“Start the year off right . .”

We finally got some snow, a bunch of it– 132 inches to be exact at Mt. Bachelor for the month. Spirits were high! And, borrowing the immortal words from Neal Sedaka, we all hoped January would “start the year off right” for Bend real estate.

Well, I guess it sort of happened–we saw pending sales up 37% from December (to 177), but sales were down to just 135 (off 35%) . Median price hung pretty steady at just a bit below $450,000. Homes continued to sell at 96% of original list price.

Inventory Woes Worsen

We whined last month . . . complaining that there were just 321 homes on the market (single family residential on less than an acre); the second lowest total in seven years! I don’t even know what to say about January . . . in my 20 years of doing real estate in Bend, I’ve never seen a number like this.

Just 271 homes on the market–that’s down 17.5% from last month. What a great time to be a seller (as long as you have someplace else to move)!

Affordable Bend . . . $226,000

The most affordable home purchased in the new decade was this “amazing development opportunity” (surely, a euphemism for something); a 2/1, 912 square foot home sold “as is.”

Must have been a pretty good deal, as the home (one of only four last month that went for less than $300,000) closed in just 28 days at 105% of list ($247 per square foot).

The east side location wasn’t bad either; actually it was pretty primo–sort of midway between Sweetheart Donuts and the Third Street Pub.

A little sad to look back to 2002, when the home sold for $119,000 and looked like this.

Bend’s Median . . . $447,000

Nope, not a Palisch Home this month. Instead, a 3/2.5, 2325 square foot Woodhill Home in Eagle’s Landing, near Mountain View Park on Bend’s far east side.

Tons of windows gave the home a light and bright feel. The nice layout offered an office, a den, an awesome cook’s kitchen, organized garage, spacious pantry, open dining room and a fun covered patio. I’ll take it!

The home sold in 160 days at $192 per square foot.

East side west side comparison of median prices:

East side     $385,495

West side    $600,000

Wow!

High End Bend . . . $1,900,000

Well, after a month’s respite, it’s back to boring old Tetherow again. Reality is that the three most expensive purchases for January were all there. Pretty impressive!

The big winner was a new home in the Tartan Druim neighborhood . . . for which the seller did not authorize photos. So we’ll just skip that one.

The runner up was this 3/3.5, 4538 square foot Pac West custom, featuring golf course an Cascade Mountain views.

Originally offered at $2.38M, the home languished on the market for 536 days and finally sold at $1.9M or $419 per square foot.

Despite our current lack of inventory, it’s not really unusual for luxury homes in this price range to chalk up lots of days on the market.

Looking Ahead

Short a black swan event (coronavirus) or global disaster (Australian bush fires), we can expect a continuation of current trends in looking ahead at our Bend market:

• Shortage of inventory (at present, just 2.1 months available overall)
• Record low interest rates (3.7 percent?)
• Slight rise in prices (median sales price rose 5.7% in 2019)
• Slowing of sales (sales were down 4.7% from 2018 to 2019)