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Seattle, Washington and Portland, Oregon are the two biggest cities by population in the Pacific Northwest. They’re also two of the most highly competitive real estate markets in the United States.
Let’s look at a comparison between the Seattle and Portland housing markets, from a cost and inventory standpoint. These are the latest anticipated trends for the rest of 2022 heading into 2023.
Seattle and Portland are two of the largest cities by population in the Pacific Northwest region for good reason: they have a lot to offer, including a strong labor market, a great lifestyle, and beautiful natural scenery. Because of this, they’re also two of the most highly competitive real estate markets in the United States.
Today, we’ll look at a comparison between the Seattle and Portland housing markets, from a cost and inventory standpoint. These are the latest trends for 2022-2023.
These two real estate markets actually share a few things in common, and inventory is one of them. Or rather, a lack of inventory. Both Portland and Seattle are experiencing very low levels of housing supply at present. There just aren’t enough homes for sale to satisfy the demand from buyers.
As of September 2022, both the Portland and Seattle real estate markets had a very low supply of homes for sale, less than a month for Seattle and only a little better for Portland. According to housing experts, a balanced and healthy market has around a five- to six-month supply of homes for sale.
But both of these cities have far less than what is considered to be a balanced market, leaving buyers with few homes to choose from. With that in mind, consider the following numbers.
So while home buyers in both housing markets are struggling with limited supply, the Seattle market is the tighter of the two. This has created something of a “logjam” effect. In many cases, homeowners who want to sell are concerned that they won’t be able to find another property. So they’re reluctant to put their current homes on the market.
Over time, a combination of new-home construction, legislation, and creative planning could help to ease the inventory issues in both the Portland and Seattle real estate markets. But for now, limited supply is a defining characteristic of both.
It will probably come as no surprise to residents in either city to learn that home prices are significantly higher in Seattle, compared to Portland. The rapid rise in house values within the Seattle metro area has been one of the big real estate stories of the last couple of years. Portland has experienced price growth as well, but it’s still much more affordable by comparison.
That said, the market in Seattle cooled quite a bit from mid-2018 to mid-2019. In fact, housing prices actually dipped about 3.8% over the course of 2019. That said, prices are back on their way up in Seattle. Portland also had a similar situation in which prices stagnated, though they didn’t dip to the extent that Seattle’s home prices did.
We can glean one important point from this data: the median and average home prices are much higher in Seattle than in Portland, which has created affordability issues for many residents.
And home prices in Seattle are expected to climb over the next 12 months, which means prices will be even higher by the end of 2022 heading into 2023.
Related: Best Neighborhoods in Portland, OR
Related: Best Neighborhoods in Seattle, WA
Homes are selling fast in both of these real estate markets. In Seattle and Portland, hot properties can go pending in as little as 6 or 7 days. In some cases, properties receive multiple competing offers within days of the original listing. This is largely the result of the tight inventory conditions mentioned earlier.
Bottom line: Buyers in both the Seattle and Portland housing markets will want to prepare for competition, if buying a home in 2022 or 2023.
Will you need mortgage financing to buy a home in Seattle or Portland? We can help. Sammamish Mortgage has been serving buyers across the Pacific Northwest since 1992. We offer a wide variety of mortgage programs & products with flexible qualification criteria and are here to help borrowers throughout Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Colorado. Please contact us today with any financing-related questions you have.
Whether you’re buying a home or ready to refinance, our professionals can help.
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No Obligation and transparency 24/7. Instantly compare live rates and costs from our network of lenders across the country. Real-time accurate rates and closing costs for a variety of loan programs custom to your specific situation.