Oregon Public Broadcasting

Real estate sales in the Portland Metro area continue to be lackluster.

Experts say one problem maybe that there are comparatively few homes on the market.

A new report from the "Real Estate Multiple Listings Service" shows that the number of homes sold is down 2.7 percent, when comparing this June to last June. The average price also dropped 7.8 percent.

One of the biggest problems, says Jeff Bale of the Internet real estate group Redfin, is that the number of homes on the market is down 22 percent -- people just don't want to sell a home that a couple of years ago was worth a lot more.

"They're deciding to either stay home and remodel, instead of moving. Or their deciding literally to put renters in their house because they're not able to find the sale price that they're looking for," Bale said.

There is some good news. From May to June, the average sales price around Portland actually increased from $262,000 dollars to $267,000.

Full report

http://www.rmlsweb.com/v2/public2/loadfile.asp?id=6141

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