The Market As We Enter 2024

A top of mind topic for most everyone is the real estate market. Not only that, everyone has an opinion about where it’s going. The opinions seem to be mostly grouped in to two camps, either it’s going to crash or it’s going to be amazing. Who thinks it will be about right?

There’s no question the meeting of the Federal Reserve in mid-December helped things move in a positive direction. However, compared to the same time period of 2022, the market was actually starting to look a little better before that meeting, at least for the Portland metro area.

In the chart below, “week 50” is the week the Fed made the announcement that seemed to indicate a softening rate stance. Interestingly, compared to 2022, that week actually represented a slower week in terms of pending sales. Fortunately, the improving trend of 2023 resumed the following week.