NW Realty Group Blog

RMLS Market Action for March 2012 was released yesterday.  Inventory has dropped to recent low levels at 5.0 months.  The pending and closed sales are up both when compare to last month and last year.  New listings are down compared to last year but up from February.  We appear to be seeing another shift in the market where buyers are competing for properties and having a harder time finding properties that meet their criteria.

Average sales price climbed to $252,600 but is still down .04% for the year.  In 2010 we saw strong numbers in the between March and August that was all given back as the year came to a close.  It’s too early to tell if we’re going to have a repeat of last year or whether we have really started to turn the corner.  I do feel more confident than last year.  The Fed reported yesterday that they were not touching interest rates which helped perk the stock market to near highs.

Buying is more affordable than renting in 98 out of the nation’s 100 largest metropolitan areas — even in New York, Los Angeles and Boston, according to real estate company Trulia‘s rent vs. buy index.

The index is based on asking prices for rental units and homes for sale on the company’s website between Dec. 1, 2011, and Feb. 29.

“As rents rise and prices stagnate, homeownership is becoming even more affordable, but rising rents create a dilemma for people who can’t afford to buy yet,” says Jed Kolko, Trulia’s chief economist. “Rising rents make it harder for people to save for a down payment, which is the biggest barrier to buying a home that aspiring homeowners face.”

Homeowners are choosing, or being forced, to rent rather than buy even though the latter is cheaper in key markets Trulia reviewed.

But as they turn to renting, the influx of demand squeezes the nation’s rental supply, pushing monthly rents higher.

The nation’s median rent stands at $712 per month — well above the average monthly mortgage cost of $647, Paul Dales, senior economist at Capital Economics, recently found. He estimated decreased vacancies in the home-rental market will push average rental rates up as much as 5% by early 2013, compared to 2.4% in January.

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When Debbie and Scott Viegas started looking for a new home in June, they didn’t leave a stone unturned. Foreclosures, new homes, old homes: they toured them all.

Problem was, there wasn’t much to see. With the number of Portland-area homes on the market peaking near 12,000 last summer — and falling to 8,500 by January — pickings were slim, near levels last seen when the housing bubble burst in 2006.

After eight months of looking, they ended up buying a brand-new house on a West Linn cul-de-sac, an unlikely choice for a couple who owned their Southeast Portland home, built in 1908, for more than a dozen years. They decided to sell last year, seeking a different school district.

“We never thought that we would ever buy new,” Scott Viegas said. “It was the golden apple that we thought we’d never have.”

The thin inventory of homes, a quirk of pent-up demand paired with low prices that keeps would-be sellers on the sideline, has changed the way homes are bought and sold.

“Buyers are looking for value, but they’re also looking for the right property,” said Michael Anders, a broker and owner at NW Realty Group in Lake Oswego. “With less inventory on the market, there’s less for them to consider. If they don’t find what they’re looking for, they’ll wait.”

Buyers can look for months, but they have to be ready to turn on a dime when they do find a home they like — and they’ll often find themselves competing with other bidders. The most desirable homes in areas with few other choices on the market can go quickly.

For the housing industry, low inventory is usually good news, a sign that supply and demand have aligned. These days, its more a sign that sellers aren’t confident in the value of their home, or that they would lose money if they were to sell. Read More – Oregonlive.com>

Scheduled foreclosure auctions dropped to a 40-month low in Oregon last month.

According to foreclosure listings service RealtyTrac, overall January filings in Oregon fell 42 percent compared with a year earlier.

The Irvine, Calif., company reported that lenders scheduled foreclosure auctions for 788 homes — a 55 percent decline from the same period a year ago These are the first public filings recorded as part of the foreclosure process.

Meanwhile, lenders took back 840 Oregon homes.

Washington state also saw filings fall nearly 60 percent from a year ago.

Foreclosures are dropping year-over-year across the country, but many analysts expect them to pick up again this year. Lenders slowed down their foreclosures while negotiating a settlement on robo-signing and other alleged mortgage abuses, but 49 states finalized an agreement with major lenders earlier this month and the processes should pick back up.

In the Portland area, 433 homes were scheduled for foreclosure auctions in January, and 454 were repossessed. That’s a 46 percent decline in foreclosure filings compared with a year earlier.

The foreclosure rate, which measures the percentage of homes in foreclosure, is 2.7 percent in Oregon, 1.3 percent in Washington and 2.3 percent in the Portland area, according to real estate date firm CoreLogic. The U.S. foreclosure rate is 3.4 percent.

About 5.4 percent of Oregon mortgage holders are three months or more behind on their payments, putting them at risk of foreclosure.

Rates on 30-year fixed mortgages remained at an all-time record low for the second week in a row.

The 30-year fixed rate held steady at an average of 3.87% for the week ending February 9, the lowest rate ever recorded in the 40-year history of the Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey. That compares with the 5.05% rate recorded at the same time a year ago.

Nevertheless, the historically-low rates are great news for homeowners looking to refinance their mortgages — a move many homeowners may soon be hoping to make.

Portland-area home values fell 3.5 percent during 2011 but are expected to stabilize and even post and increase in 2012, real estate search firm Clear Capital reports.

The California company forecasts a 1.9 percent increase in home values int he Portland-Vancouver-Beaverton area.

In the company’s rankings of 50 major metro areas’ home prices, that moves Portland from No. 27 in 2011 to No. 14 in 2012. Exactly half of the markets are expected to post home price increases. The Portland market is also among 20 considered to be stable in 2012, with a predicted increase or decrease of less than 2.5 percent.

The company also reported 15.5 percent of home sales in 2011 were bank-owned foreclosures

U.S. home prices fell 2.1 percent in 2011 and are expected to gain 0.2 percent in 2012 the firm reports.

The Seattle area was one of the hardest-hit markets in 2011, posting a 15.1 percent decline in prices. Clear Capital predicted the city’s real estate would lose 7.5 percent in 2012.