Sales Rise as Inventory Stays Low

707 homes were sold in Portland in April, up from 642 in March. The close-in market volume is on the rise even with very low inventory, while numbers in the suburban markets flattened out. Stories about the low inventory are now commonplace and many price points are garnering multiple offer situations and less than one month on market. I expect to see a substantial rise in average sales price into summer.

Wild cards: Multiple offers are back with inventory at a 5 year low.

I’m predicting around 750 closed sales in Portland (RMLS areas 141, 142, 143 & 148) in May. Seasonally speaking, average prices generally start to drop after the summer peak, bottoming out in winter.

Sales volume is a leading indicator for price. To help predict where the market is going I publish this sales volume trend report. The wisdom is that price follows volume so when you see a market trending higher in sales, prices will soon follow up and when sales volume is low, prices will stay flat or fall.