Real estate by the numbers is out for the past month! The quick and dirty version of the February market is that inventory is still low keeping us in a seller’s market. Homes are appreciating by 5-7% over last year but dropped slightly compared to last month. And we are seeing many new listings as we get ready for the busy spring market. Read on below if you want details about your side of the river and the general market health.
Portland Metro
Looking at the numbers now just confirms what we were talking to our clients about last month. We saw more houses coming onto the market as seller’s were trying to get ahead of the spring rush. This push of listings also gave us more pending homes and therefore more sold homes. There are a lot of buyers out in the market and even though the inventory is climbing up, we are still seeing multiple offers on most close-in locations.
Many of us, myself included, expected to see more of a plateau in terms of appreciation, after the huge price jumps in 2017 and 2018. 2019 did see quite a bit of slowing, but so far this year the average sales price is up 5% over last year across the metro area. 4-6% appreciation is considered a steady and healthy market, so we should expect to see these numbers hold for at least a year or 2.
Selling
If you are considering selling your home now is an excellent time to get into the market. May-July are historically our busiest months for new listings, so if you want to take advantage of the huge buyer pool ahead of your competition, April could be the perfect month to list your home. Timing is always a personal choice, but you will likely net more money listing in the spring than early summer. If you want an individual valuation, reach out to us and we can discuss details. You can also get an instant home value by clicking here.
Buying
If you are thinking about buying, these numbers may seem a bit intimidating to you, but know there will be many more homes coming on the market very soon. With interest rates being historically low, even if you do end up competing on a home, chances are you are still getting a great deal. You also never know when the perfect home is going to come on the market, so if you are thinking of looking, it doesn’t hurt to start now to see what is out there. You can search all the homes in the area HERE.
East Portland
Overall the Eastside performed better than rest of the city in February. NE Portland saw the biggest jump in average home price, 2.5% since the beginning of the year, this is primarily due to some luxury listings closing. SE Portland continues to have the most new listings and the most closings because of its sheer size, at 247 closings, it had almost as many as NE and N Portland combined. North Portland is still one of the most affordable places to buy a home, with an average sales price of $407K you can still find cute homes in the 300K range.
West Portland
The Westside did vary a bit compared to the rest of the city, this is the only area that we saw the average days on market go up. The days on market are always quite a bit longer on this side of the river due to the condo sales. The condo market slowed substantially last year and this skews all the other numbers towards the negative. West Portland has a significantly higher average home price which also has a smaller buyer pool and therefore takes longer to sell.
We hope this helps to breakdown the February market in the Portland area. If you have any specific questions about your neighborhood please send us a message! You can fill out the form below or reach out to us on Facebook. We are always happy to discuss how this specifically affects you and your home value.