January Slows Down

416 homes were sold in Portland in January, down from 618 in December.

Wild cards: Multiple offers are back with inventory at a 4 year low. 2011 looks to be the first year in the last 3 years to have a typical sales peak in Summer. Investor activity is hitting new highs with multifamily still the favorite among buyers.

I’m predicting around 450 closed sales in Portland (RMLS areas 141, 142, 143 & 148) in February. 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.