Real estate investors and other industry professionals still prefer nearly any other city to Portland, as efforts to reverse their negative perceptions fall flat, according to a new ULI survey.

Portland ranked 80th of 81 markets for the second year running for overall real estate prospects across property types. Only Hartford, Connecticut ranked behind Portland.

That’s according to the latest Emerging Trends in Real Estate report, published annually by the trade group Urban Land Institute and accounting firm PwC. Real estate professionals ranked Portland 30th among U.S. cities for homebuilding prospects, unchanged from the prior year.

The survey asks industry insiders to rate cities for development and investment prospects in 2026. To compile its Emerging Trends report, ULI and PwC surveyed more than 1,200 property investors, developers, lenders, consultants, brokers, advisers and consultants.

Gov. Tina Kotek and Mayor Keith Wilson have sought to court real estate investors as the city faces a protracted housing construction slump that threatens the officials’ affordability goals.

In September, real estate investors and developers met with the mayor and governor at ZGF Architects’ headquarters downtown to discuss how to reignite local apartment construction. In the meeting, they told the politicians that growing jobs and incomes are two keys to drawing investors back to Portland.

Jobs in Multnomah County have been slower to recover than in the rest of the Portland area, employment data show. Still, household incomes have continued to rise across the Portland metro, according to 2023 data from the U.S. Census Bureau, the latest available. Annual median household income exceeded $100,000 in 2023 for the first time in Washington and Clackamas counties, while the median income in Clark County surpassed $97,000.

Median incomes were lower in Multnomah County, at around $83,000, and are rising more slowly — a troubling sign for Oregon’s most populous county and the comeback of Portland, which has struggled to draw new residents in the wake of the pandemic.

In the “Portlandia” days of the 2010s, the city rocketed in popularity among U.S. real estate markets as construction boomed, according to the ULI data. But it plunged in the rankings after nationally televised 2020 protests that occasionally turned into riots, and after the COVID-19 pandemic led to an exodus of office workers from downtown buildings.

The work-from-home trend persists and has undermined occupancy rates, leasing revenue and building prices. A third of Portland offices remain empty, according to real estate firm CBRE, and brokers say filling those spaces with tenants will take years.

Business leaders, meanwhile, have also complained that Multnomah County’s taxes are some of the highest in the country.

Local economist Mike Wilkerson said he had expected Portland to rise at least into the mid-70s in the latest ULI survey.

“That’s the most influential indicator at this time,” said Wilkerson, a partner at public policy consulting firm ECOnorthwest.

Wilkerson regularly fields questions from elected officials and their staff on how to change the national narrative around Portland, he said.

The problem, however, is that with Portland stubbornly stuck at the bottom, he said, “it becomes a self-reinforcing challenge.”

Still, there are signs of life as real estate investors, including out-of-state buyers, have purchased downtown Portland skyscrapers, albeit at significant discounts. The October sale of Portland’s PacWest to Fairbanks, Alaska-based Fountainhead Development for a reported $55.7 million was the latest in a string of deals amid an ongoing repricing of downtown real estate that some in real estate circles say is necessary to lure investors back to the city.

Still, Wilkerson said the new report doesn’t reflect Portland’s progress.

“You need some positive momentum to get you out of dead last,” he said.

— Mike Rogoway of The Oregonian/OregonLive contributed to this article.