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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Will Coronavirus Change the Central Oregon Real Estate Market?

With the outbreak of the coronavirus worldwide, which has sickened thousands and created panic and uncertainty in our stock market, we are left to question if the effects will extend to the US real estate market, and more specifically to our local Central Oregon real estate market.

Coronavirus Pushes Down Interest Rates

Mortgage Interest Rates have already fallen to new record lows (3.29% as of March 5^th) as investors are taking money out of the volatile stock market and putting it into safer US Treasury Bonds. Historically, when bonds are strong, mortgage rates go down.

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A Surprising Number of New Bend Home Sales in November

Traditionally as the weather cools and we move toward the end of the year, Bend home sales decrease. There are fewer buyers actively looking for homes in the winter and the holiday celebrations of most families impact real estate sales.

This year, however, there has been a large uptick in the number of Bend homes which went into contract during November.  When Bend single family home sales in November 2019 are compared with those from November 2018, the following changes can be noted:

• The number of homes for sale are down 10.5% to 408*
• The number of homes sold are down 1.8% to 167
• The number of homes pended are up 23.6% to 183
• The average price per square foot on sold homes is up 6.2% to $258
• The average days on market are down ....

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Permits Down for New Bend Homes

After many years of growth in new home construction in Bend, the number of permits pulled so far this year for single family homes are significantly down compared with previous years. From a high of 117 in March 2017, February 2019 had the lowest number of new home permits pulled in 4 years with less than 40.* February is typically a busy month for builders obtaining permits to build homes for summer sales.  This decline is significant as it is not following the normal trends.

Why Are Bend Builders Not Pulling Permits?

When a good analysis of Bend home trends is looked at, it becomes obvious that Bend new home construction has slowed. Many builders are sitting on inventory and while prices have continued to rise, sales have s...

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Bend New Construction 5 Year Trend

For the past few years, we have been reporting that Bend home prices have been rising. From almost no new construction during the great recession to now where it appears that new homes are being built all over town, Bend has recovered from the downturn. New home trends in Bend have gone from $430,000 to $591,000 asking price (up 37.5%) and $315,000 to $522,000 selling price (up 65.7%) over the past 5 years.*  Ask any builder and they will tell you that land prices, rising material costs and labor shortages have driven the price of Bend new homes.

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