Portland real estate goes own way - up
Yes, the Portland-area housing market has seen better
days.
As recently as June, the area's median home price
climbed 17 percent higher than 2005 levels. New figures
released Friday by the Regional Multiple Listing Service
show the median home price in October was $270,000,
about $5,500 lower than in September and just 8.4
percent higher than October 2005.
The number of homes for sale is growing, and the
pace of sales is falling.
But those results show a stronger and far more robust
market than the national average and some of the California
regions that led the nation during the recent boom.
As the housing markets in bigger cities suffer, the
Portland area's market continues to chug along, fueled
by the basics of job and population growth.
Local housing economists and real estate veterans
say that as the housing market enters its seasonally
slow winter months, the latest price and sales figures
showed relatively robust housing appreciation. While
nationwide figures from the National Association of
Realtors show existing home sale prices declining
recently and new home production lagging, the Portland
area has experienced a moderate slowdown.
The region's robust job growth, population growth
and restrictions on development have combined to produce
a housing market that moves more moderately than more
volatile regions, economists said.
"There is a national housing downturn, and Oregon
is participating in it," said Bill Conerly, an
economist with Conerly Consulting in Lake Oswego.
"But we are having a milder cycle at this point."
The National Association of Realtors forecast earlier
this year that the Portland area would outperform
the nation's housing market, and that forecast has
been borne out.
"Oregon and Washington and Idaho are doing much
better than the rest of the country in terms of jobs,"
said Lawrence Yun, the organization's senior economist.
Consistent with the seasonal slowing of home sales
and appreciation each fall, October's median price
was lower than the $275,500 recorded in September.
And the appreciation gain was the smallest year-over-year
median price gain since September 2004, when prices
rose 7.9 percent over the prior year.
The RMLS data cover sales of new and existing houses
and some condominiums in Clackamas, Columbia, Multnomah,
Washington and Yamhill counties. Many condo sales
are handled in-house by agents who don't list them.
Similar figures for other metro areas showed a starkly
different picture, according to La Jolla, Calif.-based
DataQuick Information Systems.
The San Diego area's median home price of $485,000
was down 5.5 percent compared with October 2005. The
San Francisco area's median home price was $767,000
in October, up less than 1 percent; the Los Angeles
area median was $514,000, up 4.5 percent in the same
period.
Seattle and Portland recorded dramatically different
results than the California cities.
The Seattle-area median price of $337,000 was 12.3
percent higher than October 2005. DataQuick said the
Portland median was $268,000, or 9.4 percent higher
for the same period.
The positive results for the Portland area feed arguments
by local real estate agents and builders that the
restrictive Urban Growth Boundary and the area's ability
to attract new residents shield it from the national
housing slump.
"If I were a praying man, I'd say thank God
for Californians and the UGB," quipped Rob Levy,
a top producing agent for Prudential Northwest Properties.
"Yeah, it's slowed down, but to me 8 percent
is very healthy," he added.
There's no question that appreciation, sales volumes
and sales pace in the Portland area have slowed compared
with the boom years of 2004 and 2005.
The October RMLS report showed the market has 4.6
months of inventory, about double the amount in the
fall of 2004 and 2005. By the end of the month, there
were 11,533 homes on the market -- 82.8 percent more
than a year ago.
Closed sales fell 14.3 percent in October, compared
with October 2005, the RMLS report said.
That's no surprise to Dave Hrabal, an agent with
the Hasson Co. A year ago, he had two houses for sale
and yearned for more, knowing they would fly out the
door.
Today he has 28.
"The offers I'm seeing are just low," Hrabal
said. "It's definitely a buyer's market. There's
just hoards of supply out there, and there's just
not that many buyers."
Southwest Washington's Clark, Cowlitz and Pacific
counties had an October median sales price of $260,000,
which was 9.7 percent higher than October 2005, according
to the RMLS report.
This was the first month the RMLS included Pacific
County figures, which it added to the 2005 figures
for annual comparisons.
