RMLS Market Action for September 2021 was published yesterday. No massive shifts but some trends that are worth watching. Once again, inventory ticked up 1/10th of a month. At this rate, we’ll reach a balanced market some time in 2024! Inventory is the ratio of Active Listings divided by Closed Listings for the month. New listings for the month increase 15.2% from September 2020 and 1.7% from August of this year. Closed sales dropped 1.6% from August. Pending sales dropped 10% from August so it won’t be surprising to see another bump in inventory for October. Keep in mind that “inventory” reported here is a seven county area. Drilling down into specific areas may have considerably different supply.
The average home sale price in Portland Metro is $571,500, down from June’s peak of $597,100. Since the peak, there has been a decline every month.
Is the sky falling? No. Year-over-year, the average sales price is up 17.5% (from $485,200). The market needs to slow down, and it is. Interest rates are still low and buyers who so wanted to buy a few months ago are getting the chance with fewer offers being submitted in a frenzy. That’s not saying we no longer seeing multiple offers on a property; it’s that we are not seeing as many offers. That said, an overpriced home on day one will sell for less than it would have had the market believed it to have been accurately priced the day it was listed. Said another way, overpricing a home is the kiss of death. It’s also important to consider that some types of properties take longer to sell.
The real estate crystal ball is a little murky these days. Real estate in 2020, into 2021, was an unpredictable animal. Will we start to see the general trends we saw prior to the pandemic remerge or has the book been rewritten? We don’t foresee a market crash but perhaps a return to “normalcy” where long term national appreciation is about 4%.
