The Wall Street Journal on Friday reported that Portland, OR is one of the 10 cities most likely to have one of the biggest rebounds:

Which Cities Will See Biggest Rebound?

Which cities are likely to be the hottest post-economic downturn destinations for young, brilliant, and highly mobile workers? The Wall Street Journal surveyed six trend-spotting experts and they chose cities based on economic diversity, lifestyle and their own personal prejudices.  Here’s the top-10 list:

1. Washington, D.C. (tie) 1. Seattle
2. New York
3. Portland, Ore.
4. Austin, Texas
5. San Jose, Calif.
6. Denver
7. Durham, N.C.
8. Dallas
9. Chicago
10. Boston

Source: The Wall Street Journal, Sue Shellenbarger (09/30/2009)

S&P/Case-Shiller

Many people place heavy emphasis on the Case-Shiller/S&P report that is published at the end of each month.  If you’ve been reading my blog, you know I don’t.  That is mainly because not only is the data  3 months behind, but because our data includes Clark County, Washington and not just the Portland-metro area, and doesn’t include new construction or condos.

Here’s a video from Bloomberg on the report along with the full S&P/Case-Shiller July 2009 report.  Some experts believe that the housing market has hit bottom. The first-time buyers and lower range of prices (under the $417,000 conforming loan limit) are reducing those inventories and there are bidding wars in many areas of metro Portland. The mid and upper price levels of our market are having trouble selling and are sitting for sale longer.

Nationally, home prices are still 13.3% below July 2008, however the annual declines have slowed in all 20 cities for the sixth straight month. We’re right there with the rest of the cities at a -13.9% decrease.  However, the index has risen at an 8 percent annualized rate in the three months to July, the best performance since early 2006.  For the month of August 2009, the Portland metro area had a 2.7% increase in our average sales price.  Our September 2009 RMLS™ statistics will be out around October 15.  I have written a previous post on our August 2009 RMLS™ stats and you can view that here.  The first day in October, I saw an enormous number of houses come off the market either as expired listings, withdrawn or cancelled vs. new listings coming on the market for sale.   In addition, I’m still seeing many houses with price reductions.

The Case-Shiller index measures home price increases and decreases relative to prices in January 2000.  Since 2000, Portland home values are up 48 percent.  The base reading is 100, therefore, a reading of 150 would mean that home prices increased 50 percent since the beginning of that index or 2000.  Portland’s index is slightly over the 150 mark at 150.99 showing a 1.1% increase in our housing prices from June 2009 and have increased for 2 months in a row according to the S&P/Case-Shiller report. The S&P/Case-Shiller says “…these figures continue to support an indication of stabilization in national real estate values, but we do need to be cautious in coming months to assess whether the housing market will weather the expiration of the Federal First-Time Buyer’s Tax Credit in November and anticipated higher unemployment rates and a possible increase in foreclosures.”

Housing Wire reports:

The number of homes sales in Portland, Ore. was at its lowest August level in 15 years, according to MDA DataQuick.  There were 3,063 new and resale houses and condominiums sold in the Portland-Vancouver-Beaverton metro area in August. That’s down 9.2% from July and the lowest level of August sales in the area since MDA DataQuick began tracking the region in 1994.

The monthly decline in sales nearly eclipsed July’s 9.3% monthly gain and effectively erased July’s 5.8% year-on-year gain, which ended a 40-month run of year-over-year declines. The year-on-year loss continued in August, with sales slipping 0.8% below levels seen in August 2008.

The median sale price for homes in the region was $242,200, up a 0.7% from July but down 10.8% from $271,500 a year ago and down 16.2% from the market peak of $288,858 in August 2007.

Previously foreclosed homes accounted for 15.5% of all resales in the region, up from 14.2% in July and up from 6.8% one year ago. During the month, 675 houses and condos went into foreclosure in the region, down 1.2% from July and up 92.3% from a year ago. The number of August foreclosures is 24% higher than the monthly average during the past year

© Copyright 2008-2009 Betty Jung. All Rights Reserved. Use of this article, photos and images without permission is a violation of federal copyright laws.

ALL ABOUT…..Portland.Oregon.Real Estate by Betty Jung is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.
Based on a Blog at WordPress.

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