Portland Developers Are Offering Renters Amazon Gift Cards to Move Into Their Luxury Apartments – Willamette Week

New construction has sent a flood of new apartments onto the market. A month’s free rent has become standard.

Renters who can afford an apartment in one of the new luxury towers sprouting up across Portland are now being offered cash incentives to move in.

Take the Emery, a seven-story building along the South Waterfront. It has nine apartments available within the next two months, starting with a $1,356-a-month one-bedroom. There’s air conditioning, a shared bike if you don’t have one, a bike room if you do, a pet washing station, and a clubhouse for parties.

And there’s a bonus for some units: a $1,000 gift card from Amazon to encourage prospective renters to sign a lease.

Not far away, at Sky3 in the West End, the owners as recently as last week were giving some tenants a $1,000 Visa check card and six weeks free rent to move in. (Studios there start at $1,328 a month.)

That’s just the start. As of last month, at least 33 high-end buildings in the central city and South Waterfront have more than 700 apartments sitting vacant or available for rent within the next two months, according to numbers WW found via publicly available listings and on a private management company spreadsheet.

So landlords in those buildings are advertising concessions: free rent for as long as eight weeks, along with other perks like gift cards, free parking and a yearlong free membership at a nearby health club.

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 | Willamette Week

Published August 15