Posted on 08/16/2006 9:52:53 AM PDT by B Knotts
he Portland-area housing market has decisively cooled, resulting in a July median home price decline that bucks the three-year trend of relentlessly rising values.
The area's median home price dropped to $274,700 in July, from $280,000 in June, according to data released Tuesday by the Regional Multiple Listing Service.
Coming during the seasonally strong summer housing market, last month's decline marked the first time since 2002 that the June-to-July period recorded a median price decrease.
Adding to the changing housing picture, the inventory of houses for sale rose in July to 3.5 months' supply, up from 2.6 months in June. That was the Portland area's highest inventory since January 2005, and it was the highest figure for a summer month in three years.
"We're at the tipping point," said Mark McMullen, senior economist with Moody's Economy.com. "The end is here for the housing boom and the median price."
(Excerpt) Read more at oregonlive.com ...
FYI PING
Dylan Rivera - master of the obvious! :)
They're having trouble selling the ones they already have. Many realtors are moving about a third of the number of units they usually sell.
One of the best bearish sites about the housing bubble popping:
http://thehousingbubbleblog.com
Suzanne researched this!
No correction in Seattle.
Low inventory of properties for sale and bidding wars still going on for crappy houses. Median home price up 60,000K since September
That's true, and we'll have to see what happens in the coming months.
On the other hand, anecdotal evidence seems to confirm the trend.
Unfortunately, a slow down will most likely mean those folks who have "ridden" this boom by refi'ing their house several times using "creative financing" may go bust big time.
They aren't going to be happy about this news. I've got a feeling a WHOLE LOT of people aren't going to be happy about this.
Oh well. At least my modest little house is paid off.
Building is falling, but prices of finished homes have merely stopped increasing so fast in 20 states. In 30 states some price decrease is noted but not back to the levels before the boom. Not yet. This is not a correction. Actually it is nothing more than an end to the building boom.
Nor were they in 1979. Or 1991.
So does anybody have directions to the next bubble ?
BUMP
Yah, but even if your friends sell the McMnsion at a 30% loss or so...how many modest little house could they pick up?
Pure common sense would dictate that that can't continue indefinitely. If sales and demand drop enough, prices will simply have to come down eventually.
Are you looking at year-over-year numbers? That is very misleading because prices were still rising a year ago but have only been falling for a few months. The realtors use year-over-year because it may still show some gains. In reality prices are falling everywhere. The MSM is very slow to get this. They like to get their info and quotes from realtors, who spin them like cue balls.
Well, there's not a lot of room for expanding the supply in S.F. :-/
Or did you mean in the Bay Area generally?
I know that Sacramento has been cooling off.
The South Bay is insane. You couldn't pay me to live down there, yet, prices are astronomical.
Depends on where they go. If they moved back here to Cleveland, where they started, they could buy the house they left behind and probably have around $250-300K profit.
Hey, maybe when the housing market in Cali bottoms out, they can go pick up something reasonable out there...
I can see it all now: "MALIBU BEACH HOUSE, FORMERLY OWNED BY FAMOUS PEOPLE WHO HELD FABULOUS PARTIES THERE!"
Fixer-upper (they were pretty wild parties), $75,000.
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