Sales Volume Holding at High Levels

792 homes were sold in Portland in October, up from 788 in September. This shows the sales peak for the metro area happened in August at close to 1,000 sales, which is later in the season than I would expect. Based on the continued low inventory of homes I expect sales to drop off slightly but pricing to hold or increase into the winter months.

Wild cards: Fiscal Cliff resolution and it’s effects on interest rates and consumer confidence, holiday spending reports, continued low inventory.

I’m predicting around 700 closed sales in Portland (RMLS areas 141, 142, 143 & 148) in November. 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.