Storms bring new snow to end drought

            Finally!

            After several weeks of a snow drought that resulted in marginal winter recreation conditions, higher elevations of Central Oregon are enjoying a series of storms bringing a foot and more of the white stuff.

            As of early Friday, Mt. Bachelor was reporting more than 20 inches at mid-mountain the past three days and 17 new inches at the base, or a total of 59 and 43 inches respectively.

            A more intense storm was expected to bring as much as a foot or more to the slopes over the weekend.

            As a result, Hoodoo ski area 25 miles west of Sisters was gearing up for its first operation of the year, having missed the important holiday period.

            At the Meissner cross country area just 15 minutes from downtown Bend, grooming had resumed after being suspended for several weeks when warmer temperatures sucked up an early season base. That was good news to the Meissner Nordic club, which had raised more than $180,000 for a new Pisten Bully groomer this year.

            For updates on snow conditions check the Mt. Bachelor ski report at:

http://www.mtbachelor.com/winter/mountain/snow_report . Meissner grooming conditions are available at  http://www.meissnernordic.org/ .

            Mountain pass reports and road alerts with web cams are available at

www.tripcheck.com. 

Bend leads way as market regains momentum

            Sales of single family homes throughout Central Oregon topped $1.3 billion in 2013, a 30% increase over 2012 volume, as gleaned from statistics available through the regional Multiple Listing Service.

            And more than 65% of the volume was in the sub-market of the greater Bend area, with $852.67 million recorded sales, a 35% jump over 2012.

            Bend also experienced the greatest drop in cumulative days on the market (CDOM), with the median time to sell a home decreasing by 23% to less than three months.

            The median price of a Bend single family home rose 22% to $281,000 at year-end, on unit sales of 2,549, an increase of 11% in number of homes sold.

            In another leading indicator of strong market activity, the supply of single family homes available for sale in Bend remained at less than three months (2.87 months), although that was an increase over the 2.10 months of inventory at the end of 2012.

            The highest median sales prices were recorded in Sunriver, $364,000, and Sisters, $352,000. But in combination those two sub-markets account for only 13% of total homes sales reported.

            Redmond, the second largest sub-market behind Bend, had 760 sales, nearly even with the 762 in 2012 at a median price of $182,500, a 30% increase over 2012.

            Other trends included:        

            As the largest regional sub-market, Bend is an early indicator of trends that may eventually been seen in other areas. 

·        The percentage of Bend new home sales, or those completed in 2013 and 2012, rose to nearly 20% in the past year. By comparison, in 2009, only 2.7% of homes sold were built in 2009 or the previous year. The number of new homes sold doubled from 2011 to 2012, when nearly 13% of sales were new homes.

·        Distressed sales have continued to decline substantially from the “bouncing on the bottom” years of 2009, 2010 and 2011, when short sales and foreclosures were more than 50% of total single family sales each year in Bend. The percentage dropped to about 37% in 2012 and less than 13% in the past year.

The chart below shows statistics for single family homes on less than an acre throughout Central Oregon: