RE Data Geek Speak

I’m trying to come up with a pithy title for my monthly real estate reports and realize I have very little creativity in the literature department…I feel bad for my AP English teacher in high school…I appear to have fallen off the creativity wagon a bit… While I try and come up with something catchy, I will forge ahead with my monthly data…

So do you want the good news, the good news, or the good news first…

You pick the good news?  Cool.

It’s no secret to Salem Oregon real estate agents that October was busy.  We all had to figure out how to get out of pajamas and actually write contracts last month.

The good news...median home price was down (I know I’m weird that I think that is good news)

The good news…Salem Oregon homes sales were up 31% over last October

The good news…the current home inventory as I write is 6.1 months for Salem Oregon.

What happened?  Median home price shifted downward by 10% year over year (ie Oct to Oct).  While that isn’t good news for our underwater sellers, it is good news for the overall health of the real estate market, and honestly…we really want a healthy market.  It’s better for all of us in the long run.  That shift down in price, plus the tax credit for some buyers was enough to get folks to dive into the Salem Oregon real estate market.  It’s that dang supply and demand principle thingy again…

I would expect that as long as prices stay down like this, that we should see some stabilization in the market.  While the extension and expansion of the tax credit is nice, the driving factor for home sales should be price.  If prices are reasonable, people can afford to buy.  Pretty simple, I think.

If you are thinking about diving into the Salem Oregon real estate market, but want to watch it for a bit, I can get you started.  Just tell me what you want to track.

P.S.  All data used on this post was crunched from the data on the WVMLS.  Thanks WVMLS!