This is the last monthly Salem real estate market update I’ll do this year since I will look at the year-end statistics in January. I’ll just give you a quick update of the market since we’ll be looking at this more in-depth soon. The median and average home prices were down just a tad in November over 2009. We all know the story so no need for analytics here. Home prices are still declining in Salem Oregon.
Home sales were down a lot from 2009, but this is an anomaly. Nov 2009 was supposedly the last month for the tax credit and so there was this unexpected surge in home sales that took away from the normal winter numbers. So, technically home sales plunged from November of 2009, but that was an artificial number anyway and not based on reality. I think this November was a good indication of where the market is at.
Just a few other quick numbers…inventory is at 15.8 months for Salem and our distressed properties are making at 14.7% of our listings. It was around 12% at the beginning of the year so our foreclosures and short sales have increased a bit here.