Bend’s median home price hit record $418,000 in 2017

Bend gets much of the attention when it comes to rising home prices, having hit a record median sale price of $418,000 in 20017. But over the past three years, Redmond’s home sale prices actually have risen more than Bend’s, up 52 percent, compared to 39 percent for its larger neighbor to the south, according to the year-end report from Redmond-based Beacon Appraisal Group.

Beacon residential appraiser Donnie Montagner also looked back over the Bend housing market of the past 20 years and said “considering the time value of the dollar, I calculated an approximate 6.25 percent annual increase since 1997, between $116,500 in January 1997 and $395,000 in December 2017.”

Montagner said one of his office’s appraisers was in Florida over Christmas break and was asked when the Bend real estate market will collapse.

“No doubt Bend is on the national map,” Montagner wrote Friday. “In my opinion, aside from a significant crisis, similar to the savings and loan and more recent sub-prime mortgage crises, our market will continue to produce well.”

Inventory levels remain low, he said, standing at around two months in both Redmond and Redmond.

“Central Oregon is still a great place to live, and demand remains strong,” Montagner wrote.

According to MLS data, Bend’s median home sale price dropped from that August record peak of $418,000 to $390,000 by November and rose a bit, to $395,000 in December, a $40,000 increase from the end of 2016.

Redmond’s home-sale median price dipped from a near-record $305,000 in November to $287,000 in December, though that’s still up about $20,000 from a year earlier.

Elsewhere in the region, the Sisters median home sales price stood at $365,000 as 2017 ended, while it stood at $454,000 in Sunriver and $218,000 in La Pine. The median for Jefferson County and Crooked River Ranch was at $208,000, while Crook County’s median home sales price stood at $205,000.