Bend home prices finally on the upswing

Great news about your property value. Home prices in Bend rose by 13.7 percent in October from a year ago, Core Logic reported Tuesday.

That’s more than twice the national rate of 6.3 percent — which was the biggest home price rise nationally in over six years, since June 2006.

And as you might expect, more homes are popping up in several Bend neighborhoods.

“The CoreLogic report is great news for Bend in general and the housing market overall,” said Cascade Sotheby’s International Realty Principal Broker Ken Renner.

Bend’s home prices were up 1.9 percent in October from a month earlier, according to CoreLogic, a residential property information provider.

Bend’s housing market was one of the hardest hit by the recession five years ago.

It wasn’t until recently that Bend hit the bottom of the market inventory, in December 2011 and January 2012.

“We really started to see more movement and an uptick in building at that time,” Renner said. “And it’s going to continue to accelerate.”

That also means folks in the home construction business going back to work.

“Big trucks are rolling, lumber trucks are rolling — haven’t seen this in five years,” Renner said.

Renner says it’s going to take a little bit of time for builders to get more inventory and overall get the market back to a healthy level.

“We don’t want to stay at this level of low inventory, because we’ve had the reverse problem for five years,” Renner said.

“Now it’s getting hard to find buyers good quality properties in a reasonable amount of time.”

Realtors hope to see housing inventory numbers somewhere between five and seven months’ worth, which they say will give them good buyer/seller parity.

“Both sides have a really good opportunity to do what they want to do,” Renner said. “Sell at a fair price and buy at a fair price.”

With rising home prices, Bend is on the upswing. It doesn’t hurt that the city continues to get placement in national lists, such as Travel and Leisure magazine calling Bend No. 3 among the nation’s “Best Ski Towns.”

“Great news for the broader economy,” Renner said of the housing rebound. “Great news for Realtors and contractors and everybody who benefits from a strong housing market.”

Renner also said both Bend and Redmond seem to be trending on similar lines, as both housing markets seem to be improving.

Second home markets like Black Butte Ranch and Eagle Crest are trailing a little.