Realtors: Median home price up ever so slightly

The median home price in metro Portland in March was $286,500, an increase of $300 from a year ago.

While local home prices are holding their own against a gloomy national backdrop, the Regional Multiple Listing Service noted that both pending and closed sales have tanked. Closed sales dropped nearly 40 percent and pending sales dropped nearly 37 percent, the Realtor group said Tuesday.

There were enough homes for sale in March to satisfy demand for about nine months, more than twice the level of 2007 and four times more than in 2006.

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It's taking longer to sell homes too. The average house sold in March spent 83 days on the market, up from 65 days a year ago.

Every submarket saw a drop in pending sales, with Lake Oswego and West Linn posting the biggest declines. Pending sales dropped 44.3 percent, with just 228 sales pending out of 875 homes for sale in March. The median sale price of homes sold in Lake Oswego and West Linn in the first three months of the year was $455,000.

North Portland saw the smallest decline in pending sales. There were 303 sales pending in March, down 19.4 from the prior year. Overall, there were 644 homes listed for sale in March. The median sale price of homes sold in North Portland in the first three months was $250,100.

In Clark County, there were 33.5 percent fewer pending sales in March, with 628 homes sold out of a total 1,212 listed. The median price for Clark County homes sold in the first three months was $247,400.