Marion & Polk County Market Report - August 2026

Willamette Valley MLS residential closings in Marion and Polk County, August 1–31, 2026

Asking prices tell you what sellers hope for. Closed sales tell you what buyers actually paid. This snapshot covers every residential closing recorded in Marion and Polk County during August 2026 — 329 homes from Keizer to Woodburn to Dallas — so you can see what homes here really sold for, how close to asking they landed, and how long it took.

August 2026 at a Glance

Total sold volume for the month was $163.8 million. The average closing came in at $497,764, or about $288 per square foot, and the average home that closed had been listed at $502,682 — meaning the typical seller ended up within about one percent of their final asking price. Half of all homes sold within 73 days; the average was pulled up to 89 by a handful of listings that sat for a year or more.

That list-to-sale number is the headline. At 99% on average and a 100% median, Salem-area sellers are getting very close to what they ask — and in two parts of the market they're getting more. This is a noticeably firmer market than what we're seeing on the coast, where August closings averaged around 96% of list.

Keizer, Salem's Four Quadrants, and the Outlying Towns

The Salem area isn't one market. Here's how we break it out, using the Willamette Valley MLS area boundaries:

Keizer — the city of Keizer.
NE / Central Salem — downtown, the Grant, NEN, and Highland neighborhoods, and the suburban east side north of State Street.
SE Salem — the suburban east side south of State Street plus Southeast Salem (SESNA, Morningside, Fairview and the Battle Creek corridor).
South Salem — Sunnyslope, Faye Wright, Candalaria, Croisan Creek, and south along Liberty and Skyline.
West Salem — everything across the river in Polk County.
Outlying Marion & Polk — Silverton, Stayton, Woodburn, Turner, Aumsville, Mt. Angel, Dallas, Monmouth, Independence, and the rural areas in between.

A few things stand out. SE Salem was the busiest part of the city with 82 closings — more than double any other quadrant — and it did it at a middle-of-the-road $441,000 median. South Salem is where the money is: a $557,000 median and nothing closing under $385,000. NE and Central Salem remain the most affordable way into the city at a $400,000 median, and they moved the fastest of any group at 58 days. West Salem was the slow spot — 93 days at the median and 102 on average, the longest in the metro — but the homes that did close there averaged 101% of list, so buyers weren't getting a discount for the wait. Keizer also cleared above asking at 101%, on a quick 60-day median. And the outlying towns did more than a third of the county's business (116 sales, $61 million) at the highest price per square foot in the region, thanks to the acreage and newer construction in Silverton, Dallas, and Stayton.

Notable August Sales

Top of the market — $1,255,000, SE Salem. The region's highest close was a 2006-built 4-bedroom on Rambeau Lane with 4,491 square feet on 2.28 acres — country living inside the SE Salem area boundary. It took 181 days to find its buyer and recorded on the last day of the month.

NE / Central Salem's top sale — $1,250,000. A 3-bedroom, 2,998-square-foot home on Poinsettia Street sitting on just over nine acres in the suburban east side, closed after 138 days.

South Salem's top sale — $1,050,000. A 4-bedroom, 2,875-square-foot 1996 home on Deerfield Drive that closed in 73 days — tied for the fastest of any seven-figure sale in the region this month.

Outlying Marion & Polk's top sale — $1,248,000, Mt. Angel. A 1920 farmhouse on Dominic Road with 73.6 acres — the land was the story, not the house. Two more seven-figure acreage sales followed close behind: $1,140,000 on Molalla Road outside Woodburn (7.1 acres) and $1,100,000 on James Howe Road outside Dallas (a 2021 build on 9.75 acres).

Bottom of the market — $157,500, West Salem. A 687-square-foot 1940 cottage on Ruge Street, closed in 45 days. It's the outlier that drags West Salem's average down, and one more reason the median is the number to watch.

Six closings topped $1,000,000 in August — one each in SE Salem, NE/Central Salem, and South Salem, and three in the outlying areas. Almost all of them came with acreage.

What This Means If You're Selling

The Salem area is still a market where correctly priced homes sell at or near asking — and in Keizer and West Salem, above it. But the spread between the median (73 days) and the average (89) tells you there's a long tail of listings that sat for months, and the 482-day maximum shows what happens to a home that never gets priced to the market. If you're within striking distance of your neighborhood's median and your home shows well, you can expect a full-price result. If you've been listed more than 60 days without an offer, price is almost always the reason.

What This Means If You're Buying

Don't expect much of a discount off list price anywhere in the metro — the average buyer paid 99% of asking, and in Keizer and West Salem paid a touch over it, which means multiple-offer situations are still happening on the right homes. Your leverage in this market is time and selection, not price: West Salem's longer days on market give you room to be patient, and the outlying towns have the widest range of inventory. If budget is the constraint, NE and Central Salem still offer the most house for the money inside the city, with a median nearly $60,000 below the region as a whole.

Want to Know Where Your Home Stands?

These are region-wide numbers. Your neighborhood, your street, your condition and your price point all move the needle. If you'd like a no-pressure look at what homes like yours actually closed for this summer — not what they were listed for — reach out to Realty ONE Group Willamette Valley and we'll pull the comps for you.

Request Your Home's Market Position

Source: Willamette Valley MLS residential closed sales, Marion and Polk County, Oregon (WVMLS areas 10–60, 90 and 95), closing dates 8/1/2026–8/31/2026. Sample: 329 closings, $163,764,657 total sold volume. Includes single-family, condominium, townhome and manufactured-on-land homes in the Residential class; excludes bare land, multifamily, and manufactured homes on leased land. List-to-sale ratio is measured against final list price. Information deemed reliable but not guaranteed. Prepared by Ty Hildebrand, Realty ONE Group Willamette Valley.