by RMLS Communication Department | Jul 16, 2009 | Clark County, Coos County, Curry County, Douglas County, Lane County, Market Trends, Oregon Real Estate, Portland, Statistics, Union County, Washington Real Estate
The latest issue of the RMLS™ Market Action for June 2009 shows increases in accepted offers, closed sales and a decrease in inventory in several regions.
Accepted Offers
The five county Portland Metro Area saw a month-over-month increase in pending sales (8.4% comparing June 2009 with June 2008) for the first time since December 2006. Pending sales also increased for the third month in a row in Clark County, Washington. The following regions also saw an increase in pending listings in June 2009: Coos, Curry, Douglas, Lane, Mid-Columbia and Union.
Closed Sales
Closed sales in Clark County increased14.8% comparing June 2009 with June 2008. This is the first increase since September 2008.
The following regions also experienced increases in closed sales: Columbia Basin, Curry, Douglas and Mid-Columbia.
Inventory
Inventory in all three of our largest service areas (Portland Metro, Clark County and Lane County) dipped to the lowest it’s been since August 2007. In addition, the following counties experienced drops in inventory from the previous month: Columbia Basin, Coos, Curry and Douglas.
by RMLS Communication Department | Jul 13, 2009 | Lockbox, Market Trends, Statistics
Far fewer lockboxes were accessed over the 4th of July weekend than on a typical Saturday or Sunday. Therefore, comparing June 22, 2009 through July 5, 2009 the number of times RMLS™ subscribers opened Supra lockboxes decreased 21.4% in Washington and 21.9% in Oregon.
Click the chart for a larger view (Oregon, left; Washington, right)
Archive
View an archive of the Supra lockbox statistical reports on Flickr.
by RMLS Communication Department | Jul 7, 2009 | Lockbox, Market Trends, Statistics
As you know, we’ve been tracking the number of times RMLS™ subscribers open Supra lockboxes in Oregon and Washington. Here’s how it looks mid-way through 2009.
In Oregon, May was the high point with nearly 109,000 opens. For the year so far, total, there were 520,900 lockbox opens. 
The same held true in Southern Washington, as May was tops with over 20,000 opens. The total for the year so far was 97,100 lockbox opens.
These numbers should be interesting to watch as we head into the typically hot summer months of July and August. Follow all the latest lockbox activity on our Flickr page.
by RMLS Communication Department | Jul 7, 2009 | Lockbox, Market Trends, Statistics
Comparing Supra lockbox openings by RMLS™ subscribers between June 15, 2009 and June 28, 2009 there was a 7.7% increase in Oregon and a 1.4% increase in Washington from the previous week.
Click the chart for a larger view (Oregon, left; Washington, right)
by RMLS Communication Department | Jun 29, 2009 | Market Trends
Comparing Supra lockbox openings by RMLS™ subscribers between June 8, 2009 and June 21, 2009 there was a 6% decrease in Oregon and a 1.9% increase in Washington from the previous week.
Click the chart for a larger view (Oregon, left; Washington, right)
by RMLS Communication Department | Jun 18, 2009 | Market Trends
One of the most interesting statistics I saw in the latest issues of Market Action was the increase of pending sales compared to May 2008 in Clark County. This was the second month in a row that the number of pending sales rivaled that of the same time period a year ago. This is good news! But what caught me by surprise was that the number of closed sales is still down from the same time a year ago.
So I started to wonder:
1) On average how long does it take for pending listings to show up as sold? According to the National Association of Realtors® pending home sales typically “become existing-home sales one-to-two months later.”
2) What percentage of accepted offers fail these days? Using a formula that I got from my new friend Chuck Reiling, a real estate professional in Seattle, WA, I took a stab at calculating the fallouts for properties in Clark County.
Following Chuck’s formula I looked at the pending listings monthly from May 1, 2007 to May 31, 2009 and the closed sales from June 1, 2007 to May 31, 2009. Like Chuck I staggered the pendings by one month to allow for a “typical” close time and I used a two month running average to adjust for variances.
Here’s a graph of the ratios:
The average pending vs. closed sale ratio is 17 percent. You’ll notice that the last few months have all been above that rate, with May 2009 coming in at 31.4 percent (the highest so far).
According to Eric Newman, a Mortgage Banker with Summit Mortgage Corp, these numbers may not actually reflect sale fails, but rather sale delays. Newman says that these days there are a number of factors that increase closing time, from waiting on bank approval when needed (approximate average of three weeks) to overwhelmed underwriters (current response time for FHA loans is around 21 days).
For example, I did a quick search in RMLSweb and discovered that out of the 552 properties that went pending in Clark County in April, approximately 117 were marked as requiring 3rd party approval (not all of these listings are short sales, but most of them are) and 122 were listed as bank owned. That’s almost half of the pending listings – 43 percent.
While it’s likely that a percentage of these more complicated transactions do fail, it also may be that these listings take longer to close so the typical one month lag may not apply. Newman says we would expect that most of those pending listings will probably not be recorded as closed until June because many loans are taking 45 to 60 days to close in the current market.
What do you think? What are you seeing out in the field?
