For those of you who like the numbers here are my May 2009 new construction stats. I haven’t updated my new construction stats since I compared Q1 2008 with Q1 2009.  Here’s a link to that post with stats in case you missed it.

I’ve read several blogs recently where two things were stated that I’d like to share here.

• A few of the major builders in the U.S. are starting to see an uptick in their revenues and orders for new construction.
• That new construction is really a good indicator of the housing bottom rather than the resale real estate market.
  

  Source: National Association of Realtors

The Joint Center for Housing Studies for Harvard University recently stated that:

• Housing starts were down by more than 30 percent for the year in 2008 and more than 50 percent from the 2005 level.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau,

“privately-owned housing starts in May were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 532,000. This is 17.2 percent (±14.4%) above the revised April estimate of 454,000, but is 45.2 percent (±5.8%) below the May 2008 rate of 971,000.”

 Here’s a link to the U.S. Census Bureau’s residential construction report for May 2009.

Sales of new construction are still at historic low levels with little if any construction financing available and practically no new construction being built here in Portland.  However, new construction is still selling, ever so slowly, as the stats below indicate yet we still have lots of new construction inventory to sell.  Once the housing recovery is in full swing, and there isn’t a lot of new construction in the pipeline, that will only drive prices of new homes up.

NEW CONSTRUCTION DETACHED SINGLE-FAMILY HOUSESSTATS MAY 1-31, 2009	RMLS #147 Lake Oswego	RMLS #147 West Linn	RMLS #148 West Portland	RMLS #151 Tigard
ACTIVE LISTINGS FOR SALE
# Active For Sale	74	38	103	73
Highest List Price	$6,300,000	$2,750,000	$2,695,000	$1,100,000
Lowest List Price	$449,000	$384,039	$274,900	$279,900
Average List Price	$1,290,461	$883,991	$715,245	$445,794
Average # Days on the Market	177	147	145	172
Average Sq. Ft. Listed	4057	3781	3300	2678
Average $ Sq. Ft. Listed	$318.00	$234.00	$217	$166.00
SOLD LISTINGS
# New Construction Sold	1	6	10	7
Highest Sold Price	$1,197,950	$680,000	$590,000	$516,700
Lowest Sold Price	N/A	$320,000	$340,000	$340,000
Average Sold Price	$1,198,000	$518,780	$445,791	$416,586
# Days on the Market	382	110	157	178
Average Sq. Ft. Sold	4281	3093	2676	2765
Average $ Sq. Ft. Sold	$280.00	$168.00	$167.00	$151.00
Source:  RMLS

ALL ABOUT…..Portland.Oregon.Real Estate, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License. © Copyright 2008-2009 Betty Jung. All Rights Reserved. Use of this article, photos and images without permission is a violation of federal copyright laws. Based on a Blog at WordPress.

(For more local and national real estate information, go to www.bettyjung.com).
Portland