We had a good October and people are still moving here as home prices continued to show gains in the median price.Portland’s median sale price for new and existing homes was up 6 percent from a year earlier. October’s median price was $287,000, compared with $270,000 a year ago, according to a monthly survey by the Regional Multiple Listing Service.

The price increases are happening even though many people are listing their homes for sale. Sellers have refused to reduce their prices dramatically but still have to wait nine weeks on average to sell.

Jerry Johnson, Portland housing economist, said that he is baffled by the markets strenght.

Across the Columbia River, things aren’t looking so good. The median price fell 5 percent in October from the year before, and homes take an average of 11 weeks to sell.

The region’s median price peaked at $302,000 in August. There can be no doubt that the banking woes has created problems for many and first time home buyers and luxury buyers alike are needing to work harder to come up with financing that fits. Once this financing mess is fixed I think many buyers who are on the sidelines will be coming back into this market.

There are no doubt some very very good buys out there as some folks need to sell and are negotiating. But that does not seem to be translating market wide. Having said that this is a good time to be active and to be a buyer. We can find you some great deals right now if you can commit to working with our award winning team!

Investors and acute buyers are getting some nice buys right now. Would you like to be one of them? Give me a call.

Regards;

Dirk Knudsen

503-799-8383

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 20th, 2007 at 3:35 pm and is filed under PDX Housing Trends. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.