Local Market Trends

The sky isn't falling, but it looks like home prices are.

Prices for single-family homes throughout many areas of Oregon's North Willamette Valley continued to rise during much of 2007, and prices finished the year ahead of where they had been in 2006. As 2007 wound down, however, prices in most communities were declining, and the number of sales had dropped dramatically compared to the previous year.

Even after adjusting for differences in home square footage, average home prices in the two most recent calendar quarters combined fell nearly 10 percent in Molalla, Oregon City and Aumsville, and nearly 7 percent in SW Portland, Silverton, Estacada and the Aloha/Beaverton area.

Home prices are expected to decline further in coming months, continuing a trend from the first quarter of 2008, when prices dropped an average 3.2 percent compared to the first quarter of 2007 in 19 North Valley communities. Overall, the number of sales in these communities fell nearly 30 percent in the same January-to-March period compared to the same period of 2007.

Though the trend has been downward, a few communities still saw year-over-year appreciation in home prices for the first quarter. The median price for Colton, northeast of Molalla, rose 12.3 percent, the only double-digit gain. However, the number of Colton homes sold was so small in both quarters—only five—that the numbers may not comprise a large enough sample to be representative of the Colton market generally.

While all of the areas in the table below have recently seen some quarterly declines in price, southeast Portland, Tigard, Silverton and central Salem still had year-over-year gains from the first quarter of 2007 to 2008. The median home price for southeast Portland rose a modest 2.8 percent, while the median price rose 4.2 percent in central Salem, 4.6 percent in Tigard and 8.2 percent in Silverton.

The median price falls exactly in the middle of prices for all homes sold in a given area, with half of the homes being priced lower, and half being priced higher.

The only significant increase in the number of sales was in Wilsonville, where the number of homes sold in the first quarter was up 17.9 percent from the first quarter of 2007. Beavercreek sales were up 60 percent, but this only represented a change from five sales in the first three months of 2007 to eight sales at the same time this year. As with Colton, these numbers are probably too small to be statistically significant.

Data in the table below reflect first-quarter sales of homes in 19 of North Willamette Valley communities.

Total Listed: 4,668	Sold Units: 1,643	Remaining Units: 3,025
Average List Price: $441,980	Average Sold Price: $359,659	Inventory² Accum: 5.52

To get a better picture of the real estate market in your specific community or neighborhood, call Craig Loughridge at 503-632-8258 or visit nwhomepro.com to contact Craig via e-mail.