Portland Real Estate Blog

The Portland real estate market continues to plod along according to June 2010 RMLS Market Action statistics reported on their website.  Last month I started to break the Portland inventory numbers down to a smaller area as the Portland Metro area reported by RMLS encompasses five counties.  The metro chart is on the right and the Portland data is below.  In both cases inventory, the ratio between active and sold listings, increased a little.

The rest of the metro data is a mix of up and down:

When comparing June 2010 with June 2009, closed sales increased 13.3%. Pending sales and new listings fell 25.2% and 4.9%, respectively.

Comparing June 2010 with the previous month, May 2010, closed sales dropped 1.9% (2,012 v. 2,050) and pending sales grew 8.4% (1,618 v. 1,493). New listings also rose 16.3% (4,049 v. 3,482).

The 8.4% increase in pending sales contrasts with a 50.1% drop between May and April (there were 1618 pending sales in June, 1493 pending sales in May and 2991 in April).  April 30th was  the deadline to enter into a contract for Home Buyer Tax Credit eligibility.  For comparison purposes, there were 2852 pending sales in July 2007, close to the peak of the Portland real estate market.

April 2010’s RMLS Market Action reports that inventory is down to 7.3 months.  All look back at over a decade of Aprils in Portland real estate inventory:

• 1999- 6.1 months
• 2000- 6.4 months
• 2001.7.2 months
• 2002-4.5 months
• 2003- 4.1 months
• 2004- 3.0 months
• 2005- 1.8 months
• 2006- 2.4 months
• 2007- 4.4 months
• 2008 10.3 months
• 2009- 11.0 months
• 2010- 7.3 months

My scan through the older reports shows that most, but not all months of May show lower inventory than the previous April.

Back to this month’s report:

Comparing April 2010 with April 2009, closed sales increased 49.1%.  Pending sales also jumped 60.8%, and new listings rose 23.8%…

The average sale price for April 2010 decreased 3.1% compared to April 2009, while the median sale price went down 4%.

There were 12,786 residential listing in the Metro area in April of 2000, a decade later there are 14,182.

Portland real estate inventory dropped 40% between February and March!  After a two month spike with over 12 months, inventory levels have returned, at least for now, to the levels that we saw during the last half of 2009.  There were positive changes in all of the market metrics: average sales price, median sales price, pending sales, closed sales, inventory levels, and days on market.

Average and median prices also increased from last month but the average price is down 5.8% from this time last year. The average sales price is $238,900.

Pending sales in Lake Oswego/West Linn are up 91% from March 2009.   Pending sales are up across all reported areas.

North Portland still has the shortest days on market: 91.  The average days on market for the Metro area is 142.

We’re getting a better look at how 2009 wrapped up with yesterday’s release of RMLS Market Action. For the year, there were fewer closings than in 2008 but not by much (18,955 down from 19,132). The rolling 12 month average sales price was down 12.1% to $289,000 (median down 10.8% to $247,000).

Compared to 2008, December 2009 was a great way to finish the year. Closed sales were up 52.6% from the previous snow battered month a year ago. 2008 ended with a record high 14.1 months of inventory that has now dropped nearly in half to 7.7 months. Sales were slower than November but that would be expected.

RMLS Market Action is one of the three sources I usually write about that cover Portland real estate. Market Action is released mid-month of the following month reported. The Case Shiller Index has a three month lag so we won’t see December ‘09 until the last Tuesday of March. Prudential Northwest Properties Market Tracker reports are released the first week of the following month and are emailed to subscribers. You can also look at the graphs from the reports on our PDXBuyers.com website.

RMLS Market Action was released yesterday. The last page of the Portland Metro report focuses on condos. The median sales price is down considerably but has seen an uptick the last couple of months.  Closed sales appear to be fairly consistent but the number of listed condos has declined more than 20% since November of 2008. [both graphs from RMLS]

If you want to take a closer look at the reports for other regions, follow these links:

• - All Areas (52 pages)
• - Baker County
• - Columbia Basin
• - Coos County
• - Curry County
• - Douglas County
• - Lane County
• - Mid-Columbia
• - Portland Metro
• - SW Washington
• - Union County
• - Wallowa County

I had an appointment this morning at a listing just after Market Action was published so only covered inventory in this morning’s post.  Pending sales are up over 2008 but closed sales are down.  That says that more transactions are failing in escrow.  A reminder that an accepted offer does not equal a “SOLD” sticker.  Factors that might be included:

• Appraisals not coming in at the agreed upon sales price.
• Buyer being disqualified due to changes in lending rules during escrow.
• Buyer backing out due to economic concerns.
• Increased sale fails during the inspection period (sellers are accepting offers closer to their “drop dead” price and therefore less willing to negotiate during escrow).
• Short sales (by the time a short sale is approved and changed to “pending” in RMLS, buyers are less emotionally attached to the purchase and therefore less likely to make it through escrow.

On one of the most positive notes reported this year in Portland real estate:

Closed sales were up 72.4% compared to November 2008 and pending sales rose 19.9%.  New listings dropped 7%.  The 72.4% same-month increase in closed sales is the largest percentage increase on record for the area.  The previous high was56.9% in December 1996.

Year to date listings are down by 19.2%.  This is keeping inventory levels low as inventory is a ratio of “active listings at the end of the month in question by the number of closed sales for that month.”

The average sales price is down 11.4% for the year and 3.6% for the month.  The average sales price of home is now $273,300.

RMLS of Portland just released their Portland real estate market data for November 2009.  Inventory ticked up a little from October’s 6.5 months.  The 9% increase is less than the month on month increase in 2008 but in 2007 the inventory level remained almost static for the same period.

Must run.  More later.

The Case Shiller Index is released on the last Tuesday of each month (tomorrow).  The Index has a three month lag; tomorrow’s report will tell us about September.  RMLS Market Action comes out midway through the following month; we already have data through October.  Without a massive amount of statistics, does RMLS Market Data predict what the Case Shiller Index for the Portland real estate market look like?  I don’t think so.

The graph ab0ve with inventory levels makes the average sales price and Case Shiller Index (for Portland) hard to discern so the graph below removes inventory but is the same otherwise.

October 2009 RMLS Market Action for Portland was released yesterday.  The complete RMLS report for all areas is here.  The 6.5 months of inventory is the lowest it has been since August of 2007 and is down 67% since January’s all time high.  Inventory is a ratio of the number of months it would take to sell all the active listings at the current rate of sales.

Pending sales are up 64% compared to October of last year but those properties are selling at a discount: the average sale price is down 12.6% and median price down 10.9%.  The average sales price of a residential property in October was down compared to September and the whole year.

RMLS Market Action September 2009 was released today (Portland Metro or whole report).  Inventory dropped slightly from August which contrasts with rises month-over-month in 2007 and 2007 between August and September.

Cumulative days on market is 144 days but a quick search in RMLS shows that 243 properties sold in the last two months with days-on-market of seven or less in Portland. Area-wise: North Portland averages 89 days, NE Portland 84 days, West Portland 152 days, and SE Portland 228 days.  A unit in the South Waterfront’s John Ross recently closed that was 1382 days on market.