The Portland Real Estate Market

As a Realtor working in the Portland metro area, I see firsthand how crazy the market is right now. Inventory is at an all time-low with only 0.8 months of inventory available (as of April 2021). That means, if no more homes were to come on the market, all of the homes would be sold in just 0.8 months. To give some perspective to that, experts believe that a balanced market is 6 months of inventory - anything under 6 months is a sellers market, and anything over 6 months is a buyers market. We have less than 1 month!! Almost all detached homes are selling for over list price with multiple offers in just a few days, buyers are waiving inspections, appraisals, and doing just about whatever they can to get a seller to accept their offer.

Below I will be sharing some information about the Portland real estate market, based mostly on the latest Market Action Report from April 2021, a resource on facts and statistics available to Realtors. If you have more in depth questions, or would like to buy or sell a home, please reach out to me directly and I would love to talk more with you!

Sales Prices

To start, sales prices throughout the metro area are WAY up - the average sales price sits at $543,900 which is up 16.9% from April 2020! The median sales price (arguably a more accurate indicator of price) is $484,900, a 16.8% increase from a year ago. This includes all types of residential real estate - single family homes, townhouses and condos.

The areas of town with the largest increases are Lake Oswego/West Linn (up 13.9%) and Tigard/Wilsonville (up 13%).

Looking at different areas of the Portland metro area, Gresham/Troutdale is the most affordable area of town, with the median sales price landing at $425,000. Next is Hillsboro/ Forest Grove at $450,000 and Beaverton/Aloha at $452,500.

Not a surprise that Lake Oswego/West Linn is the most expensive area with the median sales price being $725,000, followed by West Portland at $615,000.

Pending Sales

Looking at raw number indicators such as pending sales or closed sales can be a bit skewed, as certain areas are of course geographically larger, or more densely populated, than others. However, pending sales can be a good indicator of where people are purchasing real estate, especially when looking at increases over sales last year!

That being said, April 2020 was a very different time in real estate! The pandemic was brand new and real estate was initially hit hard. People were unsure if they were going to keep their jobs, so they were certainly not out shopping for homes! So, keep in mind that overall percentages will be higher when judged against early pandemic numbers.

Pending sales (3,400) increased 66.6% from the 2,041 offers accepted in April 2020, and increased 1.6% from the 3,346 offers accepted in March 2021.

SE Portland has had the most pending sales in 2021 with 1,381 total. West Portland is next with 1,214, followed by Milwaukie/Clackamas at 1,114.

Looking at percentage increases of pending sales in 2021 vs. 2020, we see that actually Lake Oswego/West Linn has had the largest increase at 55%. Following that is West Portland at 50.2% and Milwaukie/Clackamas at 46.8%. This is not surprising to me as people are looking to get out of the city and spread out a bit more since Covid!

On the flip side, Beaverton/Aloha is only at .8% increase! That number seems shockingly low, but in this case I believe that it shows is that Beaverton/Aloha was quite popular last year and is still quite popular.

Total Market Time

Total market time takes the average of how many days residential real estate was on the market before it went pending. If it went pending, had a sale fail and came back on the market, those new days are added in as well.

The average number of days on market for the Portland metro area was 27 days in April 2021, down from 37 days in March 2021 and down from 44 days in April 2020!

Beaverton/Aloha had the lowest days on market with an average of only 12 days! Like I said above, this has been a hot area for awhile! The second lowest is Tigard/Wilsonville with 18 days.

The “slower moving” areas of town are West Portland with 48 days on market and Lake Oswego/West Linn with 33 days on market. This makes sense to me because these areas have more luxury real estate, which tends to sit for longer on the market as there are fewer buyers for million dollar plus homes.

I’ll include a few graphs below but, again, please let me know if you would like more information about the Portland Real Estate Market!!!