By Living Room Realty, July 29, 2019
Amanda Haworth, a 12-year REALTOR® with Living Room Realty, sees a steady amount of homes being listed on the market in Portland, but a tendency toward caution and hesitation in buyers.
“Everyone’s really afraid of paying too much right be fore a potential recession,” Haworth said. “I think people are really remembering what happened 10 years ago and don’t want to get into a situation where they’re left holding the bag.”
With a less competitive housing market, Haworth is seeing more and more buyers getting last-minute buyer’s remorse and backing out of contracts, or buyers being slow on decision-making without the pressure to quickly decide on available houses.
“I am seeing a little more fear-based decision-making in the younger first-time home buyers,” Haworth said. “It’s a large investment, and if they are getting more time, they can talk themselves out of it. Whereas in the last few years, when you had a multiple offer situation, you didn’t have a lot of time to question your decision.”
Haworth predicts that the real estate market will shift over to a buyer’s market in the near future, although it will be a different reality compared to 10 years ago with more stable lending.
“I do see that it’s going to shift over to a buyer’s market,” Amanda said. “But I don’t read the amount of drop that we saw last time. While we will see some market stabilization, I don’t see the type of recession that we saw before happening.”
The Downtown Opportunity Zones program and fewer people moving to Portland than expected are both factors that could ultimately help stabilize Portland’s housing market, she said.
Read the full article by Hannah Sievert published at www.bizjournals.com
