As of August 2026, the Portland metro housing market has cooled. Buyers closed on 1,902 homes in August, down 5.9% from August 2025, and pending sales fell 11.5%. The median sale price was $540,000, down 1.8% from a year ago. Inventory rose to 3.8 months. Through eight months, closed sales are still 3.3% ahead of 2025.
Last month we said the dip in pending sales was the one number worth watching, and that this year’s easy year-over-year comparisons were about to run out. Both of those showed up in August, and they showed up together.
The metro closed 1,902 sales in August, down 12.2% from July’s 2,167 and down 5.9% from last August’s 2,021. Pending sales, the accepted offers that turn into next month’s closings, came in at 2,013. That is 11.5% below last August and the second month in a row the year-over-year line has gone negative, and this time it went negative by a lot. July’s dip was 2%. This one you can see from across the room.
So here is the part that keeps it in perspective. Through eight months, the metro has closed 15,151 homes against 14,671 over the same stretch of 2025, still 3.3% ahead. Pending sales for the year are up 2.2% and new listings are up 0.5%. A soft August did not erase the year. It did end the streak.
Why did Portland sales slow down in August 2026?
Rates, mostly, and the plain math of what a buyer could afford this August versus last.
The 30-year fixed averaged 6.71% in Freddie Mac’s survey the first week of September, up from 6.66% the week before and up from 6.50% a year ago. That last comparison is the one that matters. For most of this year we could tell buyers that rates were roughly where they were in 2025 and the payment math had not gotten worse. That stopped being true this summer. A buyer shopping in August 2026 was working with a slightly worse payment than a buyer shopping in August 2025, and roughly 260 fewer of them said yes.
Sellers read the same room. New listings came in at 2,440, down 18.8% from July’s 3,004 and down 1.5% from last August. This is not a market where a wave of inventory arrived and swamped demand. Supply pulled back at nearly the same moment demand did, which is why the inventory number moved as little as it did.
Are Portland home prices falling?
They softened. They did not fall off.
August’s median sale price was $540,000, down 1.8% from $550,000 last August and down from July’s $555,000. Year to date the median sits at $549,000 against $550,000 a year ago, a difference of two tenths of one percent, which is the same flat line we have been reporting since spring. The smoothest measure RMLS publishes, the rolling 12-month comparison, has the average sale price up 0.2% and the median down 0.7%. Those are not the numbers of a market rolling over.
Some of August’s dip is mix rather than value. The $400,000 to $500,000 band accounted for 21.5% of August closings, up from 19.5% a year ago, while everything above $700,000 slipped from 26.8% of sales to 25.5%. When the more affordable half of the market carries more of the volume, the median drifts down even when individual homes hold their value.
Is 3.8 months of inventory a buyer’s market?
Not yet. It may feel like a buyer’s market because we’re getting closer and haven’t truly been in one for years.
Inventory rose to 3.8 months in August, up from 3.3 in July and 3.5 last August, and the highest reading since January’s 4.3. What counts as a buyer’s or seller’s market has shifted. The old answer was six months of inventory. We think it is closer to four now. Total market time was 57 days, which is actually five days faster than last August’s 62. Homes that are going under contract are still going under contract at a decent clip. There are simply fewer of them.
One footnote, because our region gets flagged for it every month: some of the metro’s active listings are new construction that is not built yet, so RMLS also reports the subset ready to buy and move into. That was 6,731 listings, 93.6% of all actives, or 3.5 months of supply. Either way you cut it, buyers have more to choose from than at any point since the new year.
We will also flag the affordability index in the report, because it is quarterly and it is now optimistic. It calculates that a household earning the area median income can cover 95% of the payment on a median-priced home, but it assumes a 6.4% rate. The actual rate this week is 6.71%. Small gap, real money.
Did every part of the metro slow down?
No, and this is the part a single metro number cannot tell you. “Portland metro” is fifteen separate submarkets reported as one, and in August they did not move together.
RMLS publishes a rolling 12-month comparison of average sale price by area, which is the cleanest way to see this because it smooths out the mix problem we just described. The table below has the full set. The range runs from Lake Oswego and West Linn at the top, up 4.4%, down to NW Washington County at the bottom, off 3.5%, and close-in Portland sits in the middle, moving only a few tenths of a percent in either direction. That is too small a move for any single homeowner to feel.
The soft spot is the west side, and it is not subtle. Beaverton and Aloha, Hillsboro and Forest Grove, the Tigard through Wilsonville corridor, and NW Washington County are four Washington County areas in a row, all down between 1.8% and 3.5%, while the Clackamas County suburbs next door held or gained. So the suburbs took the worst of August, with Lake Oswego and West Linn sitting right in the middle of them and turning in the best number in the metro. (Mt. Hood is the one worse reading on the board, but on 89 year-to-date sales it is noise more than signal.)
The practical version: if you own in Hillsboro or Tigard, a report saying metro prices are basically flat is not describing your street. If you own in NE Portland or Lake Oswego, it is selling your year short.
Worth saying plainly too, since we get asked: this report covers the RMLS Portland metro service area and nothing past it. The Clark County numbers show up on the median map but not in the detailed area tables, and they run their own race, with Central Vancouver at $412,500 and Camas and Washougal at $757,500 in the very same month. Salem and the mid-Willamette Valley are a different MLS entirely, and we publish a separate mid-valley report for that market rather than folding it into this one.
Here is where August’s median actually landed across the Oregon side of the map, alongside how each area’s average sale price over the last 12 months compares with the 12 months before it.
| Area | August 2026 median sale price | Avg. sale price, last 12 months vs prior 12 |
|---|---|---|
| Lake Oswego / West Linn | $930,000 | +4.4% |
| N. Washington Co. / Sauvie Island | $673,000 | -3.5% |
| W. Portland | $629,500 | +0.2% |
| Tigard / Tualatin / Sherwood / Wilsonville | $605,400 | -3.4% |
| Milwaukie / Clackamas / Gladstone | $560,000 | +1.0% |
| NE Portland | $553,000 | +3.5% |
| Oregon City / Canby / Molalla | $549,000 | +0.1% |
| Hillsboro / Forest Grove | $535,000 | -2.3% |
| Beaverton / Aloha | $518,500 | -1.8% |
| SE Portland | $477,500 | -0.4% |
| Gresham / Troutdale / Sandy | $470,000 | -0.2% |
| Columbia County | $470,000 | +2.6% |
| Yamhill County | $462,000 | +2.0% |
| N. Portland | $457,000 | -0.3% |
Those gaps do most of the work in a buyer’s search. A budget that buys a starter home in Lake Oswego buys considerably more house in Gresham or St. Helens, and the commute is the price of the difference. If you want the city-by-city version with live RMLS numbers, our Portland Metro Cities guide keeps a running set for the nine largest suburbs.
What does August mean if you’re buying or selling this fall?
For sellers, the pool of buyers got about 11% smaller than it was a year ago, and that changes what a stretch price costs you. It used to cost you a couple of extra weeks. Now it can cost you the fall. Homes priced to the market are still going under contract in under two months. Buyers may not be competing for your home. You are competing with the home down the street that is also for sale. The ones sitting are almost always sitting on a number rather than a flaw, and the fix is the same fix it has been all year. Price it to the buyers who exist. Where you are matters here too, because a Washington County seller and an NE Portland seller are working from opposite ends of the same report.
For buyers, this is the most room you have had since January. More listings to choose from, a median that has moved less than a percent in a year, and sellers who are starting to negotiate again. Rates near 6.7% are the cost of admission, and they are not the 5% some buyers are still waiting for, but you are no longer bidding against three other offers to find out. You should talk to your agent and lender about whether a 2:1 Buy-Down program might make sense as part of your offer.
One practical note if you are closing in the next few weeks: Oregon’s tax calendar makes September and early October closings more expensive at the settlement table, and it catches people every year. We wrote up why September closings cost more so it is not a surprise on your statement.
If you want the setup for all of this, last month’s July update called the pending-sales dip the number to watch. August is the month it stopped being a footnote.
TLDR
Portland sold fewer homes in August than it did last August. Sellers need to focus on the details and pricing. Buyers need to focus on affordability for their specific scenario. September may be soft as well but it seems like the market has been very resilient despite rocky global and national news and indicators. Improvement there may make the market pop. Maybe not.
Questions about what this means for your situation? We’re happy to walk through it.
Source: All Portland metro statistics in this post are drawn from the RMLS Market Action Report, Portland Metro, August 2026 reporting period. Mortgage rate figures are from Freddie Mac’s Primary Mortgage Market Survey as of September 3, 2026, and are subject to change.