Portland Metro & Clark County: Top 5 Areas – Inventory

Top 5 Areas with the Lowest Housing Inventory in September, Portland & Clark County

Below are the five MLS areas with the lowest supply of housing inventory for September 2009 for the Clark County and Portland metro areas. Inventory measures how long, in theory, it would take to exhaust the current supply of housing. We arrive at this number by dividing the number active listings by the number of sales for the month.

Clark County

Area Area # Actives Sales Inventory
Lincoln/Hazel Dell 14 34 10 3.4
Five Corners 25 89 18 4.9
East Orchards 26 90 18 5.0
Cascade Park 24 105 20 5.3
Evergreen 22 276 51 5.4

Portland Metro

Area Area # Actives Sales Inventory
Beaverton/Aloha 150 1,007 204 4.9
NE Portland 142 1,016 185 5.5
North Portland 141 455 75 6.1
Southeast Portland 143 1,396 228 6.1
Hillsboro/Forest Grove 152 880 142 6.2

RMLS Market Action Recap – September 2009

Residential real estate sales tick up in several areas, inventory down

This month’s RMLS™ Market Action report showed a trend of increasing real estate sales & subsequently lower housing inventory in many areas of Oregon & Southwest Washington.

Sales Activity:

Closed sales rose in the following areas this month, compared to the same month in 2008:

Area Closed Sales
Curry County, Oregon 100%
Columbia Basin, Oregon 36.6%
Lane  County, Oregon 23.2%
Clark County, Washington 20.2%
Portland Metro, Oregon 9.8%

Third Quarter Sales Up:

September marked the end of the third quarter and compared to Q3 in 2008, Coos County, Curry County, Douglas County, Lane County, Portland and Clark County all saw sales outpace Q3 in 2008. Clark County led the pack at a clip of 18.7%.

Inventory:

Ten of eleven areas that we cover in the Market Action report saw housing inventory drop from August.  This can be attributed to rising sales in several areas and as we head into the slower fall & winter seasons, fewer homes are being listed as well.

Both the Portland and Clark County areas saw inventory drop to 7.6 months. Lane County has the lowest inventory of the areas we cover at 6.8 months.