I stated a couple of weeks ago that Salem had the best first quarter, in terms of real estate home sales, in the past three years. Not the highest home prices mind you, but that sales picked up. This isn’t true for the Keizer real estate market. Home sales are incredibly sluggish there right now.
Inventory is at 14 months right now in Keizer. This means that if no one else puts their home on the spring and summer real estate markets, it will take 14 months to sell everything that is already out there. That’s a lot of homes for sale.
Last year the first quarter was spurred by the tax credit incentive. Buyers had to be under contract by April 30th so there was this early frenzy. Now Salem still had a better first quarter than 2010’s frenzied quarter, which is great. This poorer performance this year doesn’t mean Armageddon for the Keizer real estate market though. The summer months were so heinous for both Salem and Keizer that it will make the market this year look robust. That isn’t really the case either. This is really our first year of an unpropped up market, and we get to see what the market is starting to do on its own. It isn’t pretty for sure, but no need to start stocking water and supplies for the final days of humanity either. As it stands for March the average home price in Keizer was $170,565.
The first quarter of 2010 ended with 60 home sales an an average home price of $218,292. The first quarter of 2011 ended with 52 home sales, a 13.3% drop, and an average home price of $181,790, a 16.7% drop. The reason for these ugly numbers is caused by two main factors. The first being the tax credit inflating numbers in the first quarter last year, and then the increasing foreclosures. In the 2010 first quarter, 10% of the homes sold in Keizer were listed as short sales or foreclosures. In the 2011 first quarter that number was 19.2%. Hangover from last year, increased foreclosures this year means downward pressure on the Keizer real estate market right now.
Data in this report was gathered from the WVMLS and represents single family homes (non acreage) properties.