Current Market Action Report - December 2009

Decembers RMLS Market Action Report is again released and again has some staggering numbers. I should mention here that some of the successes we're seeing in recent numbers (I think 3 months in a row now of "WOW" closed sales compared to last year) can be largely attributed to the tax credits for first time home buyers. We were fairly busy through the year, but towards the end of the year we just got hit with business, probably the busiest few months we've ever seen in the market and the RMLS reports showing over 50% increase in closed sales for these months compared to the same months last year shows why.

So, getting to the numbers, closed sales were up [again] a whopping 52.6% in December 2009 compared to December 2008 and pending sales were up 40.9%. New listings however unfortunately rose 11.9% hence the current inventory went from 7.1 months in November to 7.7 months in December 2009...BUT, that is an *almost* 100% improvement over December of last year when there was a 14.1 month inventory - we're doing much better.

For area specific depreciation rates look to the table at the bottom of this page. 

As for what I mentioned about the tax credit previously we are seeing this as a major driving force in the market. With the extension of the tax credit and expansion of it we expect to see the first 2 quarters of 2010 to be strong as well, problem is once the tax credit expires again we could very well see a slump right in the middle of what is usually the busy season for real estate (summer and fall). Additionally there's been talk for a long time about banks holding onto a massive amount of inventory to keep them off of last years books as losses (if they don't sell them they are assets, if they sell them then its a loss as they are getting less than what was owed on them in most cases). We've been hearing about this since the beginning of last year and while I think it's certainly possible I don't think I'd bet the farm on it quite yet; but we'll see (and note, we have seen a small uptick in bank owned homes recently).

The numbers below reflect this last months depreciation rates, items in red show a move in the wrong direction (i.e. depreciating more) Items in black show an improvement.

To download or view the entire report click on the report image or click here - This report includes all RMLS Counties, scroll down to find the Portland Metro report.