Portland City Center Condo Sales Update
Condo sales in Portland’s city center continued to slow for the month of December ’08. Here’s a look at what happened in the Pearl, Downtown/Cultural District and South Waterfront.
The Metropolitan, Photo Courtesy of Portland Architecture
The Metropolitan, Photo Courtesy of Portland Architecture
Pearl District/ Old Town
Pearl condo shoppers were able to choose from more than 250 condo options (=listed inventory, more if you include developer “shadow” inventory not listed, but available), with roughly 10% of the inventory qualifying as short sales i.e. home is worth less than current market value, lender approval of transaction required. For the month some 10 units sold. At that rate it would take about 2 years to clear out the listed inventory. December historically being a slow month, this number doesn’t do a good job of reflecting the overall trend and would need to be adjusted downward. The median price tag for the month was about 5ook. For a cool $2.8 $2,5 million a 3 bd, 3 bath penthouse changed hands at the Metropolitan. Only two other units sold in the $2 million category in ’08, this one set the record for the year. At $742/SF, this was also the highest price paid in ’08 per square foot. This 3,300 SF luxury home comes with 2 decks, 2 fireplaces, a wet bar, hand scraped mahogany floors…and annual property taxes in the 30k range. Looks like someone cashed out their stocks just in time…
Downtown/Cultural District (incl. The Civic)
Roughly a 120 listings were active in this area for the month of December, with the majority of listed inventory supplied by 5 developments – Strand, Benson, Eliot, American Plaza and the Civic. Actual sales in Portland’s Downtown/Cultural District amounted to about half a dozen and were dominated by a number of closings at The Strand, essentially accounting for 3/4 of all closings in this area. Reflecting the overall pricier inventory at the Strand, the median closing price was an even 700k.
South Waterfront
About 90 active listings plus some additional developer inventory. About half a dozen thereof are short sale listings. Zero sales for the month of Dec. Not much more to say…
Source: RMLS
