Market Statistics: August 2020

Every month RMLS publishes statistics on the Portland Metro real estate market. Here's our take on last month's numbers:

Home prices continued to climb in August with the Median Home Price reaching $449,000 – an increase of 7.5% over August of 2019 and almost 1% higher than last month. New Listings and Pending Sales both increased compared to last year, but Pending Sales increased by quite a bit more (over 26%). So, while more homes went on the market, a much larger number of homes went pending, meaning we still have far less homes available to buy than buyers who want them. We see this reflected in Inventory: it inched up slightly compared to last month to 1.3 months, but is still more than 40% lower than it was this time last year. This large disparity is helping to push prices up.

As predicted, the slowdown in the market that we typically see during the late summer hasn’t happened this year. Much of the usual Springtime activity shifted a few months later in the year due to COVID, so we continue to see a lot of activity (as well as higher prices) during this time than we might have during a more ordinary year. Typically, uncertainty in the economy — and society in general — curtails real estate activity and can depress prices somewhat. But 2020 has been nothing but uncertain and we continue to see the Portland real estate market stay incredibly busy with prices increasing as a result. Moving into the fall we expect activity to remain high with more buyers in the market than available homes, so prices will likely stay high as well.

—by Laura Bower, Think Real Estate