a city (it lacks the municipal services to incorporate), it is a growing suburb of more than 54,000 people and it does have a post office and library. It is situated between Beaverton (to the east) and Hillsboro (to the west). Highway 8 (Tualatin-Valley Hwy, more often referred to as TV Hwy) runs straight through it between the two neighboring cities.

Home prices tend to be more affordable in Aloha with good options for apartments and attached housing along with detached homes featuring larger yards. There are several strip-mall style shopping centers along with a few favorite local restaurants such as The 649 Taphouse and Nonna Emilia Ristorante.

There are a few parks, notably Hazeldale Park, an 11-acre site that features a play area, 3 baseball fields, a soccer field, and basketball courts. It also has one of the best off-leash dog parks in the metro area, with 3 large, separate fenced areas for small dogs, big dogs, and mixed sizes.