Yamhill County Market Action Report (Updated)

Friends and Clients,

We continue to see the best sales numbers since the housing market woes began in the summer of 2007. There are some reasons to be cautious; here is an overview…

Portland Metro Averages:

We are winding down 2013 and the numbers overall are very impressive. 2012 was the first year of the housing recovery in our area since 2007; 2013 exceeded even that. 2013, year-to-date, through October, compared to 2012 ytd, surpassed 2012 by about 15% for sales volume. However, there is some softness in the markets particularly in the second half of the year after a sharp increase in interest rates in May/June. Comparing this October to last October is telling: Portland pending sales are actually down 2.4% in October compared with last October. Closed sales are still up over last October but only by 4.1% (see the graphs for visual effect). The first half of the year was significantly better than the second half (beginning with August) and that is somewhat disconcerting. We are also seeing this reflected in the news about the general economy.

Yamhill County Sales:

Yamhill County continues to trail the market progress in Portland by about 1 to 1.5 years. For example, we have 6.9 months of inventory which is where Portland was in early 2012. Our ‘days on the market’ before achieving a pending sale is 96 days which was true in Portland about a year ago. The good news is we are following and Portland had an exceptional year this year and we trust that will be our story next year.

Yamhill County vividly illustrates the dynamics of sales this year. Our pending sales this year are down 17.2% from last October (a very bad month) yet, year-to-date pending sales are still up 19.6%! It took a very good first half of the year to make up for this month’s damage. Our closed sales this October are down about 10% from last October (certainly something is different) and yet our closed sales for the entire year are up 16.4%! Anecdotally, we had a lot of good sales and good prices in the first half of the year but suffered a flat tire in the second half of the year. Again, this slowdown is reflected in Portland but more subtly than in our area.

On this report, I broke out several statistics unique to Yamhill County so our clients can assess the local markets and make their decisions with the best information available. We also feature the quarterly Affordability Report in this report. We will continue to analyze the 2013 market during the next couple of months from many facets so we can best prepare for the coming year.