Single family sales slowing, prices increasing

            Let’s start with the premise that one month doesn’t a trend make.

            The recently reported $463,000 median sale price of a Bend single family home again raised the bar above the previous high point of $450,000 in January.

            But a more valid metric of the Bend market might be comparison of the first five months of 2019 with the same period of 2018.

            With that approach, Bend’s five month median in 2019 is $447,500, compared with $412,500 for 2018.. It’s still an impressive jump of 8.48% but less than the 11.57% increase from April of 2018 against the same month this year.

            The $412,500 median in 2018 represented a 7.54% increase over the same five-month period of 2017.

            Likely reflecting the whopping late February and early March snowstorms this year, the number of single family sales in Bend for the first five months of 2019 were the lowest level of the past four years. 
            Taking a longer look at the past 12 months, Bend's rolling median price as of April 30, 2019 was $433,000, up 4.97% from $412,500 for the same period of 2018.

            Going north on the Hwy 97 corridor to Redmond, the $313,500 median for five months of 2019 was 9.23% over the $287,000 in 2018.

            Together the greater Bend market, which includes outlying areas of unincorporated Tumala and Alfalfa, and Redmond, incuding Terrebonne, account for more than 75% of all sales in the regional Central Oregon market that encompasses Deschutes, Crook and Jefferson counties.

            Other points gleaned from the recent report by Beacon Appriasal, derived from the database of the Multiple Listing Service of Central Oregon:

·         Sunriver, including Sunriver, Caldera Springs and Crossweater resort properties recorded the highest median sale price at $504,000 in April.

·         The largest inventories of available single family properties in April were three months in Sisters, LaPine and Jefferson County. (all small sub-markets)

·         Bend and Redmond each had two months inventory, considered a seller’s market even though total sales have been under previous early months of the past few years.