Bend Home Sales and Central Oregon Spring Weather
Typical Central Oregon weather . . . we’ve gone from winter to spring
and back to winter again.
The Bend real estate market seems to have gone through similar moods and vacillations this first quarter of 2010. There have been moments of hope and optimism (CNN.Money . . . Bend Oregon Appreciation) balanced by the fear and despair (Bend Oregon Price Drop Leads Nation) of a continuing downward spiral. Ironically, like the weather in Central Oregon, the the housing market in Bend has experienced these conflicting emotions in a very narrow time frame . . . things seem to change almost daily.
Home Sales in Bend Oregon
We’ve seen robust sales activity over the last three months. In Bend alone, 353 homes have sold.
That’s up almost 53% over the figures from a year ago (230 sales). Inventory of homes for sale in Bend has likewise dropped dramatically down 46% from the first quarter of 20o9. Those numbers appear pretty healthy when we consider that just a year ago we had over 1400 homes (or 22 months of inventory) on the market. Presently, we have just 5.2 months of supply . . . sounds encouraging again!
Distressed Property in Bend
Just when we start to get a bit excited about all this activity, we have to pause and take a deeper look at what is actually happening. What is the driving force? We see that 228 of these sales, or almost exactly 65% of them, are short sales or bank-owned properties.
A little rain on our parade perhaps?
What Lies Ahead?
There are a couple of indicators that still point to a rather lethargic recovery for our real estate market here in Central Oregon. First is our continued high unemployment rate. At last tally, it remained a hefty 13.4% (down slightly from the last report). The second factor is the is the continuing flow of Notices of Default in Deschutes County (considered by most to be the first step in the foreclosure process). For the first quarter we saw a rather astounding 1090 NOD’s (a year ago, for the same period, the number was “only” 827); an increase of 32%. For the immediate future, we are assured a continuing supply of distressed inventory, thus putting a damper on increased pricing.
