Oregon MLS Real Estate Listings

[PDXnative]

If you are looking to buy a house in Oregon, or just want to see what the prices are, there is a great website that lets use browse all of the MLS listings.

www.rmls.com

Another good site that lists many houses for sale is craigslist

http://geo.craigslist.org/iso/us/or

Diclaimer: I am not affiliated with them, just helping people here, blah blah, blah

[RodFarlee]

The Willamette Valley Multiple Listing Service has wonderful graphs comparing home prices for communities in western Oregon. Bend and Salem are among the two most rapidly appreciating home markets in the entire country, rising 30% and 24% in 2006. Portland and Eugene rose 12% in 2006.

But if the past is a guide, the Northwest typically lags the US by a year or two, so prices may stabilize in 2007? Especially if the CA market remains slow. It's certainly something one has to consider when contemplating relocation.

[Wyody]

Thanks folks! I didn't realize you could access MLS online. Great news!

[PDXnative]

I have a feeling that Oregon will continue to rise. We are stuck between two really expensive areas, California and the Seattle area, and as people are priced out of their areas, they will come here to still enjoy the westcoast and get a bigger house.

[RodFarlee]

Originally Posted by PDXnative

I have a feeling that Oregon will continue to rise. We are stuck between two really expensive areas, California and the Seattle area, and as people are priced out of their areas, they will come here to still enjoy the westcoast and get a bigger house.

Only if they can either:
(1) sell their existing home in a much slower market (especially CA), or
(2) find a job and create a new household in Oregon's slower economy (OR unemployment is higher, incomes lower, and job growth slower than in any of the surrounding states).

Not that things aren't okay in Oregon (its economy continues to improve), but the influx of CA retirees has certainly slowed over the past year, and that's already noticeable in the Medford and Bend real estate markets. Construction is much of the economy of those areas; so far, its shifted from residential to commercial construction, but if it slows, so will the entire economy of these areas. Portland is on a broader, more stable, economic base of course. So, we'll see, eh?

For every 2 Washingtonians moving to Oregon, 3 Oregonians move to WA. It's been that way consistantly for decades. The net population loss from OR to WA since 1990 would almost fill the city of Salem! (ref: US Census migration data 2000, 2005; OR State Div of Licensing annual driver's license returns). So Vancouver doesn't drive Portland real estate, it's the other way around.

It's California that drives Oregon's population growth, and housing market. As the CA bubble has burst, I just can't see how it won't affect OR. But, again, we'll see.