The RMLS report came out late today and Charles Turner has the highlights. The median price year-over-year is down 7 percent to $265,000. But the big story is what's happened to inventory. It shot up to 15 months in November....

This came to my inbox after a recent story. Bill provides plenty of useful insight for our stories here and I think he's probably right about the November RMLS figures being affected by people's attitudes along with fundamental problems in...

Perhaps the most important number needed to understand the state of the Portland real estate market is 15- as in 15 months of housing inventory.

This is record high inventory by wide margins. It means that at the current rate of sales, it would take 15 months to absorb all of those homes currently for sale. It means, quite simply, supply heavily outweighs demand. Keep in mind that a normal, balanced market between buyers and sellers has five months of inventory. Right now, normalcy is gone and those buyers in the market for real estate are finding favorable conditions.

However, the number of home buyers is low. That's why only seven percent of Portland home sold in November 2008.

According to RMLS data, 1028 homes for sale in the Portland area went under contract in November 2008. In other words, there were 1028 properties in which the seller and buyer agreed to a transaction. This is 1028 properties out of an available 13,864 that were listed on the market. This equates to a 7% success rate for sellers.

Here are the percentages of listings (homes for sale in the RMLS) that found a buyer and went under contract in November 2008. They are termed "pending":

Pending = Area

11% = North Portland (59 of 545)
10% = Northeast Portland (116 of 1124)
9% = Southeast Portland (159 of 1802)
5% = Gresham, Troutdale (63 of 1188)
8% = Milwaukie, Happy Valley, Clackamas (93 of 1189)
7% = Oregon City, Canby (58 of 869)
...

On average, the time it will take to sell your Portland area home is currently three and a half months or 135 days to be exact.

This reflects November's data from the RMLS with Northeast Portland homes selling the fastest and those in Lake Owego and West Linn sitting on the market the longest.

Here are the total market times (TMT) for all areas:

TMT = Area

98 = Northeast Portland
109 = Southeast Portland
120 = North Portland
124 = Hillsboro, Forest Grove
128 = Gresham, Troutdale
144 = Tigard, Tualatin, Sherwood, Wilsonville
145 = West Portland
152 = Northwest Washington County
155 = Beaverton, Aloha
155 = Milwaukie, Happy Valley, Clackamas
172 = Oregon City, Canby
182 = Lake Oswego, West Linn

I thought I misread the report.

And I'm not referring to Portland's average sales price. Catching my eye first in the latest RMLS Market Action report, released this afternoon, was housing inventory- now at 15 months; a record high. Back to this in a moment.

As to home prices, the RMLS reports that the average sales price of a Portland area home as fallen 10.5%. In November 2008, the average sales price was $308,300. A year ago, in November 2007, the average sales price was $344,500.

Meanwhile, the median sales price is also down 7%. In November 2008, the median sales price of a Portland area home was $265,000 compared to November 2007 when the median price was $285,000.

Back to housing inventory, if no other homes were listed for sale, it would take 15 months for the supply to dry up. This is a record, far exceeding the 12.8 months of record inventory established in January 2008. The rise to 15 months of inventory happened quickly, rising from last month's level of 11.1 months.

The RMLS also reports that the 1,041 homes that sold in November was the lowest sales total for a month since February 1993. That is more than 15-years worth of activity.

Percentage-wise, home sales were down 39.9% in November 2008 compared to November 2007. Year-to-date, home sales are down 31.8% comparing January-November 2008 to January-November 2007.

The total market time to sell your Portland home is now 135 days.

...

In my neck of the woods, (Portland Oregon) Zillow is not an accurate source for real estate appreciation.  They are showing a decrease in value of over 7% when RMLS is showing -1.1%.  I realize that as an Agent I am biased, but the data on RMLS is ACTUAL SALES  entered by real people.   The [...]

As someone who has been using video tours for listings for a few years (thanks Youtube & Wellcomemat), I'm happy to say the RMLS is encouraging more of this marketing method.

According to the RMLS, it will soon give Realtors the option of uploading video tours of their listings in addition to or instead of virtual tours. For as techy as Portland is, I have not seen much use of video in real estate. Hopefully, this will encourage other real estate agents in Portland to use video. Sellers love it and so do the buyers. Here's an example of a home video tour:



Also, about two years ago the RMLS allowed Realtors to distinguish between green homes from normal homes in the database. This gave us the ability to conduct home searches looking solely for green homes. In a minor modification, the RMLS will now require Realtors to input the year in which a house or condo was certified to be green.

These changes should take place at the end of the year.

I'm using Prudential Northwest Properties Transaction Platform which gets it data feed from RMLS to search for properties listed in Portland excluding any suburbs. Between October 1st and October 31st, 2008, 637 properties listed in RMLS sold (864 sold in...