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In a dangerous trend that could hit home across the world, potential homebuyers find themselves priced out of realty markets in Portland.
The chief culprit is reportedly the doubling of mortgage rates over the last six months.
How did we get here?A whopping 168,000 households now find homes unaffordable in the Portland Metro region.
If you take other cities like Eugene, Salem, Medford, and Bend into account, an additional 69,000 households have already been driven out from December.
💡 This works out to less than 1 out of 5 households in the area, that can afford to buy homes.
How mortgage rates are behaving
Rates have gone up to 6% from 3%, where it was resting till end-2021. Add this to price hikes and you get an increase of 40-50% in mortgage payments overall.
What could happen
📎 Lower affordability = falling demand and higher inventory.
📎 Fence-sitters will wait for rates to improve.
📎 More people could return to the rental markets again. Shortage of units in that space could be a concern, but that’s a story for another day.