Affordable Housing an Issue with Both Aspen Colorado and Bend Oregon

The question of affordability of housing in Bend has been around for quite some time with many jokingly asking the question “is Bend becoming the next Aspen?” Now granted Bend is a much bigger city than Aspen, and the average home price in Aspen is much higher, but there are some striking similarities between the two places when you look at these four leading indicators:

•       Listing inventory is down dramatically in both locations with Aspen homes for sale ↓ 34% to 371 homes, while Bend homes for sale is ↓ 84.1% to only 89 homes.*
•       Average days on market in Aspen is actually up↑ 16% to 208 days, while in Bend we are ↓ 86.2% to historic lows of just 12 days.
•       Average sales price in Aspen is ↓ 10% to still an impressive $3,673,560, while in Bend our sales price is ↑28.2% to $666,293.
•       The number of new listings in Aspen is actually ↑ 32% to 46, while in Bend we saw our new listings ↓ over 12% to 135.

The statistics above in many ways show the Aspen real estate market as starting to soften, especially in terms of the average sales price of homes where Bend is seeing a sharp increase. And where Aspen shows more of a balanced market with 208 days of inventory, Bend’s inventory of only 12 days indicates a highly unbalanced market in favor of sellers. So yes… Bend is in many ways becoming the next Aspen except in one category: The average home price in Aspen is still considerably higher at over $3.6 million as compared to Bend’s average home price of $666,293.

*Sources:  LogicMLS, Aspen and Central Oregon MLS from January, 2021.