Portland Real Estate Market Conditions May 2011

Here’s the latest information about the Portland real estate market for May 2011.

It’s a slow but steady upward trend in the Portland real estate market. The median sold home price has shown a small but consistent upward trend every month of 2011. January 2011’s median  price was $215,000. In May the median  price  is $220,000.  Portland home buyers: It’s time. Let’s go look at homes!

To compare May 2011 figures with April 2011 check my previous market conditions blog.

A snapshot of the Portland real estate market for Buyers: In general, May figures (as reported by the RMLS) are improved over April’s numbers. There are more closed sales than in April, more pending sales, and the number of new listings increased 7.7% That means more homes for you to choose from. Interest rates are still well below 5% for most borrowers.  It’s a great time to buy a home in Portland.

Comparing May 2011 Portland real estate numbers with May 2010: The number of closed homes are down for May 2011 by 15%. But pending sales are up a huge 45.1% over the previous May. New listings are 4.1% less than the previous May.

May 2011 compared with April 2011 Portland home sales: Closed homes are up 8.1%, pending sales are up also 8.1% and there are 7.7% more new listings.

At the current rate of sales the Portland real estate market has 6.8 months of inventory. (In April there were 7.2 months of inventory. This is the lowest number of months of inventory since October 2009 when there were 6.5 months of available homes for sale. See the chart and explanation below for more details.)

Home Prices Comparing May 2011 with May 2010, the average sold home price is down 4.8% and the median home price is down 7.9%. In a month to month comparison of April and May 2011, the average sales price is down just a tiny bit (-1.8%) while the median sales price increased just a tiny bit (0.1%)  (See the Portland Metro Residential Highlights chart below for more details.

For May 2011 the average home price is $262,400 and the median home price is $220,000.

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.