There are more homes on the market for potential Bend home buyers to choose from than there were at the same time last year. With more inventory, there has been more motivation for sellers to negotiate price and terms with buyers. This in turn has resulted in homes selling for less than asking price, often after price reductions, in order to generate offers. While the overall sales price is up slightly over the same time last year, the months of supply is up over 11%.
When the data from November 2024 for Bend single family home sales on less than an acre is compared with those from November 2023, the following changes can be seen:
The trend seen over the past four months changed in October when year over year Bend home prices rose rather than fell. Both average and median Bend single family home sales prices were up, perhaps a reflection of lower interest rates seen in September which enabled more home buyers to purchase higher priced homes or an unusual anomaly which was reflected with a large number of million dollar plus homes (over 35% of total home sales) closing. Typically in the fall,
For the 4th week in a row, the thirty year mortgage interest rate has risen which has impacted real estate sales across the country. With these rates now pushing 7%, the buying power of Bend homebuyers has diminished.
With this change, few sellers are putting their homes of the market. Why sell a home with a great interest rate when the replacement home will cost so much more to finance? Both Bend home buyers and Bend home sellers are making decisions based on the cost to finance and when mortgage rates rise, often the decision made is to do nothing.
Although there is always a downward seasonal adjustment for Bend home sales in the winter, the number...