MetroStudy Regional Director Todd Britsch talks housing market at a Building Industry Association of Clark County dinner.
The housing market looks to continue its slowdown, though there’s no need to fear a market catastrophe, according to one regional authority on the industry.
The Building Industry Association (BIA) of Clark County hosted Todd Britsch, MetroStudy regional director for the Seattle and Portland housing markets, as part of an association dinner Jan. 19.
Although there were no earth-shattering revelations about a market collapse or oncoming housing boom, what Britsch presented nonetheless provided insight on the Portland metropolitan area and specifically how Clark County compares.
Britsch explained that the housing market for the Portland metro appears to be slowing down in 2017 from the builders’ side, though he was optimistic that it would not turn in the direction the market did before the Great Recession.
“We are just at a point where the market is leveling off,” Britsch said. “It’s not doomsday, it’s not even 2006.”
Although he said he wasn’t an economist, Britsch said the anecdotal evidence he had seen and read did not imply a similar market crash would happen, barring any catastrophe happening overseas due to prolonged economic sluggishness in the European Union.
Britsch discussed the increase in housing prices in the metro area, which in Clark County rose less than some counties but it’s becoming prohibitively expensive for your average county resident. From the first quarter of 2015 to the latest available data, the median list price for houses on the market rose $51,000 in the county, from $359,000 to $410,000. That rise is lower than the $100,000 increase in Washington County, Oregon in the same timeframe.
However, Britsch said that median household income in Clark County was about $75,000, which he said was not enough to afford the median list price homes. In comparison, the numbers for attached homes (townhomes) was $290,000, which was compatible with the median income.
Possibly as a result of the prices, Britsch said that there has been a “massive shift” recently to homebuyers looking at townhomes, far above his previous expectations. As opposed to the 20 percent increase of townhome buyers he had predicted for 2016, the increase was more like 55 percent, he said, and would likely rise.
Britsch mentioned feedback from news regarding tech companies moving into the Portland metro area and finding it more affordable than areas such as Silicon Valley.
“Yes, it’s affordable if you are making California wages,” Britsch said “We don’t provide California wages here, nor are we going to get to that place.”
Britsch has given talks at similar events in past years. BIA of Clark County President Aaron Marvin said Britsch’s analsysis was similar to his predictions in previous years.
Much of what was discussed — which ranged from vacant lot supply, migration into the state and unemployment — Marvin didn’t think would be immediately noticeable by the public at large, only the ebb and flow of house prices. He said with a market slowdown, the competitive nature of the market on the buyer’s side would likely not be the “scramble” that it has been in previous years.
Marvin thought Britsch hit pretty close to the mark when it came to looking at the market. Britsch revisited some of those predictions in his Jan. 19 talk, with probably the biggest error being an underestimation of the public’s purchase of attached homes — townhomes.
“He’s been a really accurate source, considering he is forecasting something with so many variables,” Marvin said.
