Published October 18, 2026 in Market Update

One part of North Portland / St. Johns is still moving fast

By Tony Apa

Real estate, North Portland / St. Johns

Realtor.com counted 31.3% of Portland metro listings with a price cut in September 2026. That number sounds rough. But it does not describe every street in North Portland / St. Johns. One ZIP code here is moving at a pace that broad metro headlines miss entirely.

ZIP 97217: the tightest pocket in the area

The Real Estate Data Aggregator tracked the three months ending August 31, 2026 in ZIP 97217. The median home sold in 14 days. Nearly half of all homes, 44.7%, sold above list price. The average sale came in at 101.4% of list. Those are not soft-market numbers.

Nearly half of 97217 homes went under contract within two weeks of listing, the Real Estate Data Aggregator found. That share rose 3.4 points from the same period a year before. Sellers in this ZIP are not waiting long.

ZIP 97203: steady, not slow

The Real Estate Data Aggregator counted 121 homes sold in ZIP 97203 in the three months ending August 31, 2026. That is up 15.2% from a year before. Median days on market were 20, two days shorter than the year before. The median sale price was $447,500, down 6.8% from a year ago. Sales volume is growing even as prices have pulled back a little.

ZIP 97231: a different story

ZIP 97231 reads differently. The Real Estate Data Aggregator counted 13 homes sold there in the three months ending August 31, 2026, down 18.8% from a year before. Median days on market were 34, three days longer than the year before. Months of supply hit 11.1, up 3.4 months from a year ago. Only 16.7% of homes went under contract within two weeks. This part of the market is slower, and the numbers show it.

What the wider market is doing

Realtor.com reported that mortgage rates topped 7% in September 2026. Nationally, the Federal Housing Finance Agency said U.S. home prices rose 2.6% from July 2025 to July 2026. Those are real headwinds. But in ZIP 97217, local demand pushed past them. Context matters.

Across all three ZIPs together, the Real Estate Data Aggregator counted 293 homes sold in the three months ending August 31, 2026. That is up 9.7% from a year before. Pending sales across the area rose 3.8% in the same period. The area as a whole is not stalling, even if one ZIP is slower than the others.

One street can read very differently from the ZIP code around it. If your home is in North Portland / St. Johns, the numbers above are a starting point, not the whole picture.