Best Areas to Live Near Intel in Hillsboro, Oregon

The six neighborhoods Intel employees most commonly settle in — Orenco Station, Hillsboro proper, Beaverton, West Slope/Raleigh Hills, Forest Grove, and rural Washington County — all put you within 15 to 35 minutes of Intel's main Hillsboro campuses. The right choice depends less on shaving minutes off your drive and more on whether the neighborhood fits the rest of your life. If you're looking to buy a home in Hillsboro, close enough to commute to Intel, here's a quick guide on where you should look. 

Where exactly is Intel in Hillsboro, and why does it matter for your housing search?

Intel's Oregon operations span four campuses in Washington County, with Ronler Acres and Jones Farm being the two busiest for employees. Both sit in Hillsboro near NE Century Boulevard and Cornell Road. The Aloha campus is a few miles south on SW 198th. Which campus you're assigned to can shift your commute by 10 to 15 minutes from any given neighborhood, so it's worth knowing before you start narrowing your search.

 

 

What's it like to live in Orenco Station if you work at Intel?

Orenco Station is the closest residential neighborhood to Intel's Ronler Acres and Jones Farm campuses, with commutes running five to fifteen minutes by car. Some employees bike the whole thing without touching a highway.

The neighborhood was built from scratch in the late 1990s around the MAX Blue Line stop, with walkability designed in from the start. Cornell Road has a New Seasons Market, a solid mix of restaurants, and enough everyday retail to run errands without a car. Tous les Jours, a French-Asian bakery on the main commercial strip, has become a genuine neighborhood gathering spot.

The tradeoff is space. Orenco skews toward condos, townhomes, and single-family homes on smaller lots. That's intentional to the design, not a flaw, but if you need a yard and room to spread out, you'll want to keep looking.

 

Is Hillsboro or Beaverton a better place to live for Intel employees?

Both are solid choices, and most Intel employees land in one or the other. Hillsboro puts you 10 to 20 minutes from campus with more square footage and yard space than Orenco, typically at better prices. Beaverton runs 20 to 30 minutes and makes more sense if a partner is commuting toward Portland or if proximity to the broader metro matters.

Hillsboro proper has a real downtown: a farmers market, a minor league baseball stadium, and a food scene shaped by the large Latin American and South Asian communities that have grown here alongside the tech industry for decades. The MAX runs through with multiple stops, giving you a car-free option on days you want it.

Beaverton's edge is food diversity. The Murray Hill area has Uwajimaya, 99 Ranch, and a dense corridor of Vietnamese, Korean, Japanese, and Chinese restaurants that's hard to replicate anywhere else in the metro. The Cedar Hills and Cedar Mill corridor along Highway 26 is a consistent landing spot for tech employees who want tree-lined streets and reliable commute options in both directions. Housing ranges from 1960s ranches in established neighborhoods to newer townhomes on the outer edges.

 

 

 

What about West Slope, Forest Grove, or rural Washington County?

These three options serve different priorities, and at least one of them surprises almost every out-of-state buyer I work with.

West Slope and Raleigh Hills sit on the Portland-Beaverton border, heavily treed and hilly, with older mid-century ranches and Cape Cods on quiet streets. The commute to Intel runs about 25 to 35 minutes via Highway 26 or Beaverton-Hillsdale Highway heading west, while downtown Portland sits roughly 20 minutes the other direction. For dual-career households where one person goes to Intel and the other goes into Portland, this tends to be the geographic sweet spot.

Forest Grove is about 25 miles west of Portland, and Pacific University at its center gives the town a character nothing like a typical Washington County suburb. Downtown has a farmers market, Craftsman bungalows, Queen Anne Victorians, and easy access to Hagg Lake and the Coast Range foothills. The drive to Intel via OR-8 or OR-26 typically runs 20 to 30 minutes, which is competitive with parts of Beaverton when traffic factors in. Housing is more affordable than anywhere closer in. The honest tradeoff: larger shopping trips require a drive into Hillsboro, and if your partner commutes to Portland, that's 45 minutes to an hour on weekdays.

 

 

Rural Washington County is the option most people relocating from out of state never think to look at. There are pockets where you can have genuine acreage: hazelnut orchards, Coast Range views, long driveways, room for horses or a workshop, with a 20 to 30 minute drive to campus through open countryside. From another state, it can be hard to tell on a map whether a property surrounded by fields puts you in the middle of nowhere or just a few minutes from groceries and everyday services. That's exactly where a local perspective makes a difference.

If you want to talk through which of these areas actually fits your situation before you start touring homes, reach out to me directly. A single conversation can save a lot of time in the search.