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Most people still see Vancouver as Portland’s quieter neighbor across the river.

But the money moving in tells a different story.

Today, I’ll show you why Vancouver is starting to stand out, and what that means if you’re thinking about buying here.

Stick around to the end. The builder lineup alone says a lot about where this market is headed.

Out-of-State Investment! 

When a company decides to expand into a new state, they’ve already spent months looking a t the data behind the scenes.

So when you start to see several of them choose the same area, in the same city, around the same time, that’s usually worth paying attention to.

KEY POINTS

• Large commercial operators look closely at long-term growth and demand before putting money into a new market. When they move forward, it’s because the numbers support it.
• The Landing at Vancouver, along Southeast Mill Plain lard, is starting to reflect that. What looks like a row of dealerships is actually a group of companies from different states all choosing the same location. out of state dealership investment 
• Holman Automotive Group, based in Mount Laurel, New Jersey, broke ground on a Lexus dealership at The Landing. The project is a two-story luxury showroom with an adjacent four-level parking structure, and is expected to be completed in 2026.
• Lithia Motors, the largest auto dealer group in the United States, had plans approved in mid-2025 for a dealership of over 227,000 square feet on Lot 5 at The Landing.

• Swickard Auto Group, based in Las Vegas, plans to convert an existing building at Mill Plain and 136th Avenue into a Mercedes-Benz Sprinter van dealership.
• Land Rover is also planning another dealership along the Mill Plain corridor, joining the group of luxury and premium brands in what’s becoming a concentrated auto corridor in East Vancouver.

• • Luxury brands like Lexus, Mercedes-Benz, and Land Rover are focused on buyers with strong purchasing power. Seeing several of them cluster in the same corridor at the same time usually isn’t random.
  • There’s also In-N-Out Burger planning one of its first Washington locations here. That’s another example of out-of-state investment moving into Vancouver. JUST OPENED APRIL 2026 

• New costco & Trader Joes locations – they are very picky about spots! 

New Jersey, Nevada, California, and Oregon all chose the same city.

There’s a reason for that.

And you’ll start to see the same pattern show up in housing as well, with builders coming into this market at the same time.

So let’s take a look at what’s driving all of this.

The Vancouver Innovation Center

There’s a project happening in East Vancouver right now that even locals don’t know about yet.

And the first time I looked into who was behind it, I kind of stopped for a second.

Because the investment didn’t come from here.

KEY POINTS

• The Vancouver Innovation Center, or VIC, sits on the old Hewlett-Packard campus in East Vancouver. It’s being rebuilt into a place where you can do pretty much everything without needing to drive everywhere.
• This is being built as a full community, with flex space, light industrial, retail, parks, a school, apartments, and townhomes all in one place.
• The investment behind this didn’t come from Portland or Seattle. The master plan was done by SHoP Architects and Rabina, both based in New York City. Rabina is also the developer behind a luxury supertall on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan.

And once we get a little further into the video, the tax and location side of this starts to explain why companies from places like New York, New Jersey, Nevada, and California are choosing Vancouver over Portland. Stick around.

• When outside investors start putting serious money into a market like this, they’re betting on long-term growth. And that changes how the entire city gets viewed.

MAIN FACTS

• The VIC plans for over 700,000 square feet of office, flex, and light industrial space, along with more than 1,200 housing units and an estimated 5,000 to 6,000 jobs at full buildout
• YST Semiconductor Technology Corporation has leased over 150,000 square feet and committed to a $100 million investment in phase one, focused on opto-electronic chip production
• Clark County already has over half of all semiconductor workers in Washington
• SVI Electronics, based in Thailand, has also leased space for its first U.S. production facility and is expected to bring over 100 workers

The VIC gives you a sense of who’s paying attention to Vancouver from the outside.

But there’s another project that shows something different.

What happens when development actually lands and starts changing how a city feels?

Quick spoiler: the waterfront is the one that really shifted everything.

Before we get into all of that, if you’re watching this because you’re thinking about moving to Vancouver or Camas and want help figuring out which areas fit you best right now, you can reach out through the link in the description below.

Alright, let’s keep going.

The Vancouver Waterfront

Ok, so I love asking people who are new to Vancouver if they’ve been down to the waterfront yet.

Because the reaction is almost always the same.

They didn’t expect it to feel like that.

KEY POINTS

• The Vancouver Waterfront is the largest commercial real estate and housing development in the tri-county region. The old Boise Cascade paper mill, which sat unused for years, has been turned into a destination with restaurants, hotels, housing, and a walkable park along the Columbia River.
• An independent economic study described this project as having a “halo effect” on downtown. It raised the standard for what’s possible here and encouraged more development to follow.
• The energy down there really stands on its own. You’ve got places like WildFin, Twigs Bistro, Stack 571, wine tasting rooms from Maryhill, Willamette Valley Vineyards, Barnard Griffin, and Brian Carter Cellars, along with hotels like the Indigo and the Grant Street Pier extending out along the river.
• People from Portland are now coming across the river for dinner and a walk along the waterfront. That shift in how Vancouver is seen is more important than any single stat you can point to.

MAIN FACTS

• The full master plan includes around 3,300 housing units, with roughly 2,200 already completed, under construction, or permitted.
• It also includes over 1.25 million square feet of planned office space, along with a large retail and restaurant footprint.
• A 2023 economic analysis estimated the total output of the waterfront at $6.1 billion, with tens of thousands of jobs created over time.

I’ll show you in a bit what that kind of sustained demand has done to the residential pipeline. The number of units under construction here right now, compared to the rest of the Portland metro, is surprising. Stay with me.

• Blocks 1 and 2, along with the Port Block, were under construction and estimated to open around 2025, with completion timelines extending into the coming years.
• A portion of the funding came from out-of-state investors, which fits the broader pattern of outside capital coming into Vancouver right now.

The waterfront has changed how this city feels from the inside.

But this same kind of outside confidence is showing up somewhere you might not expect.

And the first time I came across this, I actually laughed a little.

Because it’s car dealerships.

Let me show you why that’s a bigger deal than it sounds.

Residential Growth and National Builders Moving In

National homebuilders don’t just take guesses.

They have teams that spend months studying a market before they ever buy a piece of land.

So when you see several of them choosing the same area at the same time, that usually tells you something.

KEY POINTS

• When multiple national builders show up in the same area within a short window, that’s not random. They’ve looked at the growth projections, job trends, commute patterns, and land availability, and they’re all seeing the same opportunity.
• More new construction brings more housing options, more master-planned communities, and continued expansion across Vancouver and Camas. The range here now goes from entry-level homes all the way up to luxury.
• Camas, just east of Vancouver, has become one of the more sought-after areas in Clark County. It has a walkable downtown, more space, and a quieter feel that appeals to buyers looking for something newer than what they’d find closer to Portland.

• Regional builders active right now include Pacific Lifestyle Homes, New Tradition Homes, Holt Homes, Kingston Homes, and Urban NW Homes.
• Pacific Lifestyle’s The Nines at Camas Meadows Golf Course offers homesites along the fairways, with single-family homes from the high $800s to over $1.3 million, and townhomes starting in the high $500s. It was selected as the 2025 BIA Parade of Homes site.
• Holt Homes is active at The Glades at Green Mountain in Camas, with pricing starting in the low to mid-$700s, one of the few new home communities there below the city’s median price.
• National builders currently active in the area include Lennar, DR Horton, Pulte, LGI Homes, David Weekley Homes, and Toll Brothers.

CONCLUSION & CTA

So, at this point, it’s less about whether Vancouver is a good place to buy and more about where you’re positioning yourself within the market.

If you’re thinking about buying in Vancouver or Camas and want help figuring out where the strongest opportunities are right now, you can email me at hello@domain today, and I can put together a more personalized breakdown for you.

And if you’re already set on Vancouver but still trying to decide which neighborhood fits your lifestyle and budget, I’ve got another video linked right here where I break down the main areas from worst to best.

That’s usually the piece people moving here take the longest to figure out.