March 27, 2009 2:00 am

Portland Real Estate Market Improved In February

Okay, by no means was February 2009 a great real estate month in Portland, but it was sure better than January's pathetic showing.

According to the RMLS, housing inventory decreased, more homes sold, and the average and median prices both improved in February. That said, the numbers in 2009 still lag behind 2008 activity.

Let's start with home prices:

The average sales price of a Portland home in February was 8,500. That's a 12.9% decrease compared to February 2008 which had an average of 2,600. This is a slight improvement from January 2009 which experienced a 13.3% drop.

Meanwhile, the median sales price of a Portland home in February was 9,000. That's a 7.5% decrease compared to February 2008 which had a median of 0,000. Again, that's a slight improvement over January which saw the median price down by 10.7%.

Closed sales, those that officially exchanged hands, were up in February by 17.1% over January (857 vs. a record low 732), but they were down dramatically, 38.1 percent, compared to a year ago.

One of the positives from February activity is that housing inventory declined a good bit. Inventory in January was a record-high 19.2 months and in February it finished at 16.6 months. This means that if no other properties were listed for sale in February, it would take 16.6 months for the supply to dry up. Bottom line: this is still a very strong buyer's market. Historically speaking, housing inventory in Portland starts to decrease this time of year, bottoms out around July and starts to climb again.

The average time on market, or total market time as the RMLS calls it, is currently 153 days. That's almost identical to January data. A year ago, the market time was only 85 days.

In the coming days, I will post to this real estate blog the average and median prices for Portland and the suburbs, as well as market times, etc.