The Bend Oregon Real Estate Market Is Seeing Signs Of Affordability

A review of the $200,000 or less price range in Bend

As of today, there are 144 stick built, single family homes in Bend available on the Central Oregon MLS for under $200,000, (excluding townhomes, condos, and manufactured homes).  The most affordable Bend home is priced at $115,000, and there are many homes available in the $150K-$175K range.  The majority of these homes are in the 1,000 sq ft- 1,700 sq ft range, but there are also a few 2,000 sq ft + homes available. 

While the Bend Oregon real estate market is seeing an increase in foreclosures, only 12 of these properties are listed as Bank Owned homes.  These foreclosures range in size, condition, and price.  In addition, 48 of the Bend homes listed in this price range are listed as Short Sales.  A short sale is when the home owners owes more on their home than they can get from the proceeds of a sale.

Currently there are 20 homes Pending Sale for less than $200,000 and 13 homes have closed escrow in the Bend real estate market in the past month in this price range.

There is a variety of affordable Bend homes for buyers to choose from.  Homes range in size, location, and age.  There are even brand new homes available for under $200K.  With interest rates on the rise, now may be the time for you to buy a home in Bend.

If you have any questions about the Central Oregon real estate market, please contact me.  You can also search for Bend homes yourself on my website.

Tags: Bend Oregon, Bend real estate, Real Estate Market, real estate // Add Comment »

The Central Oregon MLS just added the category Bank Owned to the MLS website.  This means that searching for foreclosures in Central Oregon cities will now be easier than ever.  While I haven’t found a website that allows clients to search for foreclosures on the COAR MLS, agents can now set up clients to receive foreclosure listings in their e-mail.  Clients will be e-mailed foreclosure listings as they come on the market or change price.

Currently there are 69 bank owned foreclosures on the MLS (residential only).  These foreclosures range from $109,900 to $735,000.  There are probably some listings that haven’t been added to the category yet, so this number will likely go up in the next week or so.

If you’d like to receive a list of all of the Bank Owned Foreclosures in Bend, Redmond, Sisters, Sunriver, Prineville, LaPine, Madras, or all of Central Oregon, please leave a comment below or contact me.

Tags: Bend real estate, Real Estate Market, Redmond Oregon, real estate // 5 Comments »

With most home buyers searching for homes online before they buy, real estate photography is now more important than ever.  We’ve all seen the listings online with dark, fuzzy photos.  Or how about the photos of just the bed or toilet!  These do nothing but hurt your chances of selling your home.

As a photographer and real estate broker, I’ve decided to make a list of photography tricks and tips for sellers and agents.

1. Think about the picture before you take it.  What are you trying to show in the photo?  Do you want to move or remove anything before you take it?
2. Turn on all of the lights.  Make sure all lights, lamps, and accent lights are on.
3. Use a tripod.  For those with unsteady hands, or in bad lighting conditions, use a tripod to steady your camera. 
4. Get a camera with a wide angle lens.  If you can afford it, a digital SLR is best.  But there are a few great point and shoot cameras with built in wide angle lenses.  Wide angle lenses let you show off a homes floor plan and more of bedrooms and bathrooms.  But be careful when taking photos with a wide angle lense.  Barrell distortion can occur.  To prevent barrell distortion while shooting real estate, make sure your camera is level and that all verticle walls are indeed verticle.
5. Lighting.  This is the tricky part.  Some interiors are not lit well and need some artificial light.  External flashes work great if you have an SLR.  If you’re using a Point and Shoot, be creative.  Play with your settings on your camera.  Open doors and windows to allow more light.
6. Exterior of the home.  The “front of the home” shot is the most important.  Buyers search online and see only 1 photo in their results, (the “front of home” shot).  Make this shot unique.  Try taking the photo from an elevated spot (from the back of a house or from the deck of a neighboring house).  Make this image crisp and high in contrast to grab the attention of buyers using your post processing software (such as adobe photoshop)
7. Take twice as many photos as you think you need.  Put them all on the computer and then pick the best images.
   

   Bend Real Estate - Photo By Dylan Darling

For more information on real estate photography, check out http://photographyforrealestate.net/.  It’s a great site with a lot of helpful information.

Tags: Bend Oregon, real estate // 5 Comments »

Bend Residential Real Estate Sales

As a Bend agent, the question I get  most is “How’s the market doing?”  Here are some current statistics on the Bend real estate market.

STICK-BUILT HOMES IN BEND
As of 9/29/08, on the Central Oregon MLS there are currently 1,968 stick-built residential properties available in the Bend area, and 169 homes are pending sale.  Over the past 12 months 1,238 homes have sold in the Bend area.  That’s an average of 103 a month.  At that pace, we have about 19 months of inventory in the Bend area.  However, this number will most likely change this fall.  Why?- I currently know many sellers that are selling multiple properties right now, but really they just need to sell 1 or 2.  Most likely many of these sellers will rent out their remaining properties and take them off the market.  Also, many properties currently listed are up for rent as well.  Most likely those properties will rent first and be taken off the market.

Here’s a graph showing the DOM, (days on market), for SOLD stick-built homes in the Bend area.

As you can see, most homes sold in the Bend real estate market were on the market for more than 120 days.  Sellers- Be patient and price your home right.  It may take some time, but with the right price and appropriate advertising your home can sell in today’s market.  107 homes have sold in Bend in the past 30 days ranging from $127,050 - $1,700,000.

A Quick Look at the Redmond Real Estate Market

Searching the same criteria as above, the Redmond real estate market shows 787 active stick-built homes on the market.  76 homes are currently pending sale in Redmond and 468 homes have sold in the past year.  In the past 30 days, 41 homes have sold in Redmond.

The Bratton report should be out in early October and I’ll give you an update on the entire Central Oregon real estate market at that time.   If you have something to contribute, or a question about the current real estate market feel free to comment below!

Tags: Bend Oregon, Real Estate Market, Redmond Oregon, real estate // 5 Comments »

Million Dollar+ Homes are selling in Central Oregon

With sales down in 2008, luxury homes are still selling.  In the past year to date, 86 homes have sold for more than 1 million dollars on the Central Oregon MLS.  This number is down from 134 sales from the previous calendar year, and 115 sales in the same time period of 05-06.  But 86 is still an impressive number for our market conditions.  This means that people with money are still moving to the area, and hopefully they’ll park some of their cash in our local economy.

In addition to the 86 sold homes, there are 11 homes in the same price range pending sale.  These homes pending sale range from $1.225 mil - $2.750 mil.   And currently there are 396 homes listed for $1,000,000 or more with our MLS.  The most expensive home is currently at $8,490,000.  The property is a new 22,500 sq ft estate in Powell Butte, just east of Bend. 

With 396 properties to choose from, now may be a good time for luxury home buyers to strike a great deal on a $1mil+ property in the Central Oregon real estate market.

Tags: Bend real estate, Real Estate Market, Redmond Oregon, real estate // 5 Comments »

Westside Bend Real Estate

 The Downtown and Westside areas of Bend Oregon offer homeowners a unique living experience.  The west side of Bend is desirable for home owners for a variety of reasons. 

• The Deschutes river- The Deschutes flows through the west side and downtown Bend.  The river has a bike/walking path along most of the river, and has many parks along its banks.
• Convenient Location-  Many areas on the west side of Bend are within walking distance to Downtown, Shopping, and a variety of Restaurants.
• Recreation-Recreation can be found within minutes of homes on the west side of Bend.  Whether you like Mt. Biking, Fishing, Hiking, Golfing, or Skiing, this area offers all of these activities within a short drive from home.
• Old Growth-You’ll find an abundance of old Ponderosa Pine trees on Bend’s west side.  While there are some newer subdivisions, the “old” west side is mostly older homes on beautiful lots with mature landscaping.
• Cascade Mountains- Many homes on this side of Bend have fantastic views of the Cascade Mountains.

If you’re planning a trip to Bend, make sure to take a drive around the Downtown and West Side areas.  If you have any questions about the area, please contact me.

Tags: Bend Oregon, Westside Bend, real estate // 3 Comments »

Are all Central Oregon MLS search pages equal?

This morning I was checking the ranking of my website in Google and noticed the Bulletin’s BendHomes.com site.  When I clicked the link I came to a search page.  The page is pretty simple and allows the users to search all Central Oregon real estate listings, just classified listings, or just Realtor listings.  It doesn’t actually say “search the MLS”, but the Google link I clicked says “MLS and Classified listings”

So I ran a Realtors search to see how the results came up.  Hmm… First thing I noticed is the small amount of listings that the search returned.  The next thing that I noticed was that the “featured agent’s” listings were first on all of the results pages.  Which is fine by me.  I searched through the results and realized that my listings were no where to be found.  I ran a couple more searches, still none of my listings in the results.

After searching for a while I came to the advertising page for Bend Homes.com.  I read about how they charge a monthly fee for Bend real estate brokers to be listed on their “Realtor Search”.  I’m fine with this as well.  But what I don’t like is that the site is not disclosing to consumers that not all Realtor’s listings will appear in the results.  I say this because the Bulletin has linked the site around the internet as a MLS search, when in fact its not.  Here’s an example of one of there links-
MLS Search | Bend / Central Oregon Multiple Listing ServiceProperty and Housing Search | Bendhomes.com.
This listing was found at http://www.business.com under Oregon Multiple Listing Services

Other Bend MLS Searches

I’m not sure how or why they’re doing this.  My own Bend real estate search page, (and every other agents), includes all results from the MLS.  Individual agents “Search the MLS” pages are required to have “listing courtesy of” the listing broker, but will only show the contact info for the agent who owns the site. Realtor.com also shows all COAR listings in their results and shows the actual listing agents contact info. 

I like the Bulletin and have advertised with them in the past, but I think they need to ad a disclaimer to their search.

Tags: Bend Oregon, Real Estate Market, real estate // 5 Comments »

While showing homes lately, I’ve been amazed by how many home owners haven’t winterized their homes yet.

1. Make sure to cover your Foundation Vents.  If you don’t have foundation vent covers, you can pick them up at your local hardware store.  This will help keep your home warm and your pipes from freezing.  Make sure to remove the vents in the spring to allow airflow throughout the crawl space to dry up any leftover winter moisture.
2. Clean your rain gutters out!  Snow eventually melts into your gutters.  Make sure they’re clean to allow them to work like they’re supposed to.
3. When you leave town, make sure that your heat is set at 50 degrees or greater.  I’ve shown too many homes over the years that have been freezing.  At 50, your pipes shouldn’t freeze.  I had a listing in Bend a couple of years ago where the owners were trying to save a few bucks on their heating bill.  The result was thousands of dollars in damage from a broken pipe.
4. Check your furnace and/or fireplace.  Make sure to change your filters in your furnaces.  Have the furnace checked by a certified inspector to ensure its in working order.  If you have a wood-stove or fireplace, make sure to have your chimney swept before the first use.
5. Check all exterior doors and windows for leaks.  Install new weather stripping if needed.  Having all exterior doors and windows sealed properly can save you bundles on your heating bill.
6. Make sure to test all smoke alarms and replace if necessary. 

More winterization tips from MSN.

Follow these tips to make sure that your Bend home ready for winter.

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