Market Conditions Ending March 31, 2010

A little good, a little bad and a little misguided.  Overall the inventory dropped by 5 months which is quite remarkable.  The inventory dropped from 12.9 months to 7.8 months.  What this means is that with the current rate of sale it would take approximately 7.8 months to completely clear out the current Portland inventory assuming that no more active listings hit the real estate market.  On a 12 month rolling average the market continued it's decline by dropping the average sales price by 10.9%.  March 2009 the Average Sales price was $321,900 and now it's $286,700.  The Median Sales Price also dropped from $271,000 (March 2009) to $245,000 (March 2010) which is a 9.6% drop.  Sales activity is improving but it's hard to say how much is because of the tax credit that is set to expire at the end of April.  Pending sales are up 46.7% compared to March of 2009.  New listings are also up 35.3% and Closed Sales are up 51.9%.  The average time a property is on the market is 142 days.