RMLS Market Action for March 2012 was released yesterday. Inventory has dropped to recent low levels at 5.0 months. The pending and closed sales are up both when compare to last month and last year. New listings are down compared to last year but up from February. We appear to be seeing another shift in the market where buyers are competing for properties and having a harder time finding properties that meet their criteria.
Average sales price climbed to $252,600 but is still down .04% for the year. In 2010 we saw strong numbers in the between March and August that was all given back as the year came to a close. It’s too early to tell if we’re going to have a repeat of last year or whether we have really started to turn the corner. I do feel more confident than last year. The Fed reported yesterday that they were not touching interest rates which helped perk the stock market to near highs.
I’ll update my local inventory chart ASAP but as a teaser N. Portland has 4.4 months of inventory, numbers that indicate a seller’s market. West Portland, an area that has been averaging higher numbers than the Metro report, is at 5.4 months.
10 Comments on “RMLS Market Action- Low Inventory”
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5 months of inventory is close to what we saw in September 2006 through February 2007! Once the word gets out I think we’ll see some price appreciation.
Inventory (as in the actual number of houses for sale) is at 10,629 (mid 2006 levels).
What followed after February 2007? Major price reductions.
“Average sales price climbed to $252,600 but is still down .04% for the year.”
I suspect there is a problem with the math somewhere. Will you please disclose the numbers/source of this claim. Beyond that, if it’s really true, which I doubt, 0.04% is close enough to zero to be considered no change, or, alternatively, there is insufficient data to show that the 0.04% is statistically significant, so the possibility of no change cannot be excluded.
The source is RMLS, they do a monthly summary of their data called Market Action. It is the subject of this blog entry.
Yes Tim, the average price is essentially unchanged. A nice change from the falling prices of the last 4+ years.
Where is Wendy Culverwell at the Business Journal? She was always quick to report any RMLS data she could put a negative spin on. So transparent…
My typo. Should have read down 0.4%. Still virtually unchanged average sales price year to date.
The Portland Business Journal article about Market Action was written by Matthew Kish…
Thanks Charles. Did you see that Kish said inventory hasn’t been so low since January 2010 (when it was 12.6 months?
Really it’s June ’07. Inventory was 5.0 months back then too. I expect it is because the chart for this month’s Market Action only goes back to Jan. ’10.
Wendy Culverwell’s article appeared on Friday.
There sure are a lot of typos on this blog. After spending too much time trying to figure that typo out, in the future I am going to start asking more questions before believing what’s published.
In any event, June 2007 was at the peak of selling prices. Selling prices have gone down about $100,000. I am not going to suggest the prices will go down another $100,000, but I certainly don’t see prices going back up by $100,000 any time soon.
If Tim doesn’t “see it”, that’s good enough for me.