We’re seeing lots of new activity in the market and RMLS’ posting of Oregon and Washington lockbox activity numbers shows the increased activity:
Heading into summer we normally see an uptick in activity, but we didn’t see such a significant uptick as we are seeing now last summer.
Competition is gaining in the market and while it’s still primarily bank owned homes and short sales priced to attract multiple offers getting the buyers, from what we’re seeing it doesn’t appear to be limited to the rock-bottom-jaw-dropping priced homes any longer; we’re seeing homes priced a bit closer to market asking prices getting multiple offers now too. To give you an idea of what I mean, when asking prices are around say $130 per square foot in a given area, listings that are priced around or under $100/psf have been moving fast for months and are usually bank owned or an occassional short sale. Now however, we’re seeing $115-$120/PSF getting multiple offers as well; it’s not a massive increase but we’re seeing it regularly now. Buyers a year ago weren’t across the board savvy in terms of going after short sales and bank owned homes, but they are now. The demand for “bank owned” and “short sales” (in quotes as they are obivously buzz words at this point) seems to be generating a lot more competition out there, at least from what we’re seeing.
Unfortunately for non-distressed sellers this is not yet helping them a lot, they are still having to compete in a market where there are still a lot of banks unloading property as fast as they can. So much so that when we’re running comparable reports these days to determine market value of a given home we’re running seperate reports for distressed and non-distressed homes (have been for quite a while now actually); more often than not the distressed homes are a little beat up, sometimes really beat up so this needs to be taken into consideration as well.
Even with the noted increase in activity and the previous posts we’ve made about economists and news outlets talking about a recovery, housing picking up steam etc our advice to potential sellers remains the same as the last two years; if you do not have to sell right now, don’t. We’re heading back to a more balanced market but we’re definitely not there yet.
Tags: Bank Owned, housing market, portland real estate market, REO, Short Sales