Portland Metro Real Estate Market Update: Rates Cross 7% as Inventory Holds Near Its Peak (Week of September 29, 2026)

By Lauren Perreault, REALTOR®, Managing Principal Broker | Fiv Realty Co OR & WA

Some weeks the Portland Metro housing market whispers. This week it cleared its throat. The headline is mortgage rates: OnPoint Community Credit Union’s 30-year fixed purchase rate jumped three-eighths of a point to 7.250%, the first reading above 7% since I began tracking rates in February. At the same time, active inventory is sitting within a rounding error of the highest level in my data going back to 2021, and buyer activity — homes sold, new pending sales, and total pending deals — is running roughly 14–15% below this time last year.

That combination matters. Prices are still holding steady, but the conditions underneath them are shifting toward buyers, and the gap between homes that sell quickly and homes that sit is as wide as ever. Let’s walk through the numbers for the week of September 21–27, covering Clark County in Washington plus Multnomah, Washington, and Clackamas Counties in Oregon.

Supply: Inventory Parks Near the Top of the Range

Active listings came in at **8,646**, essentially unchanged from last week’s 8,661 (down just 0.2%). For context, last week’s number is the highest active listing count in my records, which go back to April 2021. This week is only 15 listings below it. Compared with the same week last year (8,210), inventory is up **5.3%**.

The 12-week rolling average — the tool I lean on to cut through week-to-week noise — sits at **8,470**, up about 0.8% from the 12-week average at this time last year. So inventory isn’t exploding; it has simply settled at a high plateau and stayed there.

What *is* changing is the flow of fresh listings. New listings dropped to **549**, down 19% from last week’s 681 and about 4% below the same week last year (572). The 12-week average of new listings (642) is nearly identical to last year’s (644), which tells me this week’s drop is the start of the normal fall slowdown rather than something unusual. Sellers who didn’t list over the summer are increasingly waiting for spring.

Put those together and the picture is clear: buyers have a large inventory to choose from right now, but the pipeline of brand-new options is starting to thin out, as it does every autumn.

Demand: Buyers Are Pulling Back

The demand side is where this week’s softness shows up most clearly.

• Homes sold: 447, down from 500 last week and down 14% from 520 in the same week last year.
• Total pending deals: 2,726, down from 2,777 last week and 14.5% below last year’s 3,189. That’s the lowest pending count since the week of February 8.
• New pending sales: 531, down from 560 last week and down about 15% from last year’s 623.

There was no legal holiday in this reporting window, so there’s no calendar excuse for the dip in closings. The 12-week averages tell the more reliable story: homes sold are averaging 500 per week, only 1.2% below last year’s pace, while the 12-week average for total pending (2,972) is running about 8% below last year and new pending (584) about 8% below as well.
In plain terms, closings have held up reasonably well so far because they reflect contracts written weeks ago. The contracts being written *now* are slower, which means closings will likely soften further through October.

One helpful ratio: new pending sales equaled about 97% of new listings this week (531 vs. 549). Buyers are still absorbing nearly as many homes as are coming on, but they’re not eating into the large existing inventory. Using the 12-week average of sales, I estimate about **4.0 months of supply**, compared with roughly 3.7 months at this time last year. That’s squarely in balanced-market territory, leaning a bit toward buyers.

Pricing: Steady, Not Surging

Despite softer demand, prices are holding.

• Average sale price: $622,984, down 1.7% from last week’s $633,587. The weekly source puts this essentially flat versus the same week last year ($622,962, +0.03%).
• Median sale price: $557,000, a healthy bounce of 5.7% from last week’s $527,000 and up 1.9% from the same week last year ($546,567), per the weekly source.
• Weekly prices swing with the mix of homes that happen to close, which is why I always look at the 12-week averages. The 12-week average sale price is **$635,956**, compared with **$630,659** at this time last year — up about 0.8%. The 12-week median is **$558,707**, versus $561,336 last year
• down about 0.5%. Both are within roughly 1% of last year.
• That’s the definition of a stable market. Prices aren’t falling despite higher inventory and higher rates, but they aren’t climbing either. Sellers shouldn’t expect appreciation to bail out an optimistic list price, and buyers shouldn’t expect a fire sale.

Price Reductions: Still Elevated, Bigger Cuts

Sellers made 924 price reductions over the past seven days, down slightly from 949 last week and about 1% below the same week last year (936). The 12-week average of reductions is 960, about 2% above last year’s 942.

The more telling number is the size of those cuts. 530 reductions were $15,000 or more about 57% of all reductions this week. According to the weekly source, that compares with 459 large cuts in the same week last year, an increase of roughly 15%. When more than half of all reductions are meaningful dollar amounts rather than token trims, it tells me many sellers started too high and are now correcting.

Days on Market: The Two-Speed Market Continues

This is the story I come back to every week, because it explains so much about what’s happening.

Average days on market was 68, and median days on market was 36. That’s a 32-day gap between the average and the median. The weekly source puts last year’s figures at 59 average and 39 median — so the average is slower than last year while the median is actually a bit faster.

What does that mean? The median tells you about the typical home: half of homes that sold went pending in about five weeks or less. The average gets pulled upward by a group of listings that sit for a long time. When the average climbs while the median holds or improves, the market is splitting into two lanes — a fast lane and a slow lane.

The 12-week averages confirm it. The 12-week rolling average DOM is 58.8 days, about 6 days slower than last year’s 52.8. The 12-week rolling median DOM is 27.6 days, about 1.7 days *faster* than last year’s 29.2. The two speeds are pulling apart.

Why? It’s tempting to assume expensive homes simply take longer. But when I cross-referenced RMLS area data across roughly 15 Portland Metro sub-areas, average price level and total market time showed essentially no relationship — some of the priciest areas actually sold faster than much cheaper ones. Price level alone doesn’t explain the spread. The more likely driver is pricing *relative to local market value*: homes priced right for their neighborhood and condition move in the fast lane, while homes priced above what buyers see as fair value end up in the slow lane. That’s evidence rather than proof, but it’s consistent with what I see in the field every week.

Sale-to-List: Well-Priced Homes Still Get Full Price

The sale-to-list ratios tell the same two-speed story from a different angle.

• Median sale price as a percent of asking: 101.27%, a strong rebound from last week’s 98.15% (which was the lowest reading since I began tracking this ratio in January). The weekly source shows 99.18% for the same week last year.
• Average sale price as a percent of asking: 98.99%, up from 98.61% last week (98.91% last year, per the weekly source).
• Average sale price as a percent of *original* asking: 95.44%, versus 95.32% last week (95.54% last year).

The typical home sold for slightly *above* its final list price. The average came in below the median because a group of discounted sales pulls it down. And the gap between final asking (98.99%) and original asking (95.44%) — roughly 3.5 points — is the cost of price reductions along the way. On a $600,000 list price, that’s about $21,000 left on the table by sellers who started too high.

Mortgage Rates: A Big Jump Past 7%

OnPoint’s 30-year fixed purchase rate climbed to 7.250% with 0.500 points and an APR of 7.365%, up from 6.875% (0.625 points, 6.998% APR) last week. That three-eighths-of-a-point jump ties the largest single-week move I’ve recorded since tracking began in February, when the rate was 5.625%.

To put that in real dollars: on a $450,000 loan, the principal and interest payment at 7.25% is about $3,070 per month. At last week’s 6.875% it was about $2,956 — so this week’s move alone adds about $114 a month. Compared with February’s 5.625%, the same loan costs about $480 more per month today.

The 12-week rolling average rate is 6.635%, so today’s rate sits well above the recent trend. Other OnPoint purchase products this week: the 15-year fixed at 6.750% and FHA and VA at 7.125%.

Rising rates help explain the softer pending numbers. Some buyers are recalculating their budget, and others are pausing to see whether rates come back down.

Other Indicators

• Bumpable listings: 91 (16 in Washington), down from 97 last week. These are homes under contract with a contingency that another buyer could “bump.”
• Distressed properties (REO/short sale): 118 active and 115 pending
• still a small slice of the overall market.

My Read on the Market

Here’s how I see it, bringing all the numbers together.

1. Prices are stable. The 12-week averages are within about 1% of last year. There’s no sign of a price decline, even with higher inventory and higher rates.
2. Leverage is shifting toward buyers. Near-record inventory, roughly 4 months of supply, pending sales down about 15% year over year, and rates above 7% all add up to more negotiating room for buyers — especially on homes that have been sitting.
3. The two-speed market rewards accurate pricing. The typical home still sells in about five weeks at or above asking. The homes that struggle are the ones priced above what buyers see as fair value, and they end up paying for it in time and in price cuts.

• If you’re selling: Your list price is your most important decision. The data shows that starting high typically costs about 3.5% by the time you sell. With new listings slowing into fall, a well-prepared, correctly priced home still has a real audience.
• If you’re buying: This is one of the better windows we’ve had for negotiating — longer-listed homes, seller concessions, and rate buydowns are all on the table. Talk with your lender about points versus rate, since OnPoint is quoting 0.5 points this week, and ask whether a seller credit could help buy down your rate.
• As always, a little humor helps: the market didn’t crash this week, it just put on a sweater. Fall is here, and the numbers are behaving like it.

Let’s Talk About Your Next Move

Want to know what these numbers mean for your neighborhood, your home, or your search? Read the full weekly breakdown and charts at PDXHomesforSale.com, and search live MLS listings at search.pdxhomesforsale.com.

Call or text me if you want to truly understand what is happening in the Portland Metro real estate market and how various factors influence pricing. 503-683-1885 | PDXHomesforSale.com

Exceptional Strategy, Extraordinary Results.

Lauren Perreault | REALTOR®, Managing Principal Broker | Fiv Realty Co OR & WA | Licensed in OR, WA & CA