Portland House Sales Rise on Lower Median Price

Portland, Ore. home sales in July saw the first year-over-year increase for any month since 2006, according to MDA DataQuick, but the median sales price declined nearly 2% from June and is down almost 13% from a year ago. The 3,375 new and resale houses and condos sold in the Portland-Vancouver-Beaverton metropolitan statistical area (MSA) in July 2009 was a 9.3% increase from June and a 5.8% increase from July 2008. It’s the highest number of sold homes since August 2007, when 4,242 were sold, breaking a 40-month streak of continuous year-over-year monthly sales numbers. The median sales price was $240,478, down 1.8% from $245,000 the month before and down 12.6% from $275,000 a year earlier, MDA DataQuick said. Foreclosure sales took a 14.2% share of all resale transactions, down from 16.4% in June and March’s peak of 18.9%. It’s the lowest share of resales for foreclosures since the October 2008 rate of 10.1%. Write to Austin Kilgore.