Ashland, OR

Karen Cooper - OR/CA Mortgage Consultant - www.Quality4Loans.com
Providing high Quality, Professional, Ethical service to Oregon and California home buyers and owners since 1983. Whether you are taking out your first home loan or your fiftieth, for your home, your second home or for investment, put my knowledge and expertise to work for you.

I love the phrase that Mark Twain popularised. "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." I believe The Southern Oregon Multiple Listing service truly does their best to keep the stats as accurate as possible. But things can get a bit skewed without anyone trying. Also not having all the information can distort statistics. One statistic comes to mind (not included in the attached statistics) is the percentage of "Final Sales Price" compared to the "Listing Price". For example the average in Ashland right now is 94%. I have noticed that these percentages don't take into account prior "Price Reductions". So the 94% of asking price might actually look like 85% if you took into account the price reductions prior to that home recieving an offer.

Statistics can be diificult to interpret so give me a quick call if you ever have questions about these monthly statisics. (541) 301-7295. I plan to post these stats every month as soon as they become available. May 2009 Sales statistics

The other stat I see in here that might look a bit funny is on the second page bottom "All Homes on Market". It shows all the active listings for May 2009 compared to May 2008. The "Northwest Medford" is a new catagory so it looks like the homes listed increased by 522%. So thats skewed... The more information you have the better off you are when looking at any statistics.

Cheers, Chris

There are currently 315 houses listed for sale in Ashland.

There are 35 pending sales, and 26 places sold last month.

This roughly shows a 10 month supply of inventory in Ashland.

With every set of statisics I run or receive there is always good news....and there is always some bad news. That is the nature of real estate. What is good for sellers, is not necessarily good for buyers...and vice versa.

That being said...it appears that we are approaching a point in the market where the two may be getting close to meeting...where there is a balance in the market, and neither the seller, nor the buyer has the convincing upper hand. That point is if we hit a point where there is about 6 months of housing supply at the current rate of sales and listings.

We are getting there. It looks right now like there may be about a 8 month supply (down from 14).

• Sales by volume are up by 30% over this time last year (county wide)
• Sales by volume in Ashland are up 35%
• Median prices are down across the region to appoximately 2004 prices
• Listing volume is down 27% from this time last year
• Listing volume in Ashland is down 35%
• REO/Short sales account for 17% of all listings
• REO/Short sales account for 47.5% of all sales
• Last month REO/Short sales accounted for 18% of all listings

The whole chart with all areas should be published tomorrow in the Mail Tribune.

One of the many amazing community programs the Rotary Club of Ashland Oregon has is the sponsorship of inbound and outbound youth exchange students. The community support that has gone in to this amazing life experience the participating foreign exchange students have is truly incredible, from the families that house them to the schools that teach them. For each incoming exchange student, three Host families step up to the plate and give the student a home during their stay here, sharing themselves, their homes, family and friends with these students.

The Rotary Club of Ashland's inbound student this year (2008-2009) is Nacho from Argentina who arrived at Rogue Valley International Airport in August. The Rotary Club of Ashland has two outbound students through the Rotary Youth Exchange Program next year (2009-2010), and will therefore be spoonsorign two inbound students. This past weekend, our family had the pleasure of spending the day on Howard Prairie Lake with Nacho from Argentina, and with Coco who will be traveling to the Czech Republic later this year. Spending the day with these young gentlemen was a delight, and we had a great time fishing, picnicking and enjoying their company.

The Rotary Club of Ashland has arranged for 4 of the 6 Host families needed for the 2009-2010 inbound youth exchange students that will be arriving this year from Finland and from Taiwan. If you would live in Ashland Oregon and would like to apply to be a host family for one of these students, please contact Roy Cooper of Superior Windows & Doors who is the Inbound Youth Exchange committee chair for the Rotary Club of Ashland.

See you out there!

Karen Cooper - OR/CA Mortgage Consultant - www.Quality4Loans.com