Market Conditions Ending March 31, 2009

The Portland Real Estate Market statistics data improved from February.  The total inventory dropped a much needed 4.6 months worth of inventory in March.   This means that at the current rate of sale it would take approximately 12 months to clear out the entire Portland inventory assuming no more inventory was added to the sales pool.  A nice balanced market is 6 months so as you can see there is still quite a supply available with not enough demand.  From March 2008 to March 2009 the Portland market's average price decline was 5.7% and the median sales price declined 6%.  The average home price at end of March is $325,000 compared to $345,000 from March of last year.  While the median's price declined from $289,900 to $272,500.  Another key stat is that new listings decreased by 28.5%.  That is huge!  People in Portland are smart they do have a sense of the market and what they can get for their home.  This decrease also reflects the fact that anyone who purchased in the last couple years realizes they lost value and cannot end up selling their home so they don't even try.  With the internet people can see easily what they can buy out there for what price and know on the flip side they cannot sell their home at the price they need in order to buy.