Portland Real Estate Market Update - December, 2024

The data from the last Portland real estate market update is pretty fascinating and truly a mixed bag.

There were some really big swings in new listings, pending sales, and closed sales, as you can see in the image below. One can expect November numbers to be lower than October numbers from the same year, as November is just simply a slower month each year as buyers and sellers start to focus more on the holidays and less on their real estate goals.

So let’s focus on the November 2024 vs. November 2023 numbers. The amount of new listings was down over 20%, but pending sales were up 9.8% and closed sales were up 25.1%! Those are pretty huge swings year over year.

I believe the increase in closed sales and pending sales can be explained by the difference in where interest rates where last year in September and October of last year compared to this year. According to Freddie Mac, rates were in the low to high 7% range last year, whereas this year they were in the low to high 6% range. That 1% difference obviously impacts housing affordability and therefore increases buyer demand.

What I’m not as clear about is why new listings fell off a cliff. Was it the impact of the presidential election? That’s my best guess. Are sellers hoping/thinking that rates will be dropping next year, thereby increasing housing affordability, and causing housing prices to rise? I’d love to hear your thoughts if you have an an opinion on why new listings dropped so much this November compared to last November.

Other data that came out of interest is that housing inventory levels are now at 3.0 months. That’s down from 3.5 months in November of last year, and up just slightly from 2.9 months in October of 2024.

Interest rates are at 6.69% for a 30 year fixed mortgage, according to Freddie Mac. That’s down about 0.15% from 2 weeks ago, and right around the 52-week average of 6.72%.

The median and average sales prices are up 1.4% and 3.3% respectively compared to Nov. of 2023. They are currently at $535,000 and $615,700 respectively.

Houses are taking longer to sell compared to last year. Total market time is 64 days on the market, whereas last year they were are 55 days on the market – an increase of 16.5%.

If you’d like to chat more about the market and what it might mean to you and your real estate goals, please let me know!