The Fed's Interest Rate Cut Caused an Increase in Pending Sales; and a rather Large Increase this month in Prices Too! For the past couple of years it has been clear that the prolonged higher level of home loan / mortgage interest rates has caused about a 1/3rd decrease in transaction activity for resale homes in Vancouver WA. With the rates coming down in response to the Fed's Rate Cut, we see, as expected, an increase in activity as measured by a much higher level of Pending Sales for this month. We also believe that more current homeowners are stepping into the market, helping to increase the number of Active Listings. Our next graph below clearly shows the increase in Pending Sales was enough to measurably move the trend line upward quite a bit for October 2024. However, with the in... 11/05/2024

A Surprising Bump in Pending Sales this Month; although Average Closed Sales Units and Sales Price is EasingActive listings this month are slightly higher than a year ago, and from last month; with Closed Sales down modestly from last year. The big change is with Pending Units going up by almost 32%!  The Average Sold Price is less than $1k higher than last year, reflective of the market slowing down with respect to prices.The next chart shows the year-by-year average trend line for Pending Sales for resale homes in Vancouver WA. The bump this month in Pending Sales is strong enough to move the 3-month average trend up a visible distance above the "new normal" trend we've been experiencing the last two years.Next up we show the 3-month average trend line going back 15 years for the Clos... 10/21/2024

Home Sales Activity and Perhaps the Rise in Prices has Peaked for the Season in Vancouver WashingtonWe currently see Active Listings are down slightly from last year at this same month; with Pending sales up slightly; and Closed Sales down about 6 and 2/3rds percent. The Average Sold price for this month is 1.62% ($8,786) Higher than last yearThe next chart we have shows the 3-month Average for Pending Sales, by year, as far back as 2018. For those of you new to this chart, it shows the "High Years" were during the "COVID" era when the Federal Reserve dropped interest rates to historic lows, which bumped up Home Sales; and then in the first Half of 2022 the Fed slammed on the brakes and we see home sales activity dropped to a "new normal" which as well below what we saw pre "Covid."As w... 09/18/2024

New Listings and Sold-Prices are Rising Strongly while Pending Sales remain a Lagging metric, coming it a comparable low-level like last year for Real Estate Sales in Vancouver Washington.Although the number of Active Listings has moved up from the Winter Low, we are 76 units below the count at this time last year (-14.5%). This month we see Pending units slightly up from last year, with sold units down slightly. The Average Sold Price is up strongly at over $22k.Our next chart plots the 3-month rolling average Trend for Pending Home Sales in Vancouver. With the the trend-line catching up to 2023's line in the February to March time, it has otherwise been hugging last year's trend quite closely:Without a great improvement in real jobs / wages; combined with some truly lower finance rate... 06/13/2024

Both New Listings and Pending Sales Moved Up, with New Listings taking a slight Lead.After the slow start at the first of the year, two key items show improvement: Active Listings caught up to last year's mark; and Pending Units came in 10.32% higher.The lower level of Sold Units is a reflection of how January and February were slower for sales than they were for the same two months one year ago.The next chart shows the 3-month rolling average Trend for Pending Home Sales in Vancouver. With the the trend-line catching up to 2023's line, and March actually exceeding it, perhaps we are now seeing the activity level coming up off the Low for this cycle:Next we show the 3-month rolling average trend for Closed Unit Sales for pre-existing homes in Vancouver WA:We see in the above 3-month tre... 04/04/2024

A Nice Up-Tick in New Listings and Pending Sales; While Sales Prices Remained Unchanged from Last Month.With warmer weather coming into the area, we have seen a nice move up in both Active Listings and Pending Sales; while Closed Sales moved up only slightly; and the Average Sales Price also moved up slightly, as shown in our first graphic below:The increase in Active Listings is a welcome improvement over last month, as the January statistic was only one (1) unit higher than January 2023! With the improvement in available homes to purchase, it is also a welcome sign to see strong improvement in the Pending Sales.Our next graphic shows the 3 month rolling average trend for Pending Sales, covering the current year plus the 5 previous years:This month we can clearly see a somewhat strong ... 03/25/2024

Update: 3/7/2024The following graphic is provided courtesy of RMLS in the SW Washington / Oregon region, and showing the activity for the week of February 23 to 29, 2024 in Southwest Washington (includes Clark County WA and Vancouver WA):For this, the final week of February we see a decrease in New Listings - an element we sorely need to see improvement - maybe we'll see it soon?As expected the time on the market is speeding up, and with Active Listings so low, this element will be quite hot again soon.We have a mixed signal on Price, with the Average slightly down; and the Median with a gain. It is easy to expect prices to rise again with so few homes available for purchase.------The following graphic is provided courtesy of RMLS in the SW Washington / Oregon region, and showing the ac... 02/29/2024

A Modest Rebound in New Listings to start 2024; with a Minor Upward Move to Pending Sales; While Closed Sales Declined.January is the month near the end of the Winter slow-down that we start to see signs of "Spring" coming to the Vancouver WA home sales market; and this year we see some of that with New Listings taking a nice upward move. Home Sales Prices are still in a moderately declining mode (that was briefly "Interrupted" last month by One extremely large home sale of $13,000,000!).This first graphic we have compares just the month of January 2024, with the same month in 2023:Although the number of Active Listings is nearly the same; Pending Sales are substantially lower; and Sold Homes are significantly lower. If 2024 is having a worse start than 2023, this could be a sign of a c... 02/20/2024

New Listings Fell Dramatically this month for resale homes in Vancouver Washington; with Number of Homes / Units Sold nearing Decade-long Low; with Prices still facing downward pressure.We are now looking at a real estate activity level for the existing home inventory at a low level of activity not seen since the Great Financial Crash of 2008/2009!  We are also seeing Home Affordability at extremely unfavorable levels, which matches up with the nearly 1/3rd less activity seen in the current market.Our first table compares key measurements, December 2023 vs December 2022:Even though the activity in the real estate market had dropped substantially by December 2022; we can still see a large difference a year later in the Active Listings and Sold Units; suggesting we were still in the decli... 01/09/2024

A Decade Low 171 Pre-existing Homes Closed in November; as Prices Drift Lower.The last time there were fewer than 171 Closed Home Sales in Vancouver Washington took place in early 2009!  Typically we do not report on a single month's data however, for the past three months the "Pending Sales" value stayed about the same, and we'd expect the Closed Sales this month to also be similar to last month's number of approximately 250; and perhaps go down to the 225+- area - but no! We ended up 60 to 80 home sales lower!!!Our first table / graphic shows the November 2023 data vs 2022:For the "Sold Units" the 171 number posted this month is alarming, to say the least. We'll want to watch next month's results for this element closely to see if this is just a blip in the action or, a strong change ... 12/14/2023

Falling Sales Prices with Fewer Active Listings and Fewer Sales makes for a Very Challenging Market Time!This month we are clearly seeing the effect on the Vancouver WA real estate market from the continued high home loan financing rates. With far fewer Active listings than what we saw 2 or more years ago, there are also fewer buyers thus, the number of Closed Home Sales are down by a third or more!This first chart compares the monthly market data for October, 2023 vs 2022. Last year the market was well into the downturn but, we can see we've fallen even farther one year later:The next graph clearly shows not only the much lower level of activity in Vancouver WA for the number of homes sold; it also shows a "Flatter" and lower Spring + Summer bump!Without sustained reduction in home loa... 11/29/2023

Home Sales Prices are Facing Headwinds; With Already Lower Unit Sales Dropping Lower.With Lower Availability of Active Listings, the Home Buyers that are capable of purchases at these high price levels have been holding up the price trend but, we are seeing signs of that capability slipping away.  With the continued Rising Trend with Home Loan / Mortgage Rates, Homes in Vancouver WA, and across the USA, are becoming more and more Un-Affordable.This first chart below shows the month-only comparisons for September:Clearly the number of Homes on the Market and being Sold are at a much lower level than this time last year - and 2022 was in a steeply declining mode at this same time of the year!Our next chart shows that we are now 2 months beyond the peak of the year for Unit-Sales; and the ... 10/05/2023

Sales Prices halt their rise; while the Number of Sales Closed remains Incredibly Low.The Federal Reserve and Wall Street have continued to keep financing rates very high for home sales; which is the largest driver we know of that is keeping the number of homes sold at about 30%+ lower than we've seen in the past 5 years. The relatively high rates are putting a huge pinch on the buyers wanting to enter the market; and putting the pinch on owners that would like to sell their current home and need a new loan to buy their next home. The combined result has been an imbalanced environment with slightly more buyers than homes to buy; keeping prices up.The first chart we have shows the August-only changes, 2023 vs. 2022: In 2022 at this time the "Great Slowdown" was about 4 months old thus, t... 09/14/2023

New Sales Price High Attained, while number of properties Sold is still Greatly Reduced!As we continue to see ever increasing interest rates for the main types of home loans, the number of Resale homes sold has remained much lower than anything we've seen in many years. (Sales of New Homes are not included in this report).Our first chart shows the July-only comparison - 2022 vs 2023:For this chart please remember that the slowdown we are in had begun prior to July 2022, and was still declining at a strong rate.The graph coming up next shows how the Pending Sales started their decline in 2022; and the 2023 line is showing a somewhat seasonal "shape" although at a greatly lower level of activity:Continuing on, the graph we show with a longer history (more years in the data) for Closed Sal... 08/31/2023

The Reduced Number of Home Sales is Still Seeing Rising Prices!We've been told that the US Federal Reserve's actions raised interest rates last year in general, with specific actions targeted to Mortgage / Home Loan Rates (via changing their purchase-actions related to Mortgage-Backed-Securities aka "MBS"); with the intent to Slow Inflation and bring it back down to a target of 2% per year. The initial "Shock" to the local market has seen a greatly reduced number of homes sold; with an initial tread of reduced sales prices.With about a year now gone by from the Fed's initial change in direction, we are still seeing a greatly reduced number of homes sold when compared to prior periods; yet, Home Sales Prices have shot back up and have essentially recovered their prior Peak level!!!The fi... 07/11/2023

Slight Decrease in Activity observed as the market approaches the July 4th Holiday.From our previous posting of a couple of weeks ago, we continue to see a decrease in New Listings; and the Average Sales Price is off about $20k. We also see that Pending Sales are off slightly as well.The decline in New Listings is something we traditionally start to see at this time of the season thus, nothing unusual with this trend. The same can be said for Pending Sales, as the big holiday tends to be a time-segment many buyers don't want to have in the middle of a home transaction or, they'd just rather be on Vacation!Closed Sales are up very slightly - which is also typical what we see near the peak of the year, sales activity-wise.To be sure, Prices have recovered for the most part from where they... 07/06/2023

We are Still in the Brisk Season of the Year, according to these Real Estate StatisticsRMLS - our local MLS is the predominate provider in the Vancouver WA / Portland OR metro area, which is the bulk of the data in the graphic below:We can see that Home Sales Prices are still rising at a strong pace; with the Pace of the market being rather brisk. The decline in New Listings is something we'll want to check in on again next week, as our market has way too few listings on the market.Closed Sales are also up nicely, which is a trend we expect to see for this time of the year. With New Listings lagging for the past twelve (12) months, we expect Closed Sales to remain at a much lower level than what we've experienced for the past five (5) years or so.Thank you for checking in on our brief r... 06/24/2023

What a difference Higher Home Loan Rates make to Real Estate Sales in Vancouver WA!To be sure, in 2022 there was nothing subtle about the US Federal Reserve's change in policy that caused home loan rates to rapidly more than double. In the Fall of 2021 the rates were in the low 3.0%+- range; while in May of 2023 Freddie Mac says the nation-wide average was about 6.6%!!!For this report, please note that in May of 2022 (last year) we were starting to see the strong headwinds hitting the sales results for Vancouver Washington. Another way to say it: one year ago was when we were just starting the journey to the "New Normal" for this real estate market.Our first graphic is a new one for us, and is not a rolling average of 3 or 12 months of results but rather, the simple this month's tally c... 06/14/2023

The Real Estate Market in the Vancouver WA / Portland OR region has been heating up!The graphic below is a weekly snapshot provided by our primary MLS - RMLS, and is heavily weighted by the activity in the largest communities in the Portland and Vancouver areas for the time period 5/26/2023 to 6/1/2023:This week's key elements are all showing a Rising Real Estate Market; and is what we typically see this time of year.However, in our opinion this is still not a "Normal" market, as we have home loan / mortgage rates in the low 7% range that is making it much harder for first-time buyers to enter the market; and it also makes it harder for existing home owners (that currently have lower-rate home loans) to move within this market. To be sure the effect is more than 1/3rd fewer home sales t... 06/08/2023

In our updates we like to show brief graphics that help us understand the trends; where we've been, and the direction we are currently going. The first graph shows the 3-month rolling average of Pending Sales for existing homes in Vancouver WA:When reviewing the above year-by-year trend-lines, remember that most of 2020, all of 2021 and part of 2022 received an Overly amount of financial stimulation from the Federal Reserve. Clearly the first four months of 2023 are far below the sales activity we've seen in each of the previous five years.Our next chart goes back to the year 2009, and shows both the 3-month and 12-month rolling average trend for CLOSED Unit Sales:This longer-term chart is showing what has actually Closed (not all Pending sales actually close). We see that the seasonal ... 05/30/2023