Bend's Seller's Market Starting to Show Positive Moves

To say Bend has been in a seller’s market for some time now would be an understatement. There has been so much demand in our local market that Bend single family home prices are up roughly 40% from a year ago. Much of this is spurred by this new “Zoom” generation where, thanks to the pandemic, people are realizing they don’t have to live and work in the metro areas. Instead, they can live where they want and work from home and meet with people with teleconferencing software like Zoom.

However, amidst what has seemed like an impossible situation in Bend for home buyers who have missed out writing offers on numerous homes… and still not getting any offer accepted… there are a couple signs of hope. The supply of homes in Bend is going up. And interest rates are going down.

The chart above shows the change to Bend single family homes new listings each month since January 2020.  It is encouraging to see sellers getting more comfortable putting their homes on the market. As we reported in an earlier blog this month on our Bend Oregon Real Estate - June 2021 Trends, the months of inventory, although down from a year ago, is up over the previous month to 3 weeks.  Although 3 weeks is still an extremely low amount of inventory, it is showing a positive move up from 2 weeks in May, 2021.

As for mortgage rates, they have continued their downward trend thanks to indications from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell that despite recent rises in inflation, the Central Bank would not be changing its monetary policy anytime soon. Having reached a peak of 3.18% in April, the 30 year mortgage rate fell again last week to just 2.88%. Jerome Powell also confirmed that the Fed will continue it’s 40-billion per month purchase of mortgage backed securities, which means we should see these low rates into the foreseeable future.

When interest rates lower, the purchasing power of a homebuyer increases. As the following chart shows, the lower the interest rate, the more expensive the home can be for a homebuyer with the same monthly principal and interest payment.

With an increase in inventory and lower interest rates, there are positive indicators that our frustrated homebuyers may, at last, be able to purchase a Bend home. If you were thinking of giving up your dream of homeownership, you may want to rethink it can connect back with your Bend Premier Real Estate broker and find out what is on the market today.