The last time I posted our market activity report we had a comment that the numbers seemed pretty balanced, and for the last couple of months I think that has been true. I think that for the most part when houses come onto the market, home sellers are fully aware that they need to be priced right. That has lead to fairly strong sales. Again this week, we had 11 houses come onto the market and 11 houses go pending. The closed sales were just 5, so that is not as strong. But my sense is that the market is moving pretty well as long as prices reflect what a buyer considers to be a good value.
Here is the latest market activity for Lake Oswego (see below the tables for additional notes):
NEWLY LISTED (Nov 2—Nov.8, 2009)
| ADDRESS |
LIST PRICE
|
TOT. BEDS
|
TOT. BATHS
|
TOT. SQ FT
|
PROP TYPE |
LIST DATE
|
| Address | List Price | # BR | # BTHS | Total SF | Prop Type | List Date | ||
| 4000 CARMAN DR | $145,000 | 2 | 2 | 869 | CONDO | 11/6/2009 | ||
| 15200 BOONES WAY | $175,000 | 2 | 1.1 | 1,248 | CONDO | 11/4/2009 | ||
| 3365 UPPER DR | $329,900 | 2 | 2 | 1,378 | DETACHD | 11/6/2009 | ||
| 505 8TH ST | $389,000 | 3 | 1 | 1,050 | DETACHD | 11/6/2009 | ||
| 1720 MAPLELEAF RD | $449,000 | 3 | 2 | 1,529 | DETACHD | 11/5/2009 | ||
| 13448 AUBURN CT | $474,900 | 3 | 2.1 | 2,535 | ATTACHD | 11/3/2009 | ||
| 4040 VIRGINIA WAY | $524,900 | 3 | 2.1 | 2,623 | DETACHD | 11/6/2009 | ||
| 33 MORNINGVIEW CIR | $574,900 | 3 | 2.1 | 2,737 | DETACHD | 11/2/2009 | ||
| 5322 ROSALIA WAY | 799999 | 4 | 2.1 | 3,500 | DETACHD | 11/3/2009 | ||
| 17370 CANYON DR | 849900 | 4 | 3.1 | 3,408 | DETACHD | 11/5/2009 | ||
| 17384 BERGIS FARM DR | 1295000 | 5 | 4.1 | 5,012 | DETACHD | 11/4/2009 |
PENDING SALES (Nov 2 -Nov. 8, 2009)
| ADDRESS |
LIST PRICE
|
TOT. BEDS
|
TOT. BATHS
|
TOT. SQ FT
|
PROP TYPE |
DOM
|
| Address | List Price | # BR | # BTHS | Total SF | Prop Type | CDOM | |||
| 4 TOUCHSTONE CT | $109,900 | 3 | 2.1 | 1,350 | CONDO | 371 | |||
| 14 POLONIUS ST | $300,000 | 4 | 3 | 2,754 | DETACHD | 254 | |||
| 161 C AVE | $449,900 | 2 | 2.1 | 1,719 | ATTACHD | 215 | |||
| 4311 ORCHARD WAY | $544,900 | 4 | 2.1 | 3,082 | DETACHD | 54 | |||
| 5 GARIBALDI ST | $574,800 | 4 | 3.1 | 3,250 | DETACHD | 8 | |||
| 4688 CHELSEA LN | $649,900 | 4 | 2.1 | 3,493 | DETACHD | 9 | |||
| 279 EVERGREEN RD | $674,500 | 3 | 3.1 | 2,136 | ATTACHD | 129 | |||
| 19463 LORNA LN | $805,000 | 4 | 3.1 | 4,024 | DETACHD | 21 | |||
| 827 8TH ST | $898,000 | 5 | 3.1 | 3,852 | DETACHD | 38 | |||
| 577 MIDDLECREST RD | $999,900 | 4 | 2.1 | 2,000 | DETACHD | 504 | |||
| 753 LAKESHORE RD | $1,385,000 | 3 | 3.1 | 2,562 | DETACHD | 51 |
SOLD (Nov 2-Nov. 8, 2009)
| ADDRESS | ORIG. PRICE | SALE PRICE |
TOT. BEDS
|
TOT. BATHS
|
TOT. SQ FT
|
PROP TYPE |
DOM
|
| Address | O/Price | Close Price | # BR | # BTHS | Total SF | Prop Type | CDOM | ||
| 4 TOUCHSTONE | $119,900 | $115,000 | 2 | 2 | 984 | CONDO | 43 | ||
| 15450 SW KIMBALL CT | $299,000 | $233,000 | 4 | 1.1 | 1,104 | DETACHD | 344 | ||
| 5554 ROYAL OAKS DR | $399,885 | $385,000 | 3 | 2 | 1,861 | DETACHD | 2 | ||
| 1531 WOODLAND TER | $414,000 | $408,500 | 3 | 2.1 | 1,895 | DETACHD | 139 | ||
| 4691 CHELSEA LN | $629,900 | $530,000 | 4 | 2.1 | 3,102 | DETACHD | 585 | ||
Criteria: Homes in the 97034 and 97035 zip code, listed, pending or sold between the dates listed above as reported by the Regional Multiple Listing Service (RMLS). DETACHD refers to Single Family Detached Residence, MFG refers to manufactured housing, and ATTACHD refers to single-family residences with some portion of the structure attached to another property, but not constituting CONDO ownership. DOM stands for days on market, or the number of days from when the listing became active and when it received an acceptable offer, with CDOM standing for “cumulative days on market” accounting for “refreshed” listings.
4 Replies to “Market Activity Report for November 2-8, 2009”
Comments are closed.
Pretty shocking that the most expensive house that actually sold went for just $530,000, at a discount of more than 15% from the asking price and after nearly 2 years on the market.
Is the market for houses priced over half a million currently as moribund as this appears to suggest?
Good question. Here’s what I find when I look at the numbers. I am only using detached houses here and not any condos or townhouses. There are in LO currently 174 houses for sale priced between $500,000 and $999,000, 19 pending sales, and 57 sales that have closed in the last 3 months. That’s 19 selling per month and a 9 month inventory. There are 107 active listings priced at $1,000,000 or greater, 10 pending sales, and 15 that have closed in the last 3 months. That’s 5 selling per month and a 21 month inventory. Still nothing like the spring/summer of ’07 when the inventory was down in the range of 2 or 3 months. But is it moribund?
The last time I posted this sort of information was last July. At that time there were 135 houses priced over $1,000,000 and just 10 had sold in the previous 6 months. That reflected a sales pace at less than 2 per month and a 67 month inventory. That was really, really slow. We now have 107 for sale and 15 closed sales in half the time. That’s an improvement.
Then I want to consider that today’s numbers reflect summer sales and last July’s numbers reflected winter sales.
My gut instinct is that the market is still pretty slow, but not dead. And what we need to see are the statistics of year-over-year sales. Will we fare better this winter than we did last? That’s what I want to see.
We post the market reports on Mondays with an occasional slip to Tuesday if we get busy. Every now and then a house slips past us because the data isn’t entered into the RMLS in time to make it into our report. This happened a couple of weeks ago. A sale closed for $4,850,000 for a house on the lake.
What does all of this mean? I don’t think that 500k+ is moribund. But I am also not willing to say that the market has hit bottom or turned. I think we need more time to pass to see if the improvement continues.
Thank you for the thoughtful and balanced analysis.
Based on your numbers I’d have to say that, considered in the context of the general economic background, we’ve just had a surprisingly successful selling season for houses in the $500K to $1 million range. It now remains to be seen though how weak that market may be through the winter.
For houses above $1 million this summer looks really bad. An inventory level equal to 21 months of the sales rate during the peak sales months suggests to me that many of these houses aren’t on track to sell for 3-4 years.
Overall it seems like the prices have broken down in tiers, with the lowest price levels adjusting first. Maybe people in bigger houses can afford to delay selling longer, but the eventual result is similar. All of this is I believe consistent with the Case-Shiller house price index numbers by major metropolitan markets and by pricing tiers.
I realize that I didn’t completely answer your first question. Your observation about final sales price compared to original list price, as well as the cumulative days on the market, is correct. I went back into the 15 houses over $1,000,000 sold in the last 3 months and found that they sold at an average discount that was 20% less than the original list price, and that the cumulative days on the market averaged 292 days. As is always the case, the ones that sold most quickly also sold closest to the original list. Correct original pricing is critical. There was one house that took about 2 years to sell and one that took 3 years.
I also put these numbers to the condo market. We have a current inventory of 166 condos, 17 pending, and 45 have sold in the last 3 months: a rate of 15 per month and about an 11 month inventory.
I think you are right. Some of these houses are going to take a very long time to sell.