September 2010’s RMLS Market Action was released on Friday and as mentioned over the weekend on our Facebook Fan Page, Portland’s city inventory remains below the inventory reported as the five county metro area.

I started tracking the five RMLS areas in April and this month added the thicker average line to the graph.  The City inventory is down to 9.1 from 9.5 in August.  The Metro area inventory for September is reported as 10.5 months.

We’re starting to see a trend where the City inventory runs about a month less than the Metro inventory.  Northeast Portland is consistently lower than the average and tends to beat all-comers with the lowest inventory levels in the city.  North Portland spiked and leveled off whereas West Portland spiked and then declined.

The stats in the RMLS graph are pretty self explanatory but the most striking stat is the contrast in the decline of pending sales versus the increase in closed sales.  It tells us that more transactions are getting to the closing table; transactions aren’t failing as often once they are accepted.

This should be a good week for Portland real estate news.  We’re going to look at the newly certified property taxes, the appeals process and trends.  We should examine the time-frames of real estate transactions and what it means to buyers that want to be in by the holidays and those that want to be able to claim a home purchase on their 2010 taxes.  We know your credit is vital to your eligibility for a loan but bouncing checks can be a deal killer too.  Tougher lending rules are changing and adding hot points to underwriting.