Southeast Portland Real Estate Market Snapshot

The real estate market in Southeast Portland has become more and more competitive over the last few months. Inventory (homes for sale) has continued it's seasonal drop over the winter, but the number of buyers has stayed the same. So there are more people looking at and making offers of the same few properties. In Inner SE PDX homes there are enough buyers, as of February 2012, to buy up all the houses currently on the market in 6 months. A 5-6 month absorption rate is considered a neutral market, 4 or less months is a sellers market. If we continue on the same trend we have recently seen the market will only become more competitive. Eventually this leads to multiple offers on homes, prices increasing, and the housing market stabilizing. 

Northeast Portland Real Estate Snapshot

The story of the real estate market in Northeast Portland for the last year has been that there are buyers, but not many houses for them to pick from. The absorption rate topped out in June of 2011 at 18%, which means that almost one in five listings sold that month. That's a really good number. The number hovered around 14-15% for most of the rest of the year.

North Portland Real Estate Snapshot

Running the actual numbers is important, even if you aren't a statistics geek. I like to see the results and analyze how the actual market is affected, so I'll give you the results:

The North Portland real estate market has seen a decline in inventory (houses for sale) over the last year. The greater Portland Metro Area has seen a decline in listing inventory for the last year as well. The houses that are in good condition, marketed well, and priced right are selling. Buyers who want to live in the houses they are purchasing (not investors) are having a tough time finding the right house and making an offer on it before it sells. The absorption rate in North Portland has bounced up and down over the last year, but on average we are seeing a rate of 12.7%. So every month about 13% of the houses for sale are selling. At the bottom of the market we were only seeing around 3-5%.

Southeast Portland Real Estate Snapshot

Southeast Portland has the most houses and usually has the most listings in Portland. Over the last year I have seen a reduction in the number of properties listed for sale across the Metro area, and this has been very dramatic in SE Portland. Over the last few years there have been around 1300 to 1600 houses for sale at any time, but in November 2011 there were on 800 actively listed properties for sale. The good news is that the number of sales over the last year has increased, so a larger percentage of the homes listed are being sold every month. This is called the absorption rate. On the graph above you can see that the blue bars- the number of properties for sale- trended down over the last year. The purple- sales- did a slight upswing through the summer. Normally the number of listings does a dramatic bell curve, peaking in the summer. This year the inventory of properties available to buy did not rise during the year, and I saw this affect my clients greatly. Qualified buyers have been looking for the right house all summer and fall, and they quality properties sell immediately. I think that there is a backlog of buyers, and once people start putting houses on the market in the spring, people will be surprised at how quickly homes that are in good condition and priced right sell.

The numbers are broken down in the chart below:

Northeast Portland Real Estate Market Snapshot

What has been happening in the real estate market in Northeast Portland? I have used propitiatory software to take a look at how many houses have been for sale, how many of them have sold, and how long they spent on the market. I use this information to tell my clients how many buyers there are in there are for their home.

Below is a breakdown by month of 2011 so far, and the month from the previous 3 years that had the most houses on the market. Every month, March through October of this year, has had a high absorption rate than any time in 2008. Even though there are fewer houses on the market, there are almost as many selling, and as a percentage, the rate of houses sold is higher than it was three years ago. Not everyone is selling their house right now, so if you need or want to sell, there isn't a lot of competition. If it is marketed correctly, in the best condition possible, and priced right, your house will sell. Here are the numbers to prove it.