Get Real Estate Blog|Salem Oregon Homes|Relocation Guide

The Stayton market has done some great stabilizing this year, but that has more to do with people pulling their homes off the market and just not selling rather than anything else.  I fully expected home prices to drop a solid 10% from 2009 as the market fundamentals were all indicating strong downward pressure on real estate prices here.   That didn’t happen.

The average home price actually popped up 6% in 2010 over 2009 and the median home price increased 3.4%.    Homes didn’t appreciate in the way that most people think about appreciation, but some more expensive homes finally sold in 2010 after well over a year on the market.  The drop in interest rates and the tax credit this year appear to have enticed people to buy in Stayton, as these numbers were much better than I was expecting.

Honestly I don’t see how this can be the bottom of the Stayton real estate market so I am skeptical that this trend will continue.

The other three main factors in real estate fundamentals, home sales trends, inventory, and foreclosures are still really high.  Inventory is at 14 months as of this post; foreclosures jumped 28.6% over 2009; and home sales, while up are still way off normal volumes.

Sales did pop up from 2009 but this was expected with the tax credit earlier in the year.

Foreclosure notices are still hammering the small Stayton market and the huge increase isn’t surprising given the state of the Oregon economy.    While the last two quarters have shown a drop in notices, which is a great trend I hope continues, for the year they are up substantially.

The end result…a mixed bag of real estate results for Stayton.  Inventory down since the summer by about half, foreclosure notices up, home sales slightly up from 2009, and home prices up.

We’ll have to see what the numbers bring this year, but considering that 50% of Stayton sales in 2010 occurred before April 30th, when the tax credit ended, I’m thinking that the market will continue to correct here as the foreclosures put downward pressure on the market.

The data in this post was crunched from the WVMLS and information obtained from Fidelity National Title.

Stayton Real Estate Prices

I wrote six months ago that I fully expected Stayton real estate home prices to continue to drop.  That didn’t happen this quarter, but quite frankly I don’t see how prices can’t go down.  Back in January, Stayton had 36 months of inventory.  Right now, it has 33.  Pretty much none of the excess inventory was eaten up by the tax credit home buyers out here.   Despite the fact that it looks like things are working themselves out in terms of home prices, I just can’t see that continuing.

Stayton Home Sales

You know as I was looking at this graph, I couldn’t help but notice the nice wave action going on…kind of looks like an ocean wave.  Stayton, like all the other metro area cities sucked less than 2009.  I think that will be my new motto “2010:  The year that sucked less than 2009.”

So, the average and median home prices were up.  Home sales are up.  What is wrong with me that I think this is a problem?  It’s that 33 month inventory number, and this…

those dang foreclosure notices.  2Q 2010 was twice as much as 2Q 2008.    Foreclosure notices aren’t going down in Stayton.  That coupled with the high inventory really means price corrections are headed this town’s way.

If you are thinking of moving to Stayton, here is what is available for sale there.   Contact me for a showing or sign up to get new homes sent to you as they hit the market.

Home sale and home price data was crunched from the WVMLS.  Foreclosure information was obtained from Fidelity National Title Co.

Last one year end market report.    Whew…I need a break from data and I’m sure my regular readers are getting tired of data too!’

So let’s talk Stayton real estate.

Stayton has been struggling for a while and that hasn’t changed.  The inventory is currently at 36 months, which is high even for our normal slow months.  I wish I had better stats to share with you for Stayon, but I don’t.  If you want cheery news you’ll have to go to Aumsville.

So Stayton…

The average home priced dropped 11.9% to $192, 156 and the median shifted upwards 2.2% to $189,900.  I think the median shifted up as there were some more expensive foreclosures that hit the Stayton market, pulling the median up.   I don’t think that the Stayton real estate market is close to recovering or bottom for that matter.

I think it is still in a world of hurt over there.

I think this becomes more apparent when we look at the number of homes listed vs. the number of homes sold.  What is supply and demand looking like in Stayton?

Honestly, better, but not good.

The larger the gap between the red and blue lines, the worse the inventory and hence, supply and demand, are.

You can see we have clearly come off the peak, but things aren’t in any great shape.  From 2008, the number of homes sold dropped 10.9%.  Now that was offset a bit by a drop (28.2%) in the number of homes listed but supply and demand still aren’t working well together in Stayton.

So what does that mean for 2010?

Stayton home prices will have to continue to come down to correct the supply and demand imbalance.  Like Silverton, I would not be surprised at all, and in fact would expect to see, home prices drop another 10% in this area.  Inventory just isn’t getting eaten up fast enough to keep home prices stabilized.  Sorry Stayton home sellers.  I wish the trends were looking better for your area.