Portland Foreclosures For Sale, Current Rates and REO Forecasting – 2021 Update

3 Ways to Find Portland Foreclosures For Sale

Public Market Foreclosures

If you’re interested in purchasing a foreclosure in the Portland real estate market, there are generally two ways to go about this. The first is the easiest and that is by searching for all foreclosure homes banks have currently listed on the public market for sale. If you click this link and bookmark it, you can always easily see every foreclosure home for sale on the public market. Now, there aren’t a lot available because the Portland foreclosure rate has been super low for the last few years, which we will talk about in a bit as well as forecast future Portland foreclosure rates later.

Sheriff or Courthouse Steps Foreclosures

The other, more difficult, way to purchase a foreclosure in Portland is through an Oregon Sheriff Sale. Difficult because typically the buyer has to bid for the property site – unseen, typically there is no access given to the property. Difficult because all sales are cash and all sales are final, as-is, with no inspection contingencies. Difficult because the buyer has to be present in the courthouse at the right time to bid on the property with cash or cashier’s check on hand and ready to go. Difficult because of the previous owner’s “right of redemption” meaning the buyer could lose the house after purchasing it if the previous owner pays back what is owed within a set timeframe. This right of redemption isn’t something you have to worry about when searching for foreclosures that are active on the public real estate market (see the previous paragraph). You can find all the upcoming listed Oregon Sheriff Foreclosures for Sale here.

False Foreclosures, or Pre-foreclosure Homes Listed for Sale

Whenever a homeowner misses a few mortgage payments, that home address is automatically added a national database of pre-foreclosure properties. Then various real estate websites buy that list of supposed pre-foreclosure homes and list them on their public website for sale. But 99% of these homes will never go to foreclosure and none of these homes are actually currently for sale. Pre-foreclosure lists and websites displaying pre-foreclosure properties are a waste of time.

Current 2021 Portland Foreclosure Rate

In 2021 so far (July 1st) there were 5,172 sold detached residential homes in the public Portland real estate market. Of those 13 were foreclosures. That means the current foreclosure rate in Portland is 0.2%.

Historic Portland Foreclosure Rates

The Portland foreclosure chart below uses the same criteria as above, all detached residential Portland, Oregon (city proper) homes sold in the given year.

Portland Real Estate Foreclosure 2022 Forecast

One of the easiest ways to forecast upcoming Portland foreclosures is to look at the current mortgage forbearance rate. Mortgage forbearance is NOT a direct one-to-one with upcoming foreclosures. Mortgage forbearance is when the lenders allow the homeowner to reduce or pause their payments for a limited time. Many homes that go into forbearance come out of it fine. But the higher the national forbearance rate, the higher the next year’s foreclosure rate is likely to be.

The current 2021 mortgage forbearance rate is 3.91% and has been dropping steadily since early 2020 when the forbearance rate suddenly jumped up to 8% due to COVID19.

There is a certain amount of certainty then that the 2022 Portland foreclosure rate will remain under 1%. Foreclosures take 1 – 3 years on average to take effect from the time the homeowner stops paying. Even if the Portland forbearance rate matches the national of 3.91%, most homeowners in forbearance will not end up as foreclosures. Also as Portland housing prices have continued to rise throughout 2021, homeowners who have missed numerous payments will likely still have gained enough market equity over time to pay off their mortgage when selling their property.

Four ways to find a deal when searching for investment properties.

1. Keeping an eye out for current foreclosures for sale is still a good method of purchasing an investment property.
2. Sheriff’s sales are very risky, but with that risk comes a decent investment opportunity.
3. Short sales for sale is another method of obtaining a good deal on a property.
4. Finally, we recommend using our Smart Fixer List when searching for Portland rehab opportunities. When you’re ready, contact our top 1% Portland buyer’s team.