Hello World, New Foundations Property Management here commenting on a recent article in the Medford Oregon Mail Tribune which discusses the recent Southern Oregon MLS sales statistics. They go out of their way to mention that some of the Medford Oregon surrounding areas existing and new home sales have increased for the last 3 months compared to 1 year ago, which I guess is somewhat nice to hear. Of course, the title of the article is “County’s median home price continues to sag”…so at least Greg Stiles, the article author understands that overall we continue to drop home prices and that that surrounding areas IS NOT some kind of sign that we are on the way out, because we are not.

So back to article real quick before I move on about housing prices. The southern Oregon MLS statistics (by the way the southernoregonmls.com website is painfully slow…save yourself the time and just read the Medford Tribune article) show that Eagle Point, Shady Cove and Gold Hill are increasing in price compared to last year for the 3 month period between Sept 1 to Nov 30. I really wonder why this is. Hmm, OK my brain hurts now and I have no idea other than the dams being take down somehow having an effect on the opportunity for tourism in those areas…who knows on that one.

And believe me, this is still good news for real estate investors. This means that there is still time to buy buy buy. Because I think most savy rela estate investors understand too that, the person that can gobble up the most real estate during this opportune time, will come out a winner when the market again starts its long journey of increasing prices again. And I have already heard it from many people: “Do you really think the real estate market will come back from this?”. Of course it will. There is only 1 thing that IS predictable about the real estate market, is that it is cyclical in nature and will come back.

There are so many things to consider when you look at a real estate market…And by the way, the below allows one to virtually cherry pick and predict exactly what the market will do.

1. Affordability index ratio. This is the percentage of people over the age of 18 in a city that can afford the median home price with their given household income. Somewhat tougher to find this out for a given small metro area like Medford, but possible. When the affordability index drops below 17% for any area, foreclosures are sure to start increasing.
2. Net Migration rate. Are people moving in or out of an area? And what is the trend on that rate, increasing/declining?
3. Mortgage interest rates. Are the interest rates high or low?
4. Unemployment Rate. Again you need to look at trends here.

The cool thing is that all of this stuff above repeats itself, every time the market goes through a cycle.

You want to know something else…the future economic indicator of the Medford Real Estate market will be the southern California Market. Just keep your eyes open to what goes on down there, because within 6 months to 2 years the same thing will happen here, just maybe not as elastic.

If and when you do decide to buy your Medford Oregon and surrounding area rentals, let Shelly manage them for you. We are real estate investors as well and take property management very seriously with respect to your return on investment and monthly cash flow.

Hope ya’ll can have fun with these facts, pretty eye opening when you know what goes into the market.

Patrick & Shelly Rogers
New Foundations Property Management