The housing picture remains mixed. Some real estate agents in Portland are reporting multiple offers on inner city homes. But the Case-Shiller Home Price Index says prices in Portland continue to drop.
Case-Shiller finds that prices in Portland dropped .3 percent between January and February. And they're down three percent over the year.
Standard and Poor's vice president, Maureen Maitland, says nine of the 20 cities she tracks hit new price lows in February.
Maitland said, "I think most people are expecting to see a bit of a turn-around and we're not seeing that yet."
She says there are several reasons: it's a seasonally weak time for sales; many cities have a large inventory of empty homes; in other places banks aren't lending much; and in still other places, the economy remains weak.
She explained, "There's definitely going to be differences across locations. In some of the markets we are hearing reports of activity and fairly decent activity. in other markets we are hearing that 75 percent of the sales are foreclosures."
Maitland says she's not surprised to hear reports of multiple offers in some areas.
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