Thursday, November 1, 2007

Portland home prices will fall soon

Take a look at the latest S&P/Case Shiller Index for Portland. Although it looks like Portland is still in good shape, with 2.75% price appreciation year over year, if you look at the chart near the bottom of the page it's obvious that the trend is going to go negative soon.

This is also August data, well before the mortgage industry had it's major convulsions.

I predict price growth in Portland will go negative before March 2008. Anyone else care to make a prediction?

3 comments:

jonathanhaidle said...

Well, I think it's important to note that this Index is averaging a lot of different areas of Portland. I don't agree with you that the Portland market is on rocky grounds right now. But, here is the appreciation data from last month on specific areas (October 2006 - October 2007, from RMLS data).

N Portland: 8.5%
NE Portland: 5.9%
Gresham: 8.8%
Clackamas: -1.7%
Oregon City/Canby: 3.7%
Lake O/West Linn: 3.8%
W Portland: 3.7%
NW Wash County: 2.7%
Beaverton/Aloha: 3.8%
Tigard/Wilsonville: 5.4%
Hillsboro/Forest Grove: 8.7%
Mt.Hood: 8.8%
Columbia County: 13%
Yamhill County: 8.2%

If you, or any of your other readers, would like to receive a copy each month, go to our website to sign-up:
www.PortlandFixerFinder.com/market-reports

jonathanhaidle said...

Correction to one sentence in my last comment: I meant to say, "I don't DISAGREE with you that the Portland market is on rocky grounds....."

However, Portland is fortunately insulated a bit from the national market due to our urban growth boundary line.

See this blog entry for more details:

http://www.portlandfixerfinder.com/blog/2007/12/4/market-growth-101-not-rocket-science.html

Ian said...

Hi Jonathon,

I completely agree with you that the urban growth boundary will help insulate Portland from as big a fall as say Phoenix. I still believe that houses are overpriced compared to current rental rates. I hear rents are climbing too, so it's just a matter of how long before they correct... by rents increasing, and price increases slowing or reversing.