January ’24 Market Update
Hello, West Side neighbors. It’s market update time. I have your year end stats for 2023 and predictions for 2024. I’m Julie Williams here with the January West Portland and Suburbs Real Estate Update. Let’s start with the number one factor that has been driving our market or causing it to put on the brakes in the past few years: interest rates. So what’s happening now? Well, I created a handy dandy chart to give you a visual of the path that rates took in 2023. As you can see, they peaked in October when they reached over 8%, and the market nearly came to a halt. Since then, they have declined to more reasonable levels in the 6.5% range. I anticipate that this will greatly help our spring market this year, which has pent up demand on the part of both buyers and sellers who waited on the sidelines for much of 2023. Depending on inflation and other economic factors, interest rates are expected to remain fairly stable, we hope, and may continue to decline slightly in 2024 and possibly drop below 6% into the high 5s. Fannie Mae, Zillow, and Pulsenomics released the results of their fourth quarter home price expectation survey, which showed that over 100 of the top housing experts in the country believe home prices will rise on average by 2.4% next year, and 25% over the next five years. The most pessimistic group within the survey believed homes will appreciate by 10% over the next five years, and the most optimistic believed appreciation will rise by 40%. This certainly builds a case to encourage buyers out there to purchase now if they can, rather than waiting. The Portland Metro 2023 average sales price was $598,000, and that was down 2.1% from 2022. December market time was 60 days on average, and inventory is still low at 2.7 months. Now let’s look at the breakdown of West Side average prices and market times. Beaverton, Aloha averaged $539,500 with 41 days on market. Hillsboro, Forest Grove, Cornelius came in at $545,700 with 66 days on market. Tigard, Tualatin, Wilsonville, Sherwood at $617,400 with 54 days on market. West Portland comes in at $705,500 with 85 days on market. Northwest Washington County at $708,400 with 68 days on market. And Lake Oswego, West Linn at $1,095,500 with 71 days on market. That’s your update. Thank you for watching. If you’re considering buying or selling and want to know more, or if you just need some advice or guidance, please reach out. I’m Julie Williams, Principal Broker with ELEETE Real Estate, and I’m looking forward to hearing from you.
May ’22 Westside Market Update
Hello neighbors. It’s time for the May 2022 market update, looking at stats for West Portland and suburbs from April. I’m Julie Williams with Eleete Real Estate, and I would like to tell you exactly what’s happening in our real estate market with confidence, but honestly, that’s a little bit tricky. I can tell you with confidence that there’s a lot of uncertainty creeping into the market now. Interest rates at the beginning of 2022 were around three and a quarter, and now they’re at five and five eights, as of today. Now with interest rates going up in a market that has been seeing skyrocketing prices, it makes sense that something’s got to give, but we haven’t seen much impact yet. We are seeing multiple offers with homes selling for over full price. So why is this still happening? Well, it’s all about supply or the lack thereof. The demand from the buying public is still really strong but there are fewer new construction starts locally mostly due to the lack of available land. And then of course, we continue to have those supply chain issues for homes that are being built. Then when it comes to resale homes, many existing homeowners with a lot of equity who are also buyers, they now have access to cash to secure their next home without listing or selling their existing homes. They can use their cash savings or a home equity line of credit for the down payment or some other creative financing. Essentially, homeowners are sitting on their current homes waiting for the ideal home to hit the market. This lack of fluidity in the market was never an issue prior to 2004 because homeowners were able to list their home for sale, get it under contract and secure their next home with a purchase contingent on their home closing. So, I have been looking at this from all angles and there still are no indicators that we will have any type of crash event like we did in 2008 and nine. This is a totally different scenario, but you know what, as agents, I think so far this month we are seeing fewer multiple offers, maybe three offers instead of eight. And we have some buyers kind of giving up and we’re finding that homes are getting slightly fewer showings. And we have some homes maybe not selling the first weekend, but we also have sellers who are being very aggressive with their pricing, who may need to understand that we are starting to shift even if slightly. So they may only get the price that their neighbor did a couple of months ago and not 10% more. And I’m also seeing this slight shift more in lower priced properties than higher priced. And this makes sense because those buyers are more likely to need a loan to purchase. So I’m always answering the question is it a good time to sell? And the answer is still yes. One thing is for certain though our market will begin to change soon but if you’re waiting for prices to go down that just may not happen in the foreseeable future. Okay, let’s get to those April stats. Inventory is at eight tenths of a month. So up ever so slightly from last month. Here are the April month end averages. The overall Portland market is up again to $632,900, and that’s up 3.6% from the prior month with 21 days on market. Now I’d like to pause there for a moment. For reference, in 2019, we saw a 1.5% increase in sales prices for the entire year. Okay, on the west side, Hillsboro, Forest Grove, Cornelius is at 560,400 with 15 days on market. Beaverton, Aloha comes in at 571,500 with 12 days on market. Tigard-Tualatin, Wilsonville, Sherwood at 665,200 with 18 days on market. Northwest Washington County is at 804,400 with 15 days on market. West Portland comes in at 818,500 with 36 days on market. Lake Oswego, West Linn comes in at 998,600 with 21 days on market. So those are our April stats. Thanks for watching my May market update. If you have any specific questions, please contact me, and as always reach out to me to find out what we can do to get your home sold for more money, for the best terms by professionals who live here, work here, and do this full time, and have your best interests at heart. You can also call me if you just need a little bit of advice. I’m looking forward to hearing from you.
April ’22 Market Update
Change is in the air in Portland’s westside suburban real estate market! This is the April 2022 market update, looking at stats from March. First of all, interest rates had started a rise when I gave you last month’s update, but they have gained a lot of momentum since that time. Rates have trended upwards and moved solidly into the 5% range for your standard 30-year fixed rate loans. We’re seeing 5 3/8% for conforming loans right now and 4 5/8 for jumbo loans. So what does this mean for buyers and sellers? Well, for buyers, their money just won’t go as far if they’re obtaining a loan, and they will need to have a smaller purchase price budget now to get the same monthly payment. Cash is king, of course, and will be even more difficult to compete with as rates go up. But the vast majority of buyers still do need to obtain a loan to purchase a home. For sellers, this should mean that prices will begin to level off. And perhaps we won’t be seeing offers that are 20% above the logical sales data-based market values, but we aren’t there yet. We are still seeing multiple offers that are very competitive, so it’s still a great time to sell right now. But you know, interest rates are the pillar that are strong sellers’ market was built on. So logic tells us that the market will begin to cool. It’s pretty well known in my business that we often see a storm of activity when interest rates shift either direction. And so it’s kind of to be determined if that’s what we’ve been seeing recently. Okay, let’s look at those March stats. As I predicted, prices had a strong uptick pretty much across the board. Inventory is at 7/10 of a month. So down slightly from last month, but it’s also good to know that there are contingent sales and short sales that are not calculated in there. So the actual inventory is 0.6, which is basically tied for the lowest ever inventory figures which we saw last year. Here are the March month-end averages. The overall Portland market crossed a new threshold going over the $600,000 mark at 610,900 on average. And that is up 5% from the prior month with 25 days on market. So homes also sold 30% faster. On the westside, Beaverton, Aloha came in at 540,000 with 13 days on the market, Hillsboro, Forest Grove at 552,600 with 14 days on market, Tigard, Tualatin, Wilsonville, Sherwood came in at 661,300 with just 11 days on market, West Portland came in at 694,300 with 48 days on market. And that is the only westside area where prices didn’t go up, which may be due to tax concerns in Multnomah County. Northwest Washington County came in at 805,200 with 13 days on market and Lake Oswego, West Linn comes in at 1,092,200 with 31 days on market. So the westside suburbs in Washington and Clackamas Counties had an average increase of 9% compared to the overall market of 5%. Now remember, that’s a one-month increase. Thanks for watching. If you have specific questions, please contact me, and as always, reach out to me to find out what we can do to get your home sold for more money, for the best terms by professionals who live here, work here, and do this full time and have your best interest at heart. You can also call me if you just need a little advice.
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