PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) – Portland home prices are once again trending upward, according to a local real estate report that shows median and average home prices in the area rose in March for the second month in a row.
Some people may have hoped the increased home prices in February were an anomaly – after all, home prices throughout the Portland metro area had been decreasing since May 2022. However, the latest Regional Multiple Listing Services Market Action Report for March 2023 shows that prices went up again.
In March, the average sale price was $584,500, a 2.7% increase from the average sale price in February. The median sale price also climbed 2.4% from $512,900 in February to $525,000 in March.
This is after the median sale price fell below $500,000 in January for the first time since March 2021.
In March, the Market Action Report shows homes sold faster than the previous two months. The average total time on the market was 57 days.
Inventory has also dropped to 1.6. The number indicates that if no other houses were listed for sale, the number of available houses would sell within 1.6 months. This is the lowest it’s been since June of 2022 and occurred even when there were 48.7% more homes listed for sale in March compared to February.
According to the Regional Multiple Listing Service, pending sales also increased 22.1% in March and closed sales increased 21.7%. However, these numbers were still significantly lower than they were in both March of 2021 and 2022.
According to the RMLS report, the Portland metro area south of the Columbia River with the lowest median home sale price in March was Columbia County at $440,000.
In Southwest Washington, the lowest median home sale price was in the Five Corners/Orchards area of Vancouver at $430,000.