Market Update

Q1 2019 Portland Housing Market Update

The Portland housing market is continuing to slow down, which is a welcome relief after the crazy ride we’ve all been on the best few years. Between the skyrocketing prices and super-tight inventory, it’s been years since being a homebuyer in Portland was a walk in the park. Is that starting to change? I’ll break down this first quarter of 2019 for you.

Price

The median sold price for homes in Portland was $395,000 during the first quarter of the year, which is actually down from the nearly $425,000 we saw during last summer. In fact, median Portland home prices saw the first drop in nearly 7 years this past January. This was a huge milestone after so many years of frenzied price increases.

Home values are still on the rise, but they’re also rising at the slowest pace in several years. But if you’re a homeowner here in Portland, you don’t have anything to worry about. Home values are still 24% higher than they were during 2008’s peak and 79% higher than they were during the housing crash. If you’ve owned a home in Portland for a while, you’ve almost certainly built up some substantial equity.

Speaking of price changes, are you curious about how prices have changed in Portland over the past year? This awesome heat map shows you exactly how prices have changed all over the city. You can see that there have been increases in many parts of the city but that there have also been decreases in a few.

Days on Market

More listings mean that homes are sitting on the market a little bit longer—around 28 days on the market is the median right now. We also saw a 36% increase in home inventory here in Portland during this past quarter, which might be part of the reason homes are sticking around for more time.

However, it’s still a good time to be a seller! Many homes, especially the ones that are on the lower end of the price spectrum, still go fairly quickly due to the lack of affordable inventory.

Homes Sold

There were 5, 531 homes sold during the first quarter, which is a slight decline over last year. It’s just another indication that things aren’t as fast paced as they have been over the last several years.

Portland’s Hottest Markets

I always enjoy looking at this info about Portland’s hottest markets. This method takes inventory, days on market, and sales price into account to rank the city’s hottest areas. Here are the top five for the first quarter of 2019:

Beaverton/Aloha
Multnomah Village
West Linn/Lake Oswego
Tigard/Metzger
Wilsonville

Ready to Buy or Sell?

Buying or selling in a market like ours comes with plenty of good and bad. If you’re wanting to do either one in the near future, give me a call! I’ll be happy to sit down with you and help you come up with a game plan.

J Taft Irvan

Pam exceed our home buying expectations. From generating a comprehensive search criteria to quickly lining up home viewings, Pam was a consummate professional. Her local knowledge was key, as Pam even provided strong recommendations around home inspectors that helped us complete the home buying process.

Jason and Leslie—Lake Oswego

Pam is amazing and she made the process of buying our first home easy. She responds to questions in a timely manner and she is very easy to contact. Pam provided us with updates every step of the way until the day we closed on the house. We will be recommending her to our friends and family members.

Ron and Ann—Milwaukie

Pam helped us sell our home in the early days of Covid and then buy one as things were opening up. It was a confusing time and we were total novices but Pam was an incredible agent to work with. She was always on top of things and also calm and positive to deal with. She helped us through the sale/purchase negotiations with solid advice and patient guidance and in the end she and our lender went above and beyond to ensure a smooth transition into our new home. Highly recommend her to anyone wanting an experienced realtor who is fun to work with too.

Sarah and Peter—Lake Oswego

Pam has an ability to masterfully work diligently to no end. I recommend Pam’s help in finding your next home as she will get it done for you!

Bob—West Linn

My husband and I 100% recommend Pam Waldman as a realtor. She helped us sell our home and purchase another. Both transactions were surprisingly smooth. Let’s admit it, selling one’s home can be super stressful, but Pam has a great calm demeanor and is exceptionally professional. Pam took care of all the details in a very efficient manner. Pam also has relationships with various contractors, mortgage brokers….basically she has all the contacts and resources anyone would need. Now that both sales have been finalized we are continuing to communicate with Pam and we anticipate using her again when it’s time to sell this house.

Nancy and Scott—Portland

Pam Waldman is a professional in every way: she is always punctual; incredibly fast to respond; pays attention to detail; has a depth of knowledge of the market, transactions, and contracts; and she is very well connected in terms of inspectors, tradesmen, and experts. Pam is also very personable and a pleasure to work with. She constantly went to bat for us and when one home we wanted to buy failed inspection she was very supportive and quick to get the details sorted so that we could move onto another, better property. She is tactful, honest and fair when it came to answering our questions and giving us counsel. We would not hesitate to recommend for any side of a real estate transaction

Cath and Trey—Lake Oswego

Pam was a pleasure to work with as my wife and I searched for our new home in the Portland area. She is an expert in the Lake Oswego and West Linn neighborhoods, and helped us navigate the ins and outs of the process, general movement of the local market, etc. Pam is extremely patient and thorough. She became very skilled at understanding our critical needs, and coordinated with us very effectively as we patiently looked for our dream home. I would highly recommend her to anyone looking for a home in this area, and can’t speak highly enough of her professionalism and effectiveness. Pam was an absolute pleasure to work with, and we wouldn’t have found our current home (which we love!) without her.

Shane and Erin—Lake Oswego

We’ve worked with Pam on both buying and selling our home over the past few years. Pam is easy to work with, knowledgeable and responsive. The photography, videography and marketing materials she provided for our home were spectacular. Everything went smoothly, our home sold fast, and at a price we wanted. We would wholeheartedly recommend working with Pam.

Brooke and Ryan—Portland

We recently bought and sold homes in the Lake Oswego and Portland area with Pam as our agent and were delighted with her professionalism, knowledge, accessibility, thoroughness and responsiveness. She did a fantastic job for us when we were both buyers and sellers and we would recommend her to anyone without reservation. She listens well, spared no expense on her marketing plan and provided us with a thorough professional analysis of the market before we sold. Pam is one of the hardest working agents I have ever worked with—-and that covers multiple transactions over the last 38 years of moving around the country. She is honest, considerate, was careful and respectful of our home during open houses and photography shoots, was quickly responsive to our calls and provided us with great input so we could make appropriate adjustments to our decision-making on both ends of our recent move. She is a top-notch agent and we would recommend her to anyone considering a move.