I’ve been a bit slow on the blogging front these past couple of weeks. Between a needed vacation, actually working with real people, and school starting, there hasn’t been a lot of time to blog about our local Salem Oregon real estate market.

The good news for all 4 of my dear local readers is that my kids are in school as of today, so I can start to bore you with my long winded real estate market stats ;-) It’s time to get back to my regularly scheduled blogging pattern.

So for those of you ready to be bored silly with market stats…this one’s for you. Drum roll….ssshhh…don’t tell anyone I said this, but August was looking pretty good. Sshhh…

Salem Oregon average and median home prices Inventory is at 9.7 months right now. Not at that normal neutral market level yet, but considering that we stated the year around 16-18 months, that is excellent. It’s a slow process and will continue to be a slow process, but the market does appear to be breaking and dare I say…skidding. I’m not quite ready to call bottom, but I think we could be close to entering the skid phase in our real estate market. I’m anticipating we will have a period of a couple years with essentially no appreciation/depreciation in our home values. Essentially our market will flatline or skid along the bottom as the economy fumbles to recover. That’s just my opinion.

real estate sales volume for Salem OregonThe average and median home prices were down since last years, which was expected. The sales volume was up 7.6% from last August’s numbers. This makes sense since prices were down, sales went up. We saw this same dynamic in June which also had more sales than June of 2008.

So folks that want to buy real estate in Salem Oregon what this means for you is that if you want to dive in, now is a good time to start watching the market. There will be some normal seasonal variation in prices, but I think we are pretty close to skidding. The thing about skidding is that things will be flat for a while. There is time to sit and watch if you are unsure. Wait a minute? Did I really just tell you guys to wait if you are unsure? Uh-oh…I think I forgot to get my “It’s a great time to buy” mantra card.

For folks that want to sell a home in Salem Oregon, it’s still tough for you. 11.6% of closings in August, in Salem Oregon, were distressed properties (ie short sales and foreclosures). This number has been steadily creeping up all year, and will continue to creep up until unemployment rates go down. You still have to be super competitive with pricing. If you need to “hit” a certain number, then you are probably better off not listing your home.

Related posts:

  1. Back to it’s normal self
  2. Coffee and Stats: Salem Oregon 3rd Quarter 2008 Market Reports
  3. A small…ever so tiny…Whoo Hoo!
  4. Keizer Oregon real estate market snippet: May 2009
  5. Greater Salem Metro area market snippet: Marion County