Hello June, how about some rain?

June the last month of spring and the herald of summer. It's here, it's live, it's right now. But the elephant in the room cannot be ignored. My rain bucket and every other rain gauge in the Portland Metro Area was bone dry last month. It was dry even by JULY standards! I measured a sparse 0.12 inches of precipitation all in scattered shower form. My 16 year average for May is 3.25 inches. Holy Arizona Batman, we're turning into a desert! Well this is the driest May in some 80 years. But the real story isn't just the anomalous May, but this whole year is well under average precipitation. Since the start of the year, I have accumulated 12.62 inches of precipitation including the water content of nearly 9 inches of snowfall. That is on HALF of the established normal for the first five months of the year. I am actually hoping for a soggy June. I didn't want to say the "D" word yet, but if June doesn't produce some above average rainfall, drought isn't far off.

I had 22 sunny or mostly sunny days, just ONE day with any "real" rain, the 10th had 0.07 inches, light showers at worst. We really need some rain my friends, and that is not something we generally have to ask for in these parts.

So was May filled with warm and hot days to compliment the desert dry conditions? Well... not really. There was the warmest day of the year thus far on May 14th when the merc popped out an 87.1° which was one of four 80 plus days. Nary a 90 in sight however. Both the average low and high temp came in about 3 degrees warmer than my 16 year average for May at 50.75° and 71.61° respectively. That is "warm" but there was no major heatwave or extended period of super warm temps. Other than the lack of water falling from the sky and the generally sunny conditions, this was a typical May with some cool days, some average days, and a few really warm days. I think the 3 degree pop was likely due to the outrageous amount of solar warming we got. May is typically a cloudy month with a couple of sunny days, this last month was Southern California sunny. It isn't much of a stretch to say that sunny days tend to warm up more than cloudy ones in late spring.

The warmest overnight low came in on the 24th with a July like low of 57° and the chilliest afternoon was May Day with a nippy 57.9° high. There was really only one morning that was genuinely chilly for late spring, May 2nd barely stayed out of the 30s with a 40.1° low reading. The last 30 days of the month all had no problem getting into the 60s. Nearly half of the month managed to stay above 50° all day and night.

So the outlook for June and Portland's Rose Festival seems to look good with mostly warm and dry conditions. I wouldn't count out a soaking rain sometime in June. We have a reputation to uphold here, and we need to temper the flow of Californians moving to region with some 'disturbing' late spring rainfall ;)





 

Hello May, What Have You for US?

May is a month that traditionally produces strong results in the local Real estate market. I wonder what she has in store for us this year? The MLS data still shows a rather slow production of new listings and the buyer pool seems to be about the same as last year maybe a little less as the rates are creeping up.

Many agents are hoping for more listings to appear, but be careful what you wish for. A few more would be nice but this market is more precariously perched than it may seem. The tight inventory makes it feel like it is a strong seller's market. In reality rising rates are biting into the buyer pool and a blitz of inventory could cause a flat line on pricing. We don't need that either. A continuing erosion in the buyer pool along with continued tight inventory should lead to more modest appreciation which is more healthy than giant gains in home prices.

I wouldn't mind seeing a tad more inventory as finding homes can be a nightmare. But watch the rates. They are still relatively low, but many buyers have been spoiled by a decade of crazy low rates and things are normalizing. Rates at 6% is a normal and typically healthy thing and we should be there in the next 12-18 months.

So hopefully May will bring us a slight perk in the inventory allowing those frustrated buyers a chance to find something. Sellers should be mindful of the potential for a price slowdown and cautious when considering offers. Sometimes the proverbial bird in your hand is really better than two in the bush.

I feel like May will produce roughly the same number of new listings as last year and the pool of buyers will get just a tad thinner. That should lead us closer to the scenario many analysts are predicting, modest price growth of 4-6% fro 2018.