(excerpt from “Bend becoming unaffordable as hot-and-cold housing market rises again” by Luke Hammill, Oregonian, October 19, 2015
Boom and bust
Prices in Bend and Redmond, according to Zillow, have again increased faster than in any other cities in Oregon since bottoming out in the recession. Bend values have surged by 58 percent, to a median price of $321,500. In Redmond – long Bend’s more affordable neighbor – values have skyrocketed 77 percent.
At the same time, Bend’s population is growing faster, at more than 3 percent annually, than any other of Oregon’s eight largest cities, a recently released Census Bureau report showed.
So Portland isn’t the only place experiencing a flood of migrants.
“I’m working with so many people from the Bay Area, it’s not even funny,” said Danielle Snow, a broker for John L. Scott Real Estate who has sold in Bend for nine years. About 80 percent of Snow’s sales these days, she said, are all-cash offers.
One of Snow’s listings on Northwest Mount Washington Drive, a 1,455-square-foot home in the Northwest Crossing neighborhood, sold to an all-cash buyer after a week on the market. The house has three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a backyard and a garage.
The home exemplifies Bend’s boom-and-bust cycle. Built in 2006 at the high point of the bubble, it sold when new for $436,000, according to Zillow. The lender foreclosed on the property three years later, and eventually resold it after it lost nearly half its value. Fast forward to 2015, and the recent sale price was $440,000, reflecting Bend’s rebound.
The sellers, a couple with another residence in Florida, parlayed that into a townhome on nearby Northwest Locke Court, according to Snow. That house was also on the market for a single week and sold for $375,000.
