May 2026 Market Update: Yamhill County and Its Neighbors, Side by Side
If you take one thing from this month's numbers, let it be this: "the market" is not one thing. It is a collection of smaller markets sitting right next to each other, and in May they were not all moving the same direction. A few miles can be the difference between homes flying off the shelf and homes sitting.
Here is what I am seeing across Yamhill County and the Portland-side suburbs that a lot of my clients ask me about, pulled from the May RMLS Market Action Report.
The big picture first
Across the Portland metro, pending sales (homes that went under contract) rose 6.1% compared to May of last year, and closed sales were up 1.7%. New listings were down 11.1% from a year ago, so sellers are still cautious about coming to market. Inventory sat at 3.2 months, and the typical home went under contract in about 57 days. The metro median sale price for May was $560,000.
That is the backdrop. Now here is how it actually breaks down close to home.
Yamhill County: a strong May, on top of a quieter year
Yamhill had a busy month. 93 homes closed in May, the median sale price was $485,000, and the typical home went pending in about 63 days. Pending sales jumped 20.7% compared to May of last year, which tells me buyer demand showed up this spring.
I want to be straight about that 20.7%, though, because one month can be misleading. Year to date, Yamhill pending sales are actually down about 2.7% from where we were at this point last year. So the honest read is not "the market is on fire." It is "after a slower start to 2026, May was a genuinely strong month." For a buyer or seller, that distinction matters. Demand is here right now, but it is not a frenzy, and well-priced homes are still the ones that move.
One quick note on pricing. You will see the average sale price for Yamhill quoted at $516,800, which is higher than the $485,000 median I mentioned. Both are real. The median is the better number for most people because it describes the typical home. The average runs higher because a handful of higher-end wine-country and acreage sales pull it up. If your home is in the heart of the market, the median is your truer reference point.
The Portland-side suburbs: same metro, very different months
This is where the "many markets" idea really shows up. Here are three areas a lot of my clients are watching, side by side.
Median prices from the RMLS May 2026 median sale price map. The Tigard/Wilsonville median reflects the broader Tigard, Tualatin, Sherwood, and Wilsonville area.
A few things stand out to me.
Beaverton and Aloha are quietly heating up. Pending sales rose 18.6% in May, and unlike Yamhill, that strength holds up over the whole year, with pending sales up 10.7% year to date. That is real, sustained demand, not a one-month blip.
Tigard and Wilsonville is the steady, higher-priced part of the picture. It carries the highest median of this group at $599,000, and homes there went pending fastest, in about 56 days. Activity was essentially flat year over year, which for a pricier area in this rate environment is a perfectly healthy place to be.
Hillsboro and Forest Grove had the headline that looks scary and mostly is not. Pending sales fell 14.4% compared to last May. But step back and the year-to-date number is actually up 1.0%. So this reads as one soft month inside an otherwise stable year, not a market in decline.
And notice the days-to-pending column. The story that homes everywhere on the Portland side are flying compared to Yamhill does not really hold. Market time across all four areas runs from the mid 50s to the high 60s. Nobody is sitting dramatically longer than anyone else right now.
What this means if you are buying
You have a little more room than the headlines suggest. Inventory across the metro is the healthiest it has been in a while, and homes are taking around two months to go under contract, which means you usually have time to think rather than firing off an offer in a panic. Where you are looking matters, though. In a steadier area like Tigard or Wilsonville you may face more competition for the right home than you would a town over.
What this means if you are selling
Pricing is doing almost all of the work this spring. In every one of these areas, the homes that are priced to the current market are the ones going pending, and the ones reaching for last year's prices are the ones sitting. A strong month like Yamhill's May does not change that. If anything, it rewards sellers who price honestly and punishes the ones who do not.
Rates and affordability
Rates are part of why the market feels measured rather than frantic. The 30-year fixed is sitting around 6.54% as of mid-June, which is actually near its lowest level in a month. Not the 5s a lot of people are waiting for, but steadier than last summer, and steadiness is its own kind of good news when you are trying to plan.
For context on affordability, RMLS notes that a family earning the area's median income can currently afford about 98% of the payment on a median-priced metro home, based on a 20% down payment. That figure assumes a slightly lower rate than today's and is updated only quarterly, so treat it as a directional read rather than a precise one, but it tells you affordability is close to balanced rather than badly out of reach.
The bottom line
May was a good month locally, the Portland-side suburbs are each telling their own story, and pricing remains the single biggest lever in every one of them. If you are wondering what your specific home or neighborhood is doing, that is exactly the conversation I am always happy to have. Reach out any time.
