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.
Lockbox activity rebounds
After a few down weeks, lockbox activity rebounded in the week of August 3-9 compared to the prior week. In Washington, the number of times RMLS™ subscribers opened Supra lockboxes increased 18.2% and in Oregon, activity was up 8.8%.
Click the chart for a larger view (Washington, top; Oregon, bottom)
Archive
View an archive of the Supra lockbox statistical reports on Flickr.
We released the latest Market Action reports to RMLS™ subscribers yesterday. Many areas of Oregon and Southwest Washington are showing improvement as far as sales and inventory go – here are a few highlights:
Portland Metro Active Listings: Note how the 2009 line is basically flat.
Inventory: Inventory is showing steady improvement in Portland (7.3 months), Clark County (7.3 months), and Lane County (6.2 months). In most circles, 6 months of supply is considered a balanced market. The drop in inventory comes thanks to strong closed sales, but also because the number of active listings is growing at a much slower pace than usual.
Closed sales: The Portland metro area was finally able to post a gain in same-month closed sales for the first time since April 2007. Closed sales were up 8.6% compared to last July. Clark County posted a gain for the second straight month – closed sales were up 23.5% there. Lane County also posted an 11% gain. Baker County, Curry County, Douglas County, and the Mid-Columbia region also saw growth.
Clark Co. Pending Sales: Oh, so close to reaching July 2007 levels.
Update (October 2, 2009): We are still experiencing intermittent shortages of ActiveKEY supplies at several offices, please check RMLSweb for the latest information.
Unfortunately, due to a parts shortage at Supra, we currently have no supply of ActiveKEYs at our Portland office. We are working to obtain inventory as soon as possible. In the meantime, if you’re in the Portland area please call the RMLS™ Front Desk at 503-236-7657 if you need a new key at this time, and we’ll do our best to find a solution for you.
If you’re in a real bind, like you’ve lost your ActiveKEY or it is broken and we can’t find a solution for you right away, remember that according to the RMLS™ Rules and Regulations:
(The) Participant Broker in each office shall be allowed to loan his or her personal lockbox key to RMLS™ subscriber keyholders within such office. While on loan, the full responsibility for use of the key, including compliance with all Rules, remains with the Participant Broker. The purpose of this exception is to accommodate occasional needs created when a subscriber keyholder’s own key is temporarily unusable.
In case you don’t know, the “participant broker” at your office is the person who is responsible for all of your office’s dealings with us.
So, to put this all in more general terms: the participant broker at your office can lend his or her key to you in emergency situations, keeping in mind that if anything happens, the responsibility lies with the participant broker.
Here’s a quick rundown of upcoming Realtor® events & education for August in Oregon & Southern Washington. If you have an event that is not listed here, please let us know by commenting below. For future events, please send an e-mail to communications (at) rmls (dot) com.
– August 5:Realtor Day at NW Natural Street of Dreams – noon to 8 p.m.
– August 12: CCAR hosts Get Connected: Expose Yourself to Social Networking
– August 13: OAR hosts What’s going on with Short Sales (web seminar)
– August 13: Oregon CRS – CRS 205: Financing Course in Ashland, Oregon
– August 19: CCAR hosts Washington State Housing Finance Commission
– August 19: Douglas County Board of Realtors Membership Meeting – Speaker, Gene Bentley, Oregon Real Estate Agency Commissioner
– August 21: Southern Oregon Women’s Council of Realtors hosts – Qualifying for a FHA/VA Loan
Also, if you’re an RMLS™ subscriber, we have lots of FREE opportunities for continuing education credit at a location near you, click the link for your area to view the August Training Calendar:
– Coos County
– Eastern Oregon
– Eugene
– Florence
– Gresham
– Portland
– Roseburg
– Salem
– Vancouver
Image courtesy of Ayhan Yildiz
We’ve added a new Keyword Search to our Forms & Documents menu on RMLSweb. Our Forms & Documents menu has always been filled with lots of useful information, along with the documents that you need in your day-to-day business.
Now, instead of navigating through a list of folders, you can type in a keyword and search! Here’s a short demonstration:
In addition to the Keyword Search, you can also browse by Tags or by the old “folder”-style organization. Oh, and you can also search the archives of Newsletter articles as well (we’ll have more on that later!).
Activity continues to slide, slightly
Comparing July 13, 2009 through July 26, 2009 the number of times RMLS™ subscribers opened Supra lockboxes decreased 1.4% in Washington and 1.9% in Oregon.
Click the chart for a larger view (Oregon, top; Washington, bottom)
Archive
View an archive of the Supra lockbox statistical reports on Flickr.
As we previewed in an earlier post, to help you handle short sales more efficiently and to help the other types of properties that require 3rd Party approval to get fair exposure, we’ve added Short Sale Yes/No and Short Sale Offer (Seller Accepted; Submitted for Approval) Yes/No to Listing Load.
Watch this short tutorial to learn more about how to use these two new fields.
For more information on short sales see the National Association of Realtors Short Sale Field Guide.
Here’s a few hot weather tips I came up with for real estate agents as we all cope with a potential high of 107 today here in Portland!
1. If buyers close on 100+ degree day, offer a window A/C unit as a closing gift (good luck finding one right now, though).
2. Selling agents: if your listing has A/C or is A/C ready – make sure you’re showing those houses now! The heat should really make that selling point stick in the buyer’s mind (and their shirt stick to their back).
3. Keep a cooler full of water bottles for your clients in your trunk when showing homes.
4. Always offer to purchase a Slurpee for your clients.
5. If you happen to be rolling in a convertible while showing homes – apply sunscreen between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m., or put the top up.
PS: If you use an ActiveKEY, make sure not to leave it in a hot car for long: