RMLS Market Action Report  PDX Metro
December 2012

The Portland real estate market ended a remarkable year with mixed results in December. Closed sales at 1,760 were higher than the previous December’s 1,612 by 9.2%, while pending sales were 4.1% under the 1,443 accepted offers in the same month of the prior year.  New listings dried up, with only 1,286 entered, 24.4% under the 1,700 published in December 2011. The active inventory dropped to a new low of 6,352 homes on the market, resulting in the lowest inventory in months this year at 3.6.  Both the median and average sale prices showed double digit improvement, with the median rising 14.5% December to December, and the average rising 11.3%.

There were 32,300 new listings, 24,010 accepted offers, and 23,438 closed sales in 2012. Compared to the same period last year, new listings are down by 5.2% from the 2011 listing count of 34,084. Pending sales are up 16.2% from 20,670 last year.  Closed sales are up19.1%from 19,682.

Prices are higher. The average sale price in 2012 was $275,000, 4.4% higher than the average price of $263,300 in 2011, while the 2012 median sale price of $235,000 was 6.3% higher than the 2011 median of $221,000.

Total market time dropped 21.5% from 143 days last year to 112 days in 2012.  The average price increase and the improved number of sales has resulted in a healthy increase in the total dollar volume of sales, which rose to $6.45 billion in 2012 from $5.2 billion in 2011 and $5.3 billion in 2010.