Single-family home prices stabilize in Bend

Sellers today cannot expect to sell their homes in under about a month. Nor should they expect multiple offers, like they may have received during the height of the market boom from June 2020 through 2022. Then, a single-family home in Bend sold in about four days. It took 36 days in January, said Donnie Montagner, owner of Beacon Appraisal Group in Redmond.

The industry standard nationwide is about a six-month supply of homes for sale to create a balanced market. In Bend that tends to be about three to four months, Montagner said.

“Even with the market softening, we’re seeing a depletion of inventory,” Montagner said. “Bend is a desirable area, and people are still moving here. But there may be a lag before we see any results from events like rising interest rates. With low inventory, it’s still a positive real estate market.”

These kinds of market conditions make Redmond a better value, said Danielle Snow, John L. Scott Real Estate principal broker.

During the height of the COVID-19, single-family homes in Bend increased in value 10% to 20%, Snow said. In Redmond, while prices still increased, it was a slower, more typical rate.

“The biggest problem with this kind of market is we need first-time homebuyers to buy first-time home sellers’ homes so the sellers can move up,” Snow said. “That market seems to be hurting, that midrange market. Higher interest rates are affecting this group.”

Since March, the Fed raised federal funds rates eight times as a way to curb inflation that developed after COVID-19.

According to the Beacon Report, the median sales price in January in Bend was $685,000. For comparison, the median single-family sales price was $240,000 in 2014, said Montagner. The winter months have typically been a slow period for Central Oregon real estate, he said.

In January there were 188 single-family homes listed for sale, compared to 486 listings in January 2014 when the region was emerging from the Great Recession, Montagner said.

In Redmond, the median single-family home sold for $420,000 in January, a smidge less than the $425,000 median price in December. That price is up significantly over January 2020 when the median single-family home price was $330,000.

Looking back, the median single family home price in Redmond in January 2014 was $158,000 and homes were on the market an average of 101 days in Redmond during the same period, according to the report.

There were 35 sales in Redmond in January, compared to 71 in the same period of 2020, according to the data. The average market time was 42 days in Redmond in January, compared to a low of about four days from January through August 2021, according to the data.

“Things have cooled off,” Snow said. “The amount of time on the market is more normal. The best bang or your buck is in Redmond. You have a better value in Redmond.”

Snow said that buyers should still make offers even if they’re not close to the asking price. All it takes to make a sale is the right buyer and seller combination.

In Sunriver the median price of a single-family home was $930,000 in January, compared to $1.1 million in December. Sunriver has a one-month supply of homes on the market.

In La Pine, the median price of a single family home in January was $380,000, about $10,000 less than what it was the month before, according to the report. During both January and December there was a four-month supply of single-family homes on the market.

And in Sisters, the median single-family home price was $555,000 in January, compared to $650,000 in December. That area has about a two-month supply of homes on the market, according to the report.