When comparing Bend Real Estate trends from 2005 with those of 2015, we are seeing significant increases in home prices, a serious lack of inventory (especially in the lower end), and many homes for sale receiving multiple offers. The MLS Trend report from June 2015 shows that this imbalance of supply/demand in the market has resulted in an increase of about 22% in the average price per square foot of Bend single family homes between 2005 and 2015.

So what is different in the conditions now versus the bubble of 2005/2006? During the Bend housing bubble, lending practices were designed to provide loans to the maximum number of people. No doc loans were common and buyers could even finance their down payment. Buyers often flipped properties they had just closed on as the demand for these properties continued to escalate and values continued to climb. These practices were unsustainable, however, and the crash happened when over extended homeowner...

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Seems Bend makes about every retirement "Best Places" list, including the annual "Top 100 Places to Retire" recently released for 2015 by TopRetirements.com. Specifically, Bend is recognized as being a great place to retire for "active adults where the outdoors is important". Some of the great features of Bend pointed out in the TopRetirements.com list include a beautiful natural setting, tons of parks and recreational trails, a thriving downtown, endless cultural activities including the Bend Film Festival, many performing arts centers such as the Les Schwab Amphitheater and Tower Theater, continuing educational opportunities with a community and a four-year college, a diversity of housing options including numerous active retirement centers, top notch medical facilities, and a moderate climate.

What doesn't TopRetirements.com like about Bend as a top retirement community? Not much…...

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Lack of Inventory Impacting Bend Home Prices

The Bend Oregon Real Estate market continues to be tight as the 1^st quarter 2015 data continues to show an extreme lack of inventory and rising prices for single family homes in Bend. The average price per square foot of single family homes has increased 12% over the same time last year with the average sold price up 19.3%. Buyers are still looking and offering creating a scenario in which there are only 1.7 months of Bend homes for sale in all price points.

This lack of inventory has resulted in multiple offers on available homes and extreme frustration for buyers who don't have their offer accepted even when they offer over asking price. Based upon available land to build on and the current issues with the City of Bend struggling to get permission to expand the urban growth boundary, it doesn't appear that this situation o...

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Great to be a Seller in Bend Oregon

You hear realtors say "We are in a buyer's market" or "We are in a seller's market", but what does that mean? What realtors are typically looking at when they determine this is - How many months of housing inventory do we have? The different types of markets are...

 Buyer's Market - More than 6 months worth of inventory.

Balanced Market - About 6 months worth of inventory.

Seller's Market - Less than 6 months worth of inventory. 

Bend real estate looks to continue being a " seller's market" for 2015 with currently only 3.6 months of inventory based on closed sales. That means if no more homes were to be put up for sale, we only have 3.6 mo...

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Two major economic indicators, the percentage of distressed sales and the level of cash home buyers, continue to trend toward a more normalized housing market nationally – a trend we are also seeing in the Bend real estate market as well. This week CoreLogic reported a reduction in the level of foreclosed homes at the end of 2014 to be just 552,000, down from 840,000 at the end of 2013 (34.3 % reduction). This continues the streak of reduction of foreclosed homes inventory to 38 months in a row. Also, the percentage of cash buyers in the market continues to decline from its peak, where just four years ago one out of every two homes was purchased by a cash buyer. Cash sales at the end of 2014 now make up just 36% of all home sales… a favorable trend, but still quite a bit higher than the pre-2006 rates below 20%. The reasons given by CoreLogic for the number of cash buyers still being high are 1) a higher level of discretionary income among investors,...

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