It’s not exactly a seismic market
shift. In fact, looking at a chart it might take a magnifying glass to detect
any movement.
Yet, in a Bend and Central Oregon
real estate environment, where most change has been steadily rising housing
prices, even the slight shift to more homes available for sale was notable.
Until the numbers for July were
tabulated, actively listed homes in Bend had been stuck at inventory levels of 0.2
to 0.3 fractions of a month. Then, according the Beacon Report, by Beacon
Appraisal, inventory ticked up to an entire month, the first time at that level
since July of 2020 as the pandemic unrest infected and spread across the housing
industry.
From the end of July 2020 the
inventory dropped steadily to a low of only 0.3 months in December and January,
0.4 months in February, then has stumbled up the availability chart to July of
this year.
The monthly median price for 246 Bend home sales in July was $650,000, up from the 247 sales at a median of $640,000 the previous months.
One metric that bears watching is the continuing growth of listings at more than $1 million. As of month-end July there were 58 listings agove the arbitrary “luxury” benchmark, comprising more than 26% of the total 221 listings. Another 17 homes were listed agove $900,000.
But a few random checks of high-end listings in Bend’s more expensive west side of the Deschutes River shows, albeit anecodotally, that sellers and listing agents may be responding to a cooling of the superheated buying binge that Bend and elswhere have experienced.
As one example, the price of a West Hills home initially listed at $1.3 million on July 12 was dropped $130,000 to $1.170 million less than a month later on August 10.
Another home in the Heights of Bend neighborhood on the east side of Awbrey Butte was initially listed at $929,000 June 11 and went to a pending sale June 27. However, the sale did not go through and the property came back on the market July 7 at $929,000, $20,000 below the original price.
Among a number of factors facing the Bend market, and others nationally, is concern over a resurgence of the pandemic, which could have a contrary effect on real estate unlike the generally recognized stimulus the virus provided in the past 18 or more months. What was a buying frenzy may now have been braked by prices having reached perhaps unsustainable levels that outstrip buyer financial capability or interest.
More veteran market observers recall a smaller boom that occurred after 9-11, 2001, terrorist attacks spurred buying outside more populated areas. That effect was boosted in large part by easy lending standards that eventually contributed to loan defaults and what has been termed, “The Great Recession,” of the early decade of the new century.
This time around real estate has been intertwined with a continued economic recovery that has run with few interruptions for over a decade, accompanied by low unemployment, robust corporate earnings and a long bull run of the stock market.
