Affordable Housing an Issue with Both Aspen Colorado and Bend Oregon

The question of affordability of housing in Bend has been around for quite some time with many jokingly asking the question "is Bend becoming the next Aspen?" Now granted Bend is a much bigger city than Aspen, and the average home price in Aspen is much higher, but there are some striking similarities between the two places when you look at these four leading indicators:

•       Listing inventory is down dramatically in both locations with Aspen homes for sale ↓ 34% to 371 homes, while Bend homes for sale is ↓ 84.1% to only 89 homes.*
•       Average days on market in Aspen is actually up↑ 16% to 208 days, while in Bend we are ↓ 86.2% to historic lows of just 12 days.
•       Average sales price in Aspen is ↓ 10% to still an impressive $3,673,560, while in Bend our sales price is ↑28.2% to $666,293.
•       The number of new listings in...

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January 2021 Bend Real Estate Sales Continue 2020 Trends

If we were to use one phrase to summarize January 2021's Bend single family home sales on less than an acre, it would be "more of the same." The 2020 Bend home sale trends since getting over the initial shock of the Covid-19 pandemic have been monumental and the start in 2021 appears to be continuing the movement.

However, there is one "more of the same" comment that needs to be made when looking a sales trends. According to the Beacon Appraisal Group report, both Bend and Redmond have once again set new record high sales prices. For January 2021, Bend reached a new high median sales price of $577,500 while Redmond reached a high median sales price of $377,000. For Bend, this is $20,000 over the last record set in October of 2020, with gains once again blamed on extremely tight inventory levels.

When January of 2021 is compared with January 2020 for Bend single family home...

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2020 Had Unexpected Results for Bend Real Estate Sales

Who would have thought when 2020 began that we would be hit with a world wide pandemic, recession, work from home orders, and a Bend real estate market that was unprecedented in its volume of sales, increase in home prices and lack of inventory.

When 2020 is compared with 2019, the following reflects the sales of Bend Oregon single family homes on less than an acre:

• Average home price up 15% to $611,764*
• Median home price up 11.6% to $502,000
• New listings down 3% to 2623
• Number of homes for sale down 32% to 552
• Pending sales up 21.2% to 2838
• Sold homes up 10.9% to 2596
• Median days on market down 52.2% to 11
• Months of supply down 35.7% to 2.7 
• Average price per square foot up 10.2% to $291
• Median price per square foot up 10.3% to $268
• Average percentage of list price received up 1% to 99.9%

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Bend Oregon New Home Prices Expected to Rise

The demand for Bend Oregon housing over the past year has broken records. With less than a month supply of single family homes for sale, builders have been working hard to bring new product onto the market. However, the demand has not kept up with the supply and more and more buyers are not able to purchase a home they can afford.

Besides the changes that great demand has made to Bend new home prices, there is another important issue connected with housing affordability - the price of lumber. Since the beginning of the pandemic in March when lumber prices dropped initially, the price of lumber has climbed at a tremendous rate, reaching a high of almost $1000 per thousand board feet in September before prices dropped in October. However, with decent weather and great demand, builders continue to build into the late fall and lumber prices are rising again. Traditionally lumber pri...

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Bend Home Prices Up And Inventory Levels Down

The Bend real estate trends continued their 2020 pattern in November with prices up significantly over November 2019 and the inventory of available single family homes for sale down. The demand for Bend housing sometimes appears desperate with multiple offers the norm on most new listings and most buyers disappointed as their "highest and best" offer isn't sufficient to "win the home." 

Comparing November 2020 with November 2019 sales for Bend single family homes on less than an acre, the following trends can be seen:

• Average sales price up 23.2% to $640,366*
• Median sales price up 24% to $537,000
• New listings down 6% to 126
• Homes for sale down 80.7% to 144
• Pending sales up 96.5% to 336
• Sold homes up 22.9% to 209
• Median days on market down 81.8% to 6
• Months of supply down 84.6% to 2.5 weeks
• Average price per square foot up 18.8% to $316
• Median price per square foot up 18.8% to $297
• Average percentage of list price to sales price up 1.8% to 100.8%
• Dollar volume of closed sales up 51.4% to $133,836,432

More Bend Home Sales Happening Than New Listings Coming Onboard

As has been the case all year, almost every month of 2020 has seen more sales of Bend homes than new listings entering the market. The data shows November had only 2.5 weeks of inventory for Bend homes - a balanced real estate market has 6 months of inventory. With people still moving to Bend, the demand for homes continues to be strong. Within Bend Premier Real Estate, our brokers are finding more and more buyers are willing to look outside of Bend for homes they can afford and can have success in making an offer that is accepted. Prineville is becoming a great option to buyers looking to move to Central Oregon.

* Data from Central Oregon MLS