All of the real estate sales numbers throughout the Portland Metro area including Yamhill County are positive again. The Closed Sales graph shows that the trajectory of the year remains strong and well above the last 5 years. Most notably, there is currently only 1.6 months of inventory at the current rate of sales. Improvements from last June shows 22% gains for pending sales and 26% gains for closed sales. Average and median sales prices are well above the top of the market numbers in 2007. Portland is one of the strongest cities in the nation for housing recovery, rising prices, and population growth.
Yamhill County continues to follow this trend from a distance and has put up the strongest numbers we have seen in 8 years. While there is still room for improvement in some of our sectors and price ranges, the direction is positive and promising. It is good to be a seller right now and challenging in many cases to be a buyer. While we are seeing some multiple offers, rumors of 9 buyers for every property are greatly exaggerated! In some cases, buyers did not get the memo about the market conditions and they are still coming in aggressively with low offers and trying to negotiate generous repairs and improvements. That is about to disappear and buyers should beware or they are going to lose opportunities if they are not thoughtful. Appraisals remain challenging in our area because we are still relatively light on data, particularly with rural properties.
For the past 2 years we have ended the second quarter with amazing numbers for the first half of the year. We then degenerated into lethargic conditions and produced disappointing numbers for the remainder of the year. We hope that the strong market forces will enable us to continue strong throughout this year for the first time since the housing market crash. Anecdotally (among agents and title companies), the heat wave over the past 6 weeks seemed to reduce market activity. Who wants to be out looking at homes when it is 96+ degrees outside? I think most people in our industry welcomed a bit of a breather and time to catch up with the rush so far this year. However, none of us want this year to slide back like the last two years.
We are all looking for more inventory to sell. Our buyers are looking for more choices to consider. If you know anyone who is looking for excellent representation for selling or buying, thank you for referring them to one of our exceptional brokers. If you have been waiting for a long time to sell, we think the wait is almost over.
Best regards,
Randy
Randy McCreith, Principal Broker
Cell: 503-310-9147 Fax: 866-281-6653
[email protected]
Bella Casa Real Estate Group
