Scheduled foreclosure auctions dropped to a 40-month low in Oregon last month.
According to foreclosure listings service RealtyTrac, overall January filings in Oregon fell 42 percent compared with a year earlier.
The Irvine, Calif., company reported that lenders scheduled foreclosure auctions for 788 homes — a 55 percent decline from the same period a year ago These are the first public filings recorded as part of the foreclosure process.
Meanwhile, lenders took back 840 Oregon homes.
Washington state also saw filings fall nearly 60 percent from a year ago.
Foreclosures are dropping year-over-year across the country, but many analysts expect them to pick up again this year. Lenders slowed down their foreclosures while negotiating a settlement on robo-signing and other alleged mortgage abuses, but 49 states finalized an agreement with major lenders earlier this month and the processes should pick back up.
In the Portland area, 433 homes were scheduled for foreclosure auctions in January, and 454 were repossessed. That’s a 46 percent decline in foreclosure filings compared with a year earlier.
The foreclosure rate, which measures the percentage of homes in foreclosure, is 2.7 percent in Oregon, 1.3 percent in Washington and 2.3 percent in the Portland area, according to real estate date firm CoreLogic. The U.S. foreclosure rate is 3.4 percent.
About 5.4 percent of Oregon mortgage holders are three months or more behind on their payments, putting them at risk of foreclosure.
The year has started off on a positive note. Sales activity in the Portland metro area continued to show improvement in closed and pending sales when comparing this January to the same month a year ago. Closed sales experienced a 18.3% increase, posting the highest numbers for January since 2007. Pending sales saw growth of 22.4% in the same comparison. Market time also improved, decreasing from 160 to 136 days.
There were 16.5% fewer newly listed residential properties. The combination of higher sales and fewer new listings helped to create a much lower listing inventory for this season than seen in the previous two years. At January’s rate of sales, the active listing count of 8,514 would be exhausted in only 7.0 months. Comparing month-to-previous month, closed sales fell 24.1% (1,612 v. 1,224) when compared to December 2011, pending sales increased 26.3% (1,443 v. 1,823) and new listings climbed 53.7% (1,700 v. 2,613).
Sale Prices
The average sale price of $249,100 for January 2012 was virtually the same as the $248,900 posted in January 2011, while the median declined 3.5%.
Compared to December 2011, the average price fell 4.5% ($260,800 v. $249,100) and the median fell 4.2% ($216,600 v. $207,500).
Over the rolling twelve month calculation shown to the right, which compares February 2010-January 2011 with February 2011-January 2012, the median price dropped 6.9% and the average price declined 6.1%.
Portland-area home values fell 3.5 percent during 2011 but are expected to stabilize and even post and increase in 2012, real estate search firm Clear Capital reports.
The California company forecasts a 1.9 percent increase in home values int he Portland-Vancouver-Beaverton area.
In the company’s rankings of 50 major metro areas’ home prices, that moves Portland from No. 27 in 2011 to No. 14 in 2012. Exactly half of the markets are expected to post home price increases. The Portland market is also among 20 considered to be stable in 2012, with a predicted increase or decrease of less than 2.5 percent.
The company also reported 15.5 percent of home sales in 2011 were bank-owned foreclosures
U.S. home prices fell 2.1 percent in 2011 and are expected to gain 0.2 percent in 2012 the firm reports.
The Seattle area was one of the hardest-hit markets in 2011, posting a 15.1 percent decline in prices. Clear Capital predicted the city’s real estate would lose 7.5 percent in 2012.
The Portland Metro Real Estate Market is still in recovery and many wonder how things looked back in 2011 compared to previous years. There is considerable good news. We’ve seen a higher percentage of pending and closed sales year over year along with a lower total time on market for homes on the market. Total listings are also on the decline showing that the influx of short sales and foreclosures are slowing. Sales price are still slightly lower however the 2nd half of a year saw them level out and in some areas even increase.
Comparing activity from 2010 with that of 2011, closed sales rose 4% and pending sales rose 6%. New listings fell 25.4%.
Total sales volume for 2011 was about $5.2 billion, down from $5.3 billion in 2010, and $5.5 billion in 2009.
Portland Metro Inventory is 5.3 months. This is the lowest inventory level since June of 2007 (5.0 months). Inventory is the ratio of the number of closed listings for a month divided by the number of active listings. There are fewer closed sales and fewer active listings than there were in 2007 but what it shows is that buyers have fewer homes to look at and compete for.
Sale Prices
The average sale price for December 2011 was down 6.2% compared to December 2010, while the median declined 5.8%. Compared to November 2011, the average price rose 0.5% ($259,400 v. $260,800) and the median fell 3.7% ($225,000 v. $216,600). For the year, the average sale price dropped 6.7% compared to 2010. The median price fell 7.9%.
Portland, Oregon will be the first city to use IBM’s new software called Systems Dynamics for Smarter Cities, containing 3,000 equations which collectively seek to model cities’ emergent behavior and help them figure out how policy can affect the lives of their citizens.
The program seeks to quantify the cause-and-effect relationships between seemingly uncorrelated urban phenomena. ‘What’s the connection, for example, between … obesity rates and carbon emissions?’ writes Greg Lindsay. ‘To find out, simply round up experts to hash out the linkages, translate them into algorithms, and upload enough historical data to populate the model. Then turn the knobs to see what happens when you nudge the city in one direction.’
One of the drivers of the ‘Portland Plan‘ is the city’s commitment to a 40 percent decrease in carbon emissions by 2030, which necessitates less driving and more walking and biking. After running the model, planners discovered a positive feedback loop: More walking and biking would lead to lower obesity rates for Portlanders. In turn, a fitter population would find walking and biking a more attractive option.
