NorthWest Crossing: New homes revive a popular neighborhood

            Over on Bend’s west side activity in one master-planned neighborhood  is showing that quality homes priced right in an attractive location may be the formula for stablizing the local real estate market.

A home home under construction in 2010

            Existing home sales in Brooks Resources’ NorthWest Crossing have been strong in 2010 and early 2011. But even more impressive is the number of newly-built homes that are attracting buyers—with many going into sales contracts before they are ready for occupancy.

            From January 2010 through late March 2011 were 42 single family sales, or pending transactions, of homes built in 2010 and 2011 as recorded on the Central Oregon MLS for NorthWest Crossing. The new homes, at a median price of $397,516 for closed sales, acccounted for more than 75% of the 74 sales or pending sales in the same period, at a median of $381,500. The activity in newly-built homes may signal a slow but remarkable turnaround considering that construction had virtually ground to a halt in 2008, leaving some lots with foundations poured but standing dormant.

            The early success of NorthWest Crossing and the signs of a possible recovery there, albeit gradual, could turn in large part on Brooks’ reputation for quality projects achieved through many years.
            Among features contributing to the appeal of NorthWest Crossing is its master-planned concept with a retail village; adjacent commercial center; elementary school and parks; and a west-side location within easy access to hiking and biking trails.


View to retail village

           The company grew out of the former Brooks-Scanlon logging and milling operation on the Deschutes River in Bend. The mill site has evolved into the mixed-use Old Mill District, built by another developer.

            In the 1970s the Brooks real estate group turned former timberland west of Sisters into Black Butte Ranch, one of the region’s first residential and resort communities created around golf courses and other recreation amenities.

Similar to the broader Bend housing market, median prices at NorthWest Crossing had peaked for the full year 2006, at a robust if in retrospect unsustainable $575,000, compared to $352,500 for all sales. By the end of 2010 median prices for the neighborhood were off more than 34% to $377,000 from the 2006 peak, a big drop but less than the 45% decline throughout the Bend area.

Also consistent with the broader market—including Bend and its nearby unincorporated areas—the number of NorthWest Crossing homes sold had peaked a year earlier in 2005 at 84 closings, but dropped by 57% to 38 in 2006 even as median prices continued to rise. The market shift was underway as prices peaked but the number of sales sagged.

Reflecting the overall market NorthWest Crossing hasn’t been immune to foreclosures and short sales, but to a lesser extent.  While distressed property sales in the past three years have comprised more than 55% of the larger single family market, they’ve accounted for only 20% in Northwest Crossing.

Before the notorious mix of economic factors slammed local and national housing markets, bare lots in NorthWest Crossing had been reserved by the developer to give first choice to its approved “builders guild” contractors.

Lot sales have also been indicative of the neighborhood’s challenges in the up and down cycle of the past decade. With its growing popularity over a six-year period buyers readily stepped forward to absorb new homes and there were only two bare lot sales recorded on the Central Oregon MLS during that period.

Then in 2007 Brooks Resources released some of its developer inventory and cash-strapped builders also put lots they had bought on the market. The result was 11 lot sales at a median price of $170,000, a trend that has continued from 2008 through 2010 as another 98 lots sold with the median price declining steadily to $99,000 in 2010.

But the declining ground costs has caught the eye of several builders, who along with their architects have redesigned homes to mirror market demand. Smaller homes, with the median size hovering around 2,000 square feet, have been more common with new construction in 2010 and 2011. But the “craftsman and Prairie-style” for which NorthWest Crossing is well-known continues as the signature design in the neighborhood.



NorthWest Crossing site plan (click to enlage)