Portland Real Estate Market Conditions for February 2011

February’s numbers for Portland real estate sales are now available. They look a lot like January’s. There are less active and new listing homes for sale in Portland and the metro area. However in February there were more closed home sales than in January or in the previous February.

To compare February 2011’s numbers with January 2011, check my previous market conditions blog.

A snapshot of the Portland real estate market for buyers: While the number of Portland homes for sale to choose from is going down (through homes being sold and less homes coming on the market to replace the inventory), prices appear to be stabilizing. The median sale price is now $213,700. The last time the median price was nearly this low was in 2004. Current interest rates hover around 5% and below depending on your credit score.

Comparing February 2011 with February 2010: Closed sales were up 5.8%, but pending sales and new listings are both down (13.9% and 26.1% respectively).

February 2011 compared with January 2011: The Portland real estate market increased in closed sales by 3.8%. Also, pending sales were up 6.9%. Again, new listings of homes for sale in Portland dropped 7.8% compared with January.

At the current rate of sales, if no new homes for sale in Portland came on the market it would take 10.9 months to use all the inventory for sale. (See the chart below.) These 10.9 months of inventory for February 2011 is considerably lower than the 12.9 months for February 2010 and the 16.6 months of inventory for February 2009. The Portland real estate market is definitely moving in the right direction!

Sales Prices: are lower than February 2010. The average sales price is 10.5% less and the median sales price is down 9.1%. Compared with the previous month of January 2011, the average sales price is down just slightly, 1.8% and the median price is down 0.6%.

See the Portland Metro Residential Highlights chart below for more details.

Is it a buyers market or a seller’s market? See the chart below.

It’s all based on the number of months of inventory. How many months would it take to sell all the homes currently on the market if no new property came up for sale? Less than 4 months inventory is a sellers market;  4-6 months is a neutral market; and more than 6 months inventory is a buyers market. All information is courtesy of RMLS.