What a difference a month makes.

New numbers from the Real Estate Multiple Listing Service, or RMLS, show that there were more homes for sale in June in the Portland metro area than there have been at just about any point since June of 2020. The number of listings shot up from 2,782 in May to 4,109 in June, a rise that’s truly notable when you consider just how little inventory has been available in these parts for the past two years.

So what’s changed? If you said the Federal Reserve’s recent hike of interest rates in a bid to curb inflation—making it considerably more expensive to get a mortgage—congratulations! And with the Fed poised to raise rates even further, we could be headed towards an inflection point, tipping over into a buyers’ market after a long, long run for Portland-area sellers.

Not yet though. Even with the recorded jump in inventory, the market here has been so tight for so long that there were still only 1.4 months worth of homes on the market in June. A truly healthy, balanced market has at least a six-month supply.

There are signs, however, that buyers are getting a little choosier, particularly in some corners of the metro area. Keep an eye on the pending closures number, in particular: the RMLS numbers show that it fell nearly 18 percent from May to June of this year.

What of prices? The median sale price in the metro area overall took a tiny but real dip in June from $575,000 the previous month to $570,000. It’s not a lot, but if these trends continue, buyers might see bigger dips coming down the pike.

Still, inventory remains tight enough that houses aren’t sitting on the market long, particularly in hot areas, like Tigard/Wilsonville, where homes spent an average of just nine days on the market before selling in June, the least amount of time spent on market in the metro area last month, per the RMLS numbers.

This month, we’re zeroing in on Portland proper, to game out where there are the most homes to buy, where you'll need to move fastest if you're interested in making an offer and where to find a bargain (maybe).

If you’re looking to buy in North Portland, know that the quadrant has perennially low inventory—just 402 homes were on the market there in June, per RMLS. There were only 107 pending sales there last month, a drop of almost 41 percent from the same time last year. As you might expect, the homes that are there go quickly, within 16 days, making this one of the city’s quickest moving quadrants. The average sale price here in June was $551,600, and there’s been a 7.3 percent jump in average sale prices year over year.

There’s more to buy in Northeast Portland; 811 listings in June, according to the RMLS numbers. Pending sales are dropping there too, though not as quickly as for their neighbors in North Portland; RMLS says June figures were down 23.8 percent there from the previous month, for a total of 243 pending sales. Just like in North Portland, things move quickly, with homes here moving on and off the market in an average of 17 days. Prices are higher here, given the concentration of well-heeled neighborhoods like Alameda-Beaumont, Irvington, and Laurelhurst: the average sale price in June was $620,800, the highest on the east side by a long shot.

There’s even more on the market in sprawling Southeast Portland: 1,020 listings in June, according to the RMLS numbers. And just like the other east side markets, this portion of the city saw a nosedive in the number of pending sales in June (down 28.8 percent from the previous month), though it’s still a sellers’ market, judging by how fast homes are moving on and off the market (16 days, keeping pace with North Portland.) Southeast Portland, it’s worth noting, has seen the biggest year-over-year price appreciation, with the average sale price there ($554,800) up 10 percent since this time last year.

The RMLS numbers group together all the disparate markets on the west side of the river into one giant West Portland overview. Accordingly, here’s where you’ll find the most homes for sale in the metro area (1,150 listings in June, says RMLS). Buyers here have a little more time to make up their minds, as the average amount of time on the market jumps to 25 days. But thanks to the presence of view-filled, leafy neighborhoods in the West Hills, the average sale prices here are the highest in the city, at $774,600 in June, a jump of 8.1 percent from this time last year.