In the blink of an eye we went from a buyer’s market to a seller’s market.  How did this happen and what does that even mean you say?  Well, it means that inventory has gone way down.  Wayyyy down.  So when there’s less to choose from, it gives seller’s the upper hand.  Prices are beginning to even out.  In North Portland we saw little to no depreciation in the month of March and February.  Average home prices aren’t dropping anymore at their previous radical rates.  A comparison of first quarter prices this year and last year shows average sales price declined less than one half percent!  And lastly, more buyer’s are finally buying, in fact, there were more closed sales in the first three months of 2012 than in any first quarter since 2007.

Buyer’s, don’t feel like you’ve missed the boat.  Prices are still low and haven’t begun to rise on average…yet.  But with these kind of stats, it looks like they will be soon.  Also, interest rates are still really low.  Here, let me give you an example of a house I showed the other day.  The house is in North Portland.  It’s 3 bedrooms and 1 bath.  Just a typical little ranch (968 sq. ft), bank owned, new roof, new carpet and in a decent location.  So this home is priced at $114k.  Yea.  Let me break that down in terms of what it would like for a down payment and monthly mortgage at a price like that.

You can do a 3% down payment.  That’s $3,420.

Taxes on this home are about $2000 a year.

And we’ll say home owners insurance will cost you about $65 a month.

With a rate of 4.25% that gives you…

A monthly payment of $775.

Did you know you could rent a house like that for approximately $1000 a month?  So what are you waiting for?  It doesn’t make any more sense than that.

by Betsy Ballantyne