RE/MAX’s latest housing report shows dramatic year-over-year shifts, suggesting the market is correcting to pre-pandemic levels
Portland saw a decline in both the number of homes sold and the number of new homes listed last month versus November of the previous year — outpacing metro areas across the country — as the real estate market returns to what some in the industry are describing as “ a more normalized market.”
“We’ve been seeing a return to a more balanced market, where not just sellers are in the driver’s seat. Sellers and buyers are each able to negotiate, with neither having a built-in upper hand,” said Nick Bailey, RE/MAX President and CEO, in a report issued by the real estate company earlier this week. “This is especially good news for long-suffering buyers, who are still dealing with affordability issues. Buyers welcome having more choice as there are more homes on the market, and they are taking longer to sell. More good news for buyers: prices are flattening and actually decreasing in some markets. Things may bounce around a bit longer, especially into the first half of 2023, but it seems like the market is shaking off the last vestiges of the 2021 overheating. Balance seems to be returning — as it usually does.”
The report notes that the winter months, starting with November and continuing through February, are typically the slowest months of the year for home sales. And it includes notable month-over-month changes in many key metrics. But the most dramatic changes — for Portland and the rest of the country — can’t be accounted for by ordinary seasonal fluctuations.
The number of new real estate listings in Portland last month was down 21.4% compared to October and down 32.3% compared to November 2021, according to a report released this week by RE/MAX.
Of the 53 metro areas surveyed for the report, Portland had the second largest year-over-year drop in new listings, with 3,035 last year and 2,055 in November of this year. Only Phoenix — which had a 33.4% decrease in new homes listed — saw a more dramatic decline this November versus last November. Overall, the number of newly listed homes in the cities surveyed was down 21.4%, according to the report.
The overall number of home sales dropped 12% in November 2022 versus November 2021 in the surveyed metro areas. But a number of cities — Portland among them — saw more dramatic declines, with Portland reporting a 44.6% year-over-year decrease. In raw numbers, last month 2,096 homes sold in the Portland area in November, versus 3,784 a year ago. Portland didn’t even crack the top five in declining home sales, with five other Western cities — Bozeman, Las Vegas, Salt Lake City, Phoenix and San Francisco — reporting larger year-over-year declines.
Portland also saw a 16.3% decrease in the number of homes sold in November versus October of this year.
The report includes some encouraging signs for prospective homebuyers, including a 1.9% drop in the median home sale price in Portland from October to November. But that price — $524,999 — is 1.9% lower than the November 2021 median of $510,000.
The year-over-year median price of new listings Portland was 6.9% last month versus November 2021: $529,000 versus $495,000. That metric, too, dropped between October and November, with RE/MAX reporting a 2.9% decline from the October median price of a new listing.
Portland homes are also spending more time on the market before selling, according to the report: in November 2021 a Portland home would spend an average of 27 days on the market before selling. Now sellers wait an average of 45 days before selling a house.
Also last month, RE/MAX estimated that Portland had 2.7 months supply of inventory, versus .8 in November 2021 — a 228.2% year-over-year difference.
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