All real estate is local, and this monthly report is a resource for those buying or selling on the Portland metro’s west side. The data below is for the areas including but not limited to NW Portland, SW Portland, Beaverton, Bethany, Hillsboro, Tigard, and Lake Oswego, and includes all residential resale transactions (new construction not included).
Hey, good news! Home prices are no longer going up 4-5% every month. The rapid rise in interest rates that occurred in March and April (but have since leveled off) began doing what they were designed to do, which is to lessen demand in the housing market. We started seeing the anecdotal evidence first- price drops of active listings, primarily. Those really started taking off:
In related news, the number of listings that have been canceled, withdrawn, or expired has about doubled in the last month. There’s also some very anecdotal evidence out there that the number of offers per listing has been dropping.
None of those things particularly matter though if they don’t impact the overall prices. Sure, it’s getting harder for some sellers to swing for the fences, but do these anecdotal points add up to real, market-wide data? Let’s see.
The median list price was flat from April to May (hallelujah), while the median sale price ticked up $10k to $640k, which is a 1.6% increase month-to-month. That’s a far cry from the increases in recent months, which had been running in the 3-6% range each month this year.
New listings have been ticking upward which is also a good sign since, you know, the whole supply and demand thing we learned in high school. May 2022 had 15 more new listings than May of 2021, and that’s the first month since February that outpaced last year.
This is a very modest decline, but correlates with the increased amount of price drops we’re seeing. The percentage of sales that were above list price dropped two percentage points from April. However, the average percent over list that they sold for increased to 6.7% (it was 5.2% in April). This is largely a reflection of the median list price being flat month-to-month. It’s when both the median list AND sale prices go up that you’ve got trouble.
Average days on market continues to drop, while the median went up a point from four days to five. I’m paying more attention to the median number than the average, as there’s a lot of noise in the average. If half of all houses that go into contract do so in under five days, it’s not particularly relevant that the average days on market is 16.4.
I mostly only track this metric for fun, but it’s also to continually remind people that you do not need to be paying cash to compete. It only helps.
One of the feared effects of rising interest rates would be causing less sellers to list their homes (since often they would be trading in a sub-3% interest rate for a 5+% one), thus further throttling supply. The lack of supply has been the number one underlying factor in the recent boom in home prices, so any more impact to supply would be a problem. So far, we’re not seeing that. While we may not be seeing any meaningful jumps in listings (and new construction of single-family homes is another story), we’re at least not seeing it drop. As for the overall market the cooling effect is happening, finally.
I am a licensed real estate broker in the state of Oregon. Data is sourced from RMLS, and all analysis is mine and mine alone. Other opinions may vary. If you would like a free analysis of your specific area, please contact me at eli.cotham@eleetere.com or via the contact page.
