When comparing the week of October 5 – 11 with the week prior, the number of times an RMLS™ subscriber opened a Supra lockbox decreased 7.7% in Washington and 10.4% in Oregon.
Click the chart for a larger view (Washington, top; Oregon, bottom)
Archive
View an archive of the Supra lockbox statistical reports on Flickr.
This month’s RMLS™ Market Action report showed a trend of increasing real estate sales & subsequently lower housing inventory in many areas of Oregon & Southwest Washington.
Sales Activity:
Closed sales rose in the following areas this month, compared to the same month in 2008:
| Area | Closed Sales |
| Curry County, Oregon | 100% |
| Columbia Basin, Oregon | 36.6% |
| Lane County, Oregon | 23.2% |
| Clark County, Washington | 20.2% |
| Portland Metro, Oregon | 9.8% |
Third Quarter Sales Up:
September marked the end of the third quarter and compared to Q3 in 2008, Coos County, Curry County, Douglas County, Lane County, Portland and Clark County all saw sales outpace Q3 in 2008. Clark County led the pack at a clip of 18.7%.
Inventory:
Ten of eleven areas that we cover in the Market Action report saw housing inventory drop from August. This can be attributed to rising sales in several areas and as we head into the slower fall & winter seasons, fewer homes are being listed as well.
Both the Portland and Clark County areas saw inventory drop to 7.6 months. Lane County has the lowest inventory of the areas we cover at 6.8 months.
We’ve received reports of homes that were listed for sale on Craigslist being fraudulently re-posted as a low-rate rental listings. These types of scams may be aimed at getting prospective renters to wire or send first and last month’s rent. For example, a case was reported where a home listed at over $400,000 was fraudulently offered for just $700 a month.
Suggestion: If you’re concerned that listings you have posted on Craigslist may be at risk, you can setup an alert using RSS feeds – here’s how:
1. If you don’t use an RSS Reader currently, sign up for an RSS Reader, such as Google Reader or Bloglines (these are just a couple examples of free programs you can use).
2. Visit craigslist.org and find your region’s Craigslist page.
3. Click on the “Housing” section and type your property address or a unique phrase from your property description into the search field and click search.
4. At the bottom of the page, there is a button that reads “RSS” – click on this.
5. Copy the link of the page that opens and add it to your RSS Reader.
By doing this, you would be notified when you check your RSS Reader if someone has copied information from your listing & re-posted it on Craigslist in the housing section.
Another option would be to use Google Alerts:
1. Visit google.com/alerts.
2. In the search terms field, enter the property address or a unique phrase from your listing.
3. Select “Comprehensive” as the type of search.
4. Select how often you want to be notified if it returns search results.
5. Enter the e-mail address you want notification sent to.
Google Alerts searches the web, news articles, etc. and will return any results that match your search criteria.
If you see any fraudulent listings on Craigslist, report it to Craigslist.
Please also notify RMLS™ of any similar activity by e-mailing Kelly McKenna at Kelly.m (at) rmls (dot) com.
The deadline to be able to get the $8,000 first time home buyers credit is coming up. Perhaps this fact spurred the increase in lockbox activity this last week. When comparing the week of September 7-13 with the week prior, the number of times an RMLS™ subscriber opened a Supra lockbox increased 6.7% in Washington and 3.9% in Oregon.
Click the chart for a larger view (Washington, top; Oregon, bottom)
Archive
View an archive of the Supra lockbox statistical reports on Flickr.
The latest edition of Market Action is now available to RMLS™ subscribers on RMLSweb. To view the latest reports, log on to RMLSweb and under the links section on the left side, there is a link that says “Latest Market Action” in red. A new window should open with all of the latest reports.
If you’re not an RMLS™ subscriber, but would like to see the latest Market Action report for your area, feel free to contact a Realtor® who is an RMLS™ subscriber and they can provide you with the report and further insight into local market conditions.
Stay tuned, as we will offer a few market highlights on the blog tomorrow!
It appears some house hunters took a break to get in that last camping trip or to prepare their kids for school. In Washington, the number of times RMLS™ subscribers opened Supra lockboxes was down 8% when comparing the week of August 24-30 to the week of August 31-September 6. In Oregon activity was also down 5.5%.
Click the chart for a larger view (Washington, top; Oregon, bottom)
Archive
View an archive of the Supra lockbox statistical reports on Flickr.
In Washington, the number of times RMLS™ subscribers opened Supra lockboxes was unchanged and in Oregon activity was down 1%. These stats reflect a comparison of the week of August 24-30 with the week of August 17-23.
Click the chart for a larger view (Washington, top; Oregon, bottom)
Archive
View an archive of the Supra lockbox statistical reports on Flickr.
Lockbox activity up slightly
After a drop last week, lockbox activity bounced back in the week of August 17-23 compared to the prior week. In Washington, the number of times RMLS™ subscribers opened Supra lockboxes increased 4.1% and in Oregon activity was up 1.4%.
Click the chart for a larger view (Washington, top; Oregon, bottom)
Archive
View an archive of the Supra lockbox statistical reports on Flickr.
Lockbox activity down slightly
After an increase last week, lockbox activity dipped slightly in the week of August 10-16 compared to the prior week. In Washington, the number of times RMLS™ subscribers opened Supra lockboxes decreased 3.4% and in Oregon activity was down 1.4%.
Click the chart for a larger view (Washington, top; Oregon, bottom)
Archive
View an archive of the Supra lockbox statistical reports on Flickr.
There’s been some encouraging news lately in the RMLS™ market areas. The number of sales and pending sales are finally outpacing the totals from the same month in 2008. How much of it might be a result of the $8,000 first-time homebuyer tax credit, though?
I recently put together some statistics for the Oregonian on the Portland metro area, and thought I would share them with you.
There is no question that home sales in the lower-end of the market have seen a big jump this year. In 2007, homes priced between $0 and $249,999 only made up 35% of all sales in the Portland metro area. In 2009 so far, they make up 49.6% of the market.
As you’d expect, coinciding with the increase in lower-end homes is a drop in high-end homes. Homes priced $500,000 or above have dropped from 13.5% of the market in 2007, to just 8.2% of the market this year.
Click on the graph for a larger view
The question is: what will happen when the $8,000 tax credit expires on December 1?
I know the tax credit definitely got me off the fence & I can literally think of 15 of my friends and acquaintances (off the top of my head) who have bought or are actively looking to buy.
So in my humble opinion, there’s little doubt that the tax credit spurred people to buy. But as the deadline for the credit approaches, it should be interesting to see where sales go.