If you read any local real estate blogs all of them have been talking about and linking to the Forbes article that named Salem Oregon one of the top 10 real estate markets best primed for a recovery. Salem Oregon was named #4. The criteria used for their top 10 list was an uptick in sales AND a low number of distressed property sales.
Salem Oregon does have a low number of forecloure and short sale properties on our real estate market place where compared with some other areas. That part, I think our city is doing well in, comparatively speaking.
So…I looked at sales. Now, in real estate sales are very cyclical because no one wants to move in the rain out here. As such it is important to compare the same months over time. I can’t compare January to June because we are all drinking hot coca in January from the warm comfort of our homes…not out house hunting.
For Salem Oregon proper, our home sales are down 19.4% from the same time period (Jan-July) from 2008. This is according to data pulled from the WVMLS. Now the article pulls its data from Zillow, but I don’t think that 19.4% of sales were fsbos. So we have a data problem. There was a nice positive uptick in sales volume in June, but it declined again in July. Most of the year has been into the negatives as you can see in the chart.
So when I went back and reread the article it said that they pulled the statistical area, which probably pulls from Marion and Polk counties. So I pulled those numbers…18.5% drop in sales volume.
So…I don’t know how they are calculating their data. Sales are off in our area. Salem Oregon area sellers, if you happen to read that Forbes article, please understand that the data may not be right.
Melina
Your blog is the best. Thanks for doing it.
Thanks Matt.