January 2023

Well, the Bend weather in January was almost as cold as the market (or maybe it’s the other way around).

Whatever the case, as predicted, January was one to forget. We saw the purchase of just 83 homes (single family residential on less than an acre). That’s two consecutive months of less than 100 sales. Prior to December and January, we hadn’t seen a month of less than 100 sales since January of 2008. Kinda scary!

Inventory remained remarkably low . . . just one month available overall (as we’ve pointed out many times, 6 months of inventory is considered a “balanced market”). Median price bumped a bit to $689,000 (it was $678,000 last month). Average days on market increased also, to 36–the highest number since the start of the pandemic.

As perhaps expected, 31% of purchases were cash transactions; 18% of all sales were for more than one million dollars.

The photos of Mt. Bachelor are just a therapeutic, non real estate effort to make me (and everyone else) feel better. The skiing/riding has been fantastic!

Tetherow . . . $3,842,240

I think I’m going to change the name of this portion of the newsletter . . . “Luxury Bend” or “High End Bend” are no longer applicable. Instead, we’ll just call it “Tetherow.” For it seems that every month is the same (almost) with the most expensive sale coming from this community on Bend’s far west side (as a quick and meaningless aside, I was the first salesperson at Tetherow in January of 2007. Look where it got me!).

The big winner for the month was new construction; a four bedroom, six bath, 5363 square foot (4887 square foot main house, an ADU of 476 square feet) in the Tartan Druim neighborhood. We really don’t have much more info on this fine home, as MLS remarks were limited to “For comps only.” It did go for $713 per foot though.

Interestingly (and further backing up my section title), the second most expensive sale was a neighbor–another home on Cartwright Court in Tetherow–that sold for $2,971,199 (or $716 per foot).

Bend’s Median . . . $689,900

The median price held pretty steady.

For January, it was more new construction. Also pretty obvious that the listing agent had never heard of “chatGPT.” But then again, who am I? Certainly not the grammar police.

The 3/3, 2010 square foot cottage in Pahlisch’s new community at Petrosa featured a primary bedroom on the main level, an open plan with vaulted ceiling, and a cozy fireplace. The kitchen offered quartz counter tops and stainless appliances; not bad at $343 per square foot.

By summer, Petrosa residents should also have full access to private community recreational facilities–swimming pools, parks, green spaces, paved walking paths, and even a fancy commercial plaza.

As always, a comparison of median prices on the two sides of Bend:

West side   $1,075,000

East side    $572,500

Affordable Bend . . . $320,000

I caught a little flack for titling this section “Slumming It” in a previous post . . . another feeble attempt at humor. We’ll stick with “Affordable Bend.”

This one was a bit unusual–a zero lot line home in Stratford Park.

Certainly a home  for railroad aficionados . . . just a hop, a skip, and a very short jump to the tracks (click on the photo!)

and to Kiwanis Park.

The 2/2, 1000 square foot home (the only one to sell for less than $400,000 in January) featured a small open plan and a good-sized primary (not master!) suite.

It closed at $25,000 below list in 48 days (at $320/foot).

Looking Ahead

Always a tough call . . . but I think the pain will continue for another month or two. Pending sales in January were not strong (only 86), and interest rates (bumping to 6.4% last week) continue to keep many of us shackled.

On a more positive note, as the weather improves and thoughts turn to spring, we should see a substantial increase in available inventory levels, thus giving buyers more opportunities. Appropriately priced and unique properties will continue to sell quickly. And should interest rates drop to the 4.5% range, we’ll see a flurry of sales.

Locally, in the short term, I believe we’ll see another month of sub 100 sales. I’d also anticipate a hefty drop in our median sale price (maybe even  below $600,000) as buyers scramble to lower priced properties in an effort to mitigate interest rate concerns.