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We decided to look all the way back to 2007, when the Portland market took a sharp turn to the down side. The findings were somewhat encouraging in that,  in all 3 counties, Clackamas, Multnomah & Washington, the majority of all single family residence sales have been purchased by an owner-occupant buyer. This leads one to believe that investors have made up a smaller share of our market place as most investors purchase real estate on a non-owner occupant basis. The numbers tell it all, and remind us that real estate markets are not identical and vary widely from region to region, county to county and even zip code to zip code.

Percentage of Owner-Occupant sales Vs. Non-Owner-Occupant Sales:

Portland tri-county area 2007-Present

The region saw permits for 1,039 units filed in January. Permit numbers jump around every month, but the region hasn’t seen more than 1,000 permits filed in a single month since the summer of 2007.

The bulk of the permits were for 28 multi-family housing projects, suggesting strong optimism among real estate developers for the apartment and condo market.

Permits are up strongly from the recession across the region. The City of Portland stands out in 2012 for having more permits than any of the suburban counties.

See The Full Report: Portland Economic Indicators February 2013

Residential construction building permits grew 51 percent in 2012, compared to last year, suggesting
robust momentum in the residential construction sector.
The region saw permits for 638 units filed in December. Permit numbers jump around every
month, but the average over the last three months, displayed here, show a general upward
trend. This last quarter is down, but this may be seasonal. Permits have averaged 617 units a
month over the last three months.
The 51 percent growth number is impressive, but context is important here. While almost 8,000
permits were filed, that’s still about half of what we saw before the real estate bubble collapse.

See the full report: Portland Economic Indicators January

Courtesy of Christian Kaylor with Workforce Oregon

ZipRealty compared the average list to close price ratios of the major metropolitan areas in the country and found that Portland’s ratio is 98.9; meaning, on average, homes in Portland are currently selling for 98.9% of the listing price!

As for the rest of the cities, see below:

1. San Francisco (102.5)
2. San Diego (101.3)
3. Sacramento, Calif. (100.9)
4. Las Vegas (100.7)
5. Los Angeles (100)
6. Orange County, Calif. (100)
7. Denver (99.8)
8. Tucscon, Ariz. (99.3)
9. Portland (98.9)
10. Seattle (98.3)

Esri came up with the ranking by measuring household income, home value, population and per capita income. (Areas with less than 100 households and population of less than 200 people are not included.)

Not surprisingly, Lake Oswego came in at #1 with an average household income of $117,687 while 98606 (Brush Prairie), 97068 (West Linn), 97229 ( NW Portland / Sylvan) and 97221 (SW Portland) rounded out the top 5.

Check out the below link to see how your zip code ranked!

Portland Wealthiest Zip Codes

Is it a simple rebound in demand for housing which has caused this? The below article from the Wall Street Journal is written on a national level but we are seeing similar trends here in Portland. While low inventories are causing quite the fury in our local market and in some cases multiple offer situations, the return of healthy supply-and-demand is due to many reasons…

Six Reasons Housing Inventory Keeps Declining

Home sales in December dropped by 1% from November, the National Association of Realtors reported on Tuesday, but still stood nearly 13% above the levels of one year ago. That means home sales have risen from the year-ago month for 18 straight months.

For 2012 as a whole, sales were up 9% to 4.65 million units, the highest annual total since 2007.

Prices, meanwhile, are picking up because the number of homes for sale continues to drop despite the sales volume gains. The number of homes for sale fell to 1.82 million at the end of 2012, an 8.5% drop from November and a 21.6% decline from one year earlier, the Realtors’ group said on Tuesday.

Here’s a breakdown of why inventory has continued to drop this year:

Many homeowners are underwater: More than 10 million homeowners owe more on their mortgage than their homes are worth, according to CoreLogic Inc. CLGX +1.69% That pencils out to around 22% of homeowners with a mortgage, or 15% of all homeowners (since not every homeowner has a mortgage). Underwater owners aren’t likely to sell unless they need to move due to changing life (marriage, divorce) or financial circumstances, and they’ll take a hit on their credit for pursuing a short sale, where the bank allows the home to sell for less than the amount owed.Data from CoreLogic show that inventory has been the most constrained in housing markets where there’s the largest concentration of underwater borrowers.

Others don’t have enough equity to “trade up”: Another 10 million homeowners have less than 20% equity in their current residence, meaning they can’t easily “trade up” to their next house. Traditionally, homeowners have relied on home equity to make the down payment on their next home, and to pay their real-estate agent to sell their current home and buy their next one. These “under-equitied” homeowners—meaning they don’t have enough equity to make a move to a more expensive home—have added to the drag on inventory.

Everyone wants to buy at the bottom, but few want to sell: Even those people who do have plenty of home equity are likely reluctant to sell if they think prices will be higher tomorrow. Would you sell your largest asset today if you thought it might be worth 5% more next year? This helps explain why markets such as Denver and Dallas, which didn’t have huge housing bubbles and thus had smaller shares of underwater borrowers, have also seen double-digit inventory declines.

More purchases from investors of all stripes: From the big institutional investors that have been grabbing all the headlines, to the mom-and-pop landlords that have traditionally played a much larger role renting out homes, investors have increasingly bought homes that can be rented out rather than flipped and resold for quick profits. This is further keeping inventory off the market in two ways: homes that are bought at courthouse foreclosure auctions never show up on multiple-listing services when they’re initially sold. They’re also held out of the for-sale pool because they’re being rented out.

Banks have been slower at foreclosing: Banks and other companies that process delinquent mortgages have had trouble proving that they’ve followed state law in taking title to homes ever since the “robo-signing” scandal surfaced in late 2010, and they’ve also had to meet a host of new state and federal rules governing loan modifications and foreclosures from settlements spawned by the robo-scandal. Banks have also become better about approving short sales and loan modifications, which has curbed the flow of foreclosed properties onto the market.

Builders have been putting up fewer homes: Housing starts were severely depressed from 2009 through 2011 and have only recently rebounded off of those low levels. Consequently, there’s been much less new home inventory being added to the market at a time when demand (boosted by increases in household formation) is picking up. If more homes are held off the market—for any of the five reasons above—you can bet that builders will move in to fill the void.

Many of these factors that have been dragging down inventory aren’t signs of “normal” or “healthy” housing markets—but then, we probably haven’t had a normal market for around a decade now. If anything, declining inventory shows that normal supply-and-demand dynamics are returning, which is an important step towards putting a floor under home prices and giving markets time to get back to health.

By Nick Timiraos – Wall Street Journal

See the full report: Portland Economic Indicators December

Courtesy of Christian Kaylor with Workforce Oregon

Portland, Oregon is showing significant signs of growth and recovery. Inventories in the Portland market are down 22.62 percent from last November and prices have risen 5.49 percent in the past 12 months. Unemployment in Portland was at 7.5 percent in October, below the state rate of 8.1 percent and the national rate of 7.9 percent.

The Portland residential real estate market peaked in August 2007 with a median sale price of $302,000. Prices fell 30 percent from that peak before reaching the current $269,000 median list price. Inventories are down 22.62 percent from last year, ranking Portland 28th in the nation in terms of its inventory decline.

See full article from realtor.com