2020 has been a tough year due to COVID-19 and the impact that it’s had on our local economy including lockdowns and business closures but, despite the challenges that we’ve faced from the virus, the good news is that more people have been working from home than ever before in Portland Oregon.
Why Is Portland A Great City For Working From Home?
Portland Oregon is a great City for working from home because the area offers 24 high-speed internet service providers. This means that PDX locals have the opportunity to choose from the best internet services in the area that will provide them with reliable internet connections to work from home.
CenturyLink, Xfinity, Frontier, and several local providers offer service across the Portland metro region. Xfinity delivers cable internet, Frontier offers fiber-optic broadband, and CenturyLink has both DSL and fiber-optic plans. Viasat and HughesNet have satellite internet.
Besides being one of the best-connected cities in the United States, Portland is also an area where work and play both mix well. This means that people who work from home or not just always focused on working from home, they’ve learned to have a work-life balance.
When you work from home in Portland, it’s easy to have a lifestyle because you can easily wake up in the morning and go for a quick run, hit the gym, bike ride, or a hike on any of the local Trails before going back to your home office to start your day.
Because work and play mix well in the Portland area, people who live here and work from home have also learned to take advantage of the great weather by going hiking or biking during the summer and skiing or snowboarding during the winter.
Working from home enables PDX locals to enjoy more time on the trails, or ski slopes, while other people work from their offices and spend more time commuting than enjoying a work-life balance.
How Are People Working From Home In Portland?
Thanks to recent data from Commercial Cafe, we know that most people who are working from home in the United States are eager to continue doing so, even though they may be currently working from home utilizing a makeshift desk, or improvised work space.
Key takeaways:
- Nearly half of remote workers are working in their kitchens, living rooms, or randomly around their houses; only 36% have a dedicated space for work
- Even after working from home for six months, 31% still don’t have a proper desk or chair
- Of those planning to modify their workspace, nearly 58% are considering a move to a larger home
Many of the companies that transitioned to work from home during the pandemic have extended their plans through the new year or longer — if not indefinitely. But, with so many of us homebound for at least half the year, how have we adapted our living spaces for work?
To answer this question, we surveyed 4,384 individuals who have been working from home. Specifically, we asked participants about their living situations, their professional setup at home, their must-haves for an in-house office and what (if any) plans they had for a work area within their living space going forward.
No Home Office? No Problem
Working from home may not be ideal for everyone — especially those that lack the proper space or equipment. Even so, many are content with their current setup. While only 36% of respondents reported having a dedicated workspace in their home, nearly half said they were satisfied with their current work-from-home setup. And, that’s a fairly high satisfaction level considering that, presumably, nearly half of all respondents are working from locations in their home that were previously dedicated to their personal life — not their professional career.
It’s easy to see why most people want to work from home in 2020 because, working from a home office enables them to avoid catching the virus, or potentially spreading COVID-19 to their co-workers.
Yes, working from home does offer its practical benefits but, it also enables people who work from home to enjoy a lifestyle instead of just surviving.
Working from home does offer its challenges though. For most people that never worked from home in the past, the biggest hurdle that they have to face is a discipline or having the ability to sit down and focus on their work when it’s easy to get distracted with what’s happening in the house, or watching the latest movie on Netflix, rather than getting productive work done.
Even though working from home does come with some challenges, the reality is that when somebody has a clear reason for why they are working from home, once they can establish that reason clearly in their minds, working from home becomes something that they will eventually get used to and learn to enjoy.
Contact Rent Portland Homes
At Rent Portland Homes, we specialize in the Portland Oregon rental market. This means that we can help you find the right properties for your needs, especially single-family homes or multi-family properties with ample office space that you can use to work from home.
For more information about available rental properties in the Portland area, or to speak with us about our Property Management Services, contact us today by clicking here.
