As buyers snap up Portland metro homes, prices continue to climb

It’s still a tough time to buy a house in Portland. But for the first time in more than a year, agents say the market is getting a little less competitive.

The Portland metro housing market continues to heavily favor sellers, according to new numbers from the local listing service RMLS, with homes quickly selling and leaving the market.

Portland-area real estate agents said homes are often listed on Thursday or Friday and will be flooded with offers by Sunday or Monday. Buyers often end up putting in offers far over a home’s listing price.

The report, reflecting September sales, showed that new listings in the Portland metro area increased 15.2% from last September. The median sale price for September was $510,000, up 13.1% from a year ago.

Homes were on the market for an average of 24 days, about two weeks less time than last September.

Local real estate agents said they were seeing a return to normal in some ways after an unusually busy 2020.

Jennifer Watson of Living Room Realty said her brokerage typically sees a slowdown in June when people leave for summer vacation, then another in September when school starts. Last year, she said, the lack of a “normal” school year also affected the real estate market.

“We didn’t see a regular slowdown. Our agents were busy all year,” she said. “So I think what we’re seeing now is that seasonal slowdown that we weren’t used to last year.”

She said while agents are seeing slightly less competition between prospective buyers, the market will take a while to even out. In the meantime, it still leans heavily in favor of sellers.

Chris Suarez, the principal broker of PDX Property Group, said while the supply of homes on the market in September — just 1.1 months’ worth, if sales continued at September’s pace —is low by historic standards, it’s also the highest the area has seen in a year.

He added that the median home price was being pushed upward by luxury home market, which has been bustling during the pandemic. He said his brokerage had five sales over $3.25 million, and 79 sales between $1.5 and $2.5 million.

“We’ve seen an unprecedented number of higher-end homes selling,” Suarez said. “We can expect that average and median to continue to tick upward.”

The market has been in favor of sellers for the past several months, sometimes leaving buyers to search extensively before they find a home.

Katie Ford and her partner looked at more than 20 houses and put in four offers before they were able to close on a home this June.

In the four months that the Northeast Portland residents were in the market for a new house, they encountered a lot of competition for the same things they were looking for: a home with charm and historical elements, wood floors and a backyard — in a price range of $350,00 to $400,000.

“I think the wish list is pretty basic,” Ford said. “A lot of people go in asking for the bare minimum, and they’re excited when they get something with half of that.”

Ford said she and her partner were able to stay in their price range — but the home they bought was originally listed well below their target. In order to compete, they ended up offering $90,000 over listing price.

For Kirsten Martin, who bought her Washington County home this summer after about four months of searching, the experience was a little different.

Martin made just two offers. She had planned to make offers on some other homes but found there was too much competition to even be considered.

In July she got lucky. A home went on the market Saturday night, and she toured the home and made an offer the next day. The seller, she said, didn’t want to read through hundreds of buyer letters and agreed to sell the home to Martin for $500,000, her ceiling price.

“I paid $50 over asking price,” Martin said.

Martin said she had cast a wide net but found herself priced out of several areas where she’d hoped to live. And she feared if she waited, that list would grow.

“I knew if I stayed in the market for another month or two, it would get ugly and I’d have to re-evaluate, numbers-wise,” she said.

Suarez, who owns several brokerages between Medford and Portland, said it’s the same story around the state: low inventory and short market time.

“It’s not just a Portland metro story,” he said.

Watson said another trend that continued from the past year was the migration of city-dwellers to suburban and rural homes. While the average time a home spent on the market in the Portland metro area in September was 24 days, it was nearly 10 days less in suburbs like Beaverton, Gresham and Hillsboro.

“It’s 100% due to the pandemic,” Watson said. “People are stuck in their homes and need more office space or yard space.”

She said it’s hard to say if that trend will reverse as the pandemic slows.

Ford said she and her partner were set on staying in Portland but would have considered the suburbs for “an amazing opportunity,” or if they’d found prices to be significantly cheaper.

“My Zillow boundary maps started getting bigger and bigger,” she said. “But if you’re going to be paying half a million for a house in Beaverton or in Portland, we’d rather live in Portland.”

Both Ford and Martin said despite the difficulties of being a homebuyer now, they felt if they waited, buying a home would become even more out of reach.

“People would ask me, why would you buy in this market,” Ford said. “If I don’t do it now, I’ll be priced out of the houses I can afford in two years.”

—Jayati Ramakrishnan; 503-221-4320; jramakrishnan@oregonian.com; @JRamakrishnanOR