Now Serving Duke Warner Market Trends Report for Bend, Oregon Residential Properties October 2012

You have heard recently many times how tight the inventory for home in Bend has become. This is best illustrated when you compare the year to year numbers. When comparing the year to year Duke Warner Market Trends Reports it appears that we maintained a relatively stable number of listings until July when Oregon Senate Bill 1552, a bill that provides distressed homeowners the opportunity for mediation with their lender was enacted. About this same time the effects of a February $25 billion settlement with the big five mortgage servicers over a lawsuit for wide spread mortgage fraud started to kick in along with a Oregon Circuit Court ruling that lenders were required to provide the trail of deed recordings for each tranching of a mortgage.


As mentioned above starting in July our inventory of active listings had dropped by 127 over the previous year. This trend has remained increasingly consistent each of the following months. This month we dropped 217 listings below last year’s number for October.

Contributing to the drop in available inventory has been our strong sales numbers this year, in every month excepting January there has been positive gains in our unit sales numbers as well as dollar volume.

The tight inventory has created is what several of my colleagues have referred to as a micro bubble. As you have heard me mention in previous blogs the current market has many homes, especially the ones that are competitively priced, receiving multiple offers driving up the price of these homes. By no means is this similar to the previous bubbles price run up of 2004-2007. It is a small recovery from a precipice fall of the previous bubble market.

What this means for you if you are a homeowner wishing to sell, strike while the iron is hot! With interest rates remaining low for the near future and well into the next year the amount of willing buyers will remain strong. Competition for the better homes that are priced well will also remain strong. I would anticipate that come late next spring we will see a return to our local real estate market of the homeowners who have sat on the sidelines waiting for the recovery to near its completion. It remains to be seen when that day will come but people are going to see opportunities to get the fairest price for their homes in quite some time and will want to move forward. As these homes return to the market look for an increase in the traditional inventory.

Bolstering the traditional inventory this coming spring will be the number of homes available through the short sale process. In a recent Bank of America seminar their representatives shared that short sales will be the big fives preferred method of disposing of distressed properties. Short selling distressed properties will help them avoid the lengthy, messy and complicated world of judicial foreclosures. At this point their strategy has yet to affect our local market as the number of actively listed homes available as short sales sits at 29, with 47 other listings having offers on them but the sellers are accepting back up offers. These numbers are way off the peak when it was not uncommon to have 60 – 100 homes available through the short sale process.

There is much to consider before jumping in to the market these days. If you are looking for a broker who can represent you in either a traditional or distressed sale, contact me I would be glad to assist you in making an informed decision on what is the best path for you.