The April headline for Portland, OR real estate is clearly “Prices Down.” Finally. This is the first retreat in median home prices for Portland real estate since May 2001. Seven Years!

It was not surprising. Price is a trailing metric. The dramatic declines in transaction volume, and resulting build-up of housing inventory on the market and increasing time-on-market made it obvious that our market prices would fall. We had predicted a price drop in March, but jumped the gun by one month.

April 2008 sales were 30% lower than they were last year. For the first four months, unit sales are off 35%, but number of new listings is actually up 6%. A year ago, we had 4.4 months of inventory. This April we have over ten months.

In many ways, it’s amazing that it took this long for home sellers to confront the reality that housing asset values have come down. Nonetheless, the median price for the 12 month period ending April 2008 is 4.3% above the previous 12 month period, and mean prices over the same period are up 4.5%.

Home prices in North Portland, Lake Oswego/West Linn, and Northeast Portland are the three regions of the Portland Market that have clearly out-paced the rest of the Portland market. There is significant weakness in our suburban regions on both the east and west sides. This is not surprising, as these are the areas where we added significant supply during the the bull market for our real estate.

Related posts:

1. Prices flat, NOT DOWN for Portland Real Estate in March
2. Portland Home Prices Finally Fall in March
3. February 2008 Market Action Report
4. Portland City Limits Real Estate Market Report May 2008
5. Case-Shiller Report Shows Portland Still Appreciating