I recently read that in Phoenix, 93% of September Home Sales were below $400k. The author says that Phoenix is essentially a tale of two markets, one where homes in the lower priced spectrum are selling & where high-end homes are sitting.
It's interesting to see how the first time home-buyer tax credit has been effecting the Portland market, so I included these numbers to see how Portland compares to the Phoenix sales by price range.
Portland is not quite as high as Phoenix, but still 85% of sales in Portland were below $400,000- which is up about 4% from September of 2008.
Also note that sales below $250,000 are up 9.4% from last September. A lot of those sales can probably be attributed to the $8,000 tax credit.
The tax credit is set to expire on November 30, and the debate rages on in Washington over its extension. It seems to have given the market in Portland a boost, so it will be interesting to see how the market fares if/when it expires.
If the tax credit does indeed expire, it would still take a lot for things to get worse this winter compared to last year. Last January, Portland saw sales activity drag to the lowest total in the Portland metro area since RMLS™ began keeping records in 1992.
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