Certainly, there’s enough doom and gloom to go around.  I’m also guilty of reporting it but feel it’s news you need.  Granted, I get tired of reporting foreclosures and all the economic negativity.  So what am I doing talking about Oregon’s housing appreciation?  Although Oregon’s foreclosures have increased, we need to put our foreclosure rate into perspective and look at the bigger Oregon and Portland real estate picture.  I read recently that more than 60% of all foreclosures are in 4 states –  California, Nevada, Ohio, and Florida. The Portland Metro area’s foreclosure rate was still only about half the national average, which was 1.7 percent in September.

Portland State University’s Center for Real Estate in their 4th Quarter 2008 report states, Portland’s housing prices are still above those as recent as 2005, and about 50% above those in the year 2000 when the housing bubble began to replace investment fleeing from the collapse of the technology bubble.

Also, the Oregon housing appreciation charts below show appreciation from 1997-2008 and are from The Office of Federal Housing Oversight. Even with our foreclosure rate and unemployment here in Oregon, these stats show that Oregon has had solid appreciation all these years except starting with the second quarter of 2008. In fact, Oregon has shown positive appreciation for 21 years going all the way back to 1987 where in Q3 1987 had -0.17% appreciation and then further back in Q4 of 1985 we had -3.00% negative appreciation.

According to the latest Zillow Real Estate Market Report for Q3 2008, home values in Lake Oswego decreased -8.35% in the third quarter of 2008 compared to the third quarter of 2007. However, this is the first quarter a significant number of markets show flat or negative 5-year annualized change.

Nationally, U.S. home values across the nation did continue to slide for the 7th consecutive quarter, declining 9.7% from a year ago and falling 12.8% since the market peak in 2006.  Additionally, one-third of homes sold in the past 12 months sold for a loss and 14.3% of all homeowners did have negative equity.  Overall, nationally there has been a 20% decrease.

OREGON HOUSING APPRECIATION FROM 1997-Q2 2008  

The following stats from our Realtors® Multiple Listing Service for October 2008 show that several Portland areas are not in negative territory.  Median home prices (as reported in my post Market Update: October 2008 Part 1 showed an increase by 3% over last month.

% Change – Year-to-Date in Median Sale Price:

• North Portland: 2.2%
• Northeast Portland: 2.0%
• Southeast Portland: -2.2%
• Gresham/Troutdale: -5.7%
• Milwaukie/Clackamas: -5.4%
• Oregon City/Canby: -4.8%
• Lake Oswego/West Linn: 3.6%
• West Portland: 5.0%
• Northwest Washington County: -0.7%
• Beaverton/Aloha: -4.2%
• Tigard/Wilsonville: -3.9%
• Hillsboro/Forest Grove: -5.0%
• Mt. Hood Govt. Camp/Wemme: -16/2%
• Columbia County: -8.9%
• Yamhill County: -4.7%
• Marion/Polk Counties: -5.3%
• North Coastal Counties: -3.8%

As stated many times, it’s all local, neighborhood by neighborhood and street by street. Oregon has had good appreciation for over 20 years.  Granted, we are in negative territory now not unlike most of the country, but we still have not felt the downturn as other areas have.  Oregon has been and is still a good investment, especially now.  Remember that investment rule of “buy low, sell high”.  This is the time period where you can do just that by buying low now.

(For more local and national real estate news, click on my monthly newsletter – JUNG’S JOURNAL – on my website www.bettyjung.com).