How Long to Sell My Portland Home? – 2019 Update

Longer than you’d think! The average days it takes a home before it receives an accepted offer on the Portland real estate market and goes pending is charted by RMLS, our local multiple listing service. The below picture shows how many days on average it has taken for the last five years to get an accepted offer on a Portland home in our real estate market. This snapshot was taking in June of each year for comparison.

You’ll notice in the above chart that even when the Portland real estate market was the absolute hottest (2016) the average time it took to sell a home was about one month. Right now that has turned into a month and a half in Portland summer months.

Home Selling is Seasonal in Portland

How long a home takes to sell in Portland is also determined by what season you’re selling in. The spring housing market in Portland is the fastest (March through May). June and the first half of July tends to be pretty good. August and Sept. are slow. Then the back half of August through middle of November is pretty good – just not as good as the spring. Finally, Dec. and Jan. are typically not good at all and have the highest time on market figures. See our best time of the year to sell a home post for more.

Some Real Estate Agents Sell Homes Faster

Not all real estate agents are the same or have the same offerings. We consistently sell faster than the local city average, often in half the time! For example, last year my small team sold 139 homes in less than 30 days on market. We do this by strategically spending more money to market our client’s homes so they sell faster and for more. Discover our full marketing advantage here.

Why does nearly every homeowner think their home will sell fast?

Most homeowners think their home is worth 8% more than it actually is. See the research on that here! This is because they are the person that choose that home in the first place, if it was perfect for them, why wouldn’t it be perfect for someone else? Also, it is hard not to dream about what you would do with the extra money. In other words, please listen to your real estate agent who has conducted hundreds of sales, and don’t simply go with your gut.

How should I price my home? Higher then market? Lower than market?

Getting the highest price for your home is an art-form. If it sells immediately, you might have under-priced it. If it takes too long to sell, you likely overpriced it. Putting a home for sale at under market prices to generate multiple offers can work if your home is in a really, really hot buyer’s segment. It takes a huge amount of potential buyers and a very strong seller’s market to ensure that a multiple offer gamble will work out in the seller’s favor. And we do it – when appropriate. We will under price the home a little and then watch as the multiple offers roll in and price it higher than market value. However, if your property and neighborhood are not hot, if they are not enough ready buyers to bid up your price tag, you could be stuck with the low price you put on market and no offers at all. Now buyers will negotiate the homeowner down even further and there is no negotiation margin built in to the price tag. Pricing the home under market can turn into a worse case scenario!

So if we are very confident, we will advise an under market price and then confidently watch the multiple offers roll in. If we do not think there is a chance of multiple offers due to the current market conditions, we will price it at market value or above (depending). As I said, it is an art-form. In 2018, we average 100% of our start price to our sold price. In other words, some homes went above in multiple offers, some went a little below, but in nearly every case we had advised our client on the – just right – price tag. In some cases we had to warn our clients that getting the best price could take a while, and in others we were able to assure them it won’t take long at all. Final word on the matter, work with an experienced real estate agent.