It is being reported that housing availability is the highest it has been since 2020. Sales also appear to be cooling off. Pending sales are down 27.1% and closed sales are down 31.1% from July 2021. Closed sales are down 18.1% from June. One promising sign is the median sale price of homes has dipped. In July, the median sale price was $566,000, down from $570,000 in June. At the same time, crime is up.
The inventory is now up to 2.0, meaning if no other houses were listed for sale, the number of available homes would sell within 2 months. The last time inventory reached 2 months or more was in May, when it was 2.3. During all of 2021, inventory barely climbed above 1.0.
Housing inventory has been climbing since March, according to the report, and it’s not because more homes are going on the market. New listings decreased 12.4% from June to July. They’re down 11.8% from July 2021. Homes were the most affordable in Columbia County where the median sale price was $449,500 in July, in Yamhill County where the median price was $465,000 and in Gresham/Troutdale where it was $495.000.
Crime also plays a part on the outlook on housing, especially as it relates to pricing and safety. Portland is on pace to near or surpass 2021′s record 92 killings and record 1,327 shootings. At the same time, the highest-priced homes were in Lake Oswego/West Linn where the median sale price was $853,500.
While domestic violence and random shootings by people with easy access to guns have contributed to the toll, gang-related rivalries and fights among armed people living on the street have driven this year’s killings, said Sgt. Joe Santos, a Portland homicide division supervisor before he retired recently.
Fifty-five people died through July, most of them in shootings. Almost half of the victims were Black people, mostly men — far disproportionate to the 6% of Multnomah County’s population that identifies as Black and 3% who identify as Black men. The deaths this year include a disturbing series of homicides by two men, now accused of killing five people in five separate shootings. So far this year, police have shot and killed four people in the city.
The Police Bureau’s new Focused Intervention Team, a unit of two sergeants and 12 officers dedicated to targeting gun violence, launched in January and seized 44 guns in the first six months of the year and made 111 arrests, according to bureau figures.
