Portland Real Estate Market March 2014: Fresher than ever

Things that aren’t very good stale: Crackers, beer and the Portland real estate market.

Luckily, Portlanders can fear no more this spring about stale real estate because the real estate market is fresh as a newly hatched chick (besides, here in the rainy Northwest, soggyness is a greater danger than staleness). According to a recent Trulia report, relative to the rest of the country, the Portland real estate market sells homes at one of the fastest rates in the nation.

This month’s RMLS numbers back up the report. Inventory, an important marker of how quickly homes are passing from the hands of sellers to buyers, fell to 3.1 months in March. Average total time on the market was 85 days.

Although the average number of days it takes a Portland home to sell is 85, the Trulia report found that half of the homes listed in the area in mid-February were sold by mid-April. (A “stale” market is one where the majority of the homes on the market are the same month after month.)
Is this a new phenomenon? Not really, according to Trulia: The same study done last year showed pretty much the same breakdown.
Comparing the data from the RMLS to last year is a little bit discouraging, until you realize that Portland is still a strong market compared to a lot of metro areas. For example, in March 2013, there were slightly more pending real estate sales and more transactions closed than it March of 2014. Still, the number of new listings coming on the market is on pace with the last couple of years, and median and average sales prices are both above where they were last year.

As of this month, according to Trulia, Portland is the 18th fastest-moving market among the nation’s 100 biggest metros. The fastest market was in Oakland, California, where only 29 percent of listings were still on the market after two months (in the Portland market, 50 percent stayed on the market after two months). In the slowest market, Richmond, Virginia, a whopping 72 percent of houses listed at the beginning of the study period were still on the market two months later.

Which homes are staying on the market longest in Portland? In general, homes in the higher price ranges spend a longer time on the market than do lower-priced homes. Again, this is relative, and there are buyers out there looking in every price range. The bottom line is, if you list it now, there’s a very good chance your Portland home will sell this summer, if priced and represented right with an experienced Portland real estate agent. What are you waiting for?