Giving Thanks for...Bend, Oregon Real Estate

Now is the time of year we all pause to give thanks - Thanksgiving is only a little more than a week away! We have a lot to be thankful for here in Bend, Oregon - sunny skies, early snowfall, Mt Bachelor, beautiful landscapes and beautiful streetscapes. Many of us at The Garner Group have worked in the region's real estate industry for many years, and we're all seeing strong signs of a comeback in 2012.

We gave some statistics here that outlined all the numbers year-to-date, and we hope they made you smile. For regularly updated information, visit our Market Watch page on our website. Whether you are buying your perfect home for the holidays, or selling your home, now's the time to get involved in Bend, Oregon real estate.

Here are a couple listings that might catch your eye, and to show you the great range of properties available in our area right now.

Affordable Brand-New Construction in Bend, Oregon
Priced at $199,900 this brand-new home is designed for livability by Choice 1 Builders. It features a master suite on the main level and two bedrooms, a full bath and bonus room upstairs. Vaulted ceilings in the great room and a dormer vault in the master bedroom make for bright living spaces. 

Rare Acreage in Skyliner's Wilderness
Priced at $1.2 Million, this is an extremely rare find: 40.59 acres of pristine forest land above Tumalo Creek. This property is surrounded by Forest Zone, BLM land and adjacent to Shevlin park. CUP was previously approved for dwelling. The best of all worlds - close to town and yet completely pristine property with pine trees, manzanita and mountain views.

Contact us at The Garner Group today! We can help you find or sell your home. 

More Good News for Bend, Oregon Real Estate

We love reporting good news - and that's just what we got to do in the latest issue of our newsletter, the Central Oregon News Digest. If you don't receive it already, sign up on our website. It is full of great information each month.

We were pleased to see that on the Bend, Oregon housing front, year-to-date margins remain strong when compared to last year. The number of listings is dropping, while sales and prices continue to rise. This all equals absorption rates of 2.5 months of residential inventory, compared to 4.2 months last year at this time. See the chart below for details, and as always, contact our Bend, Oregon real estate office with any questions! 

As we reported in the newsletter, and you can see from the chart above, NorthWest Crossing "continues to exist in a world populated by faeries and unicorns, with an average sale price so far this year that is 53.2% above Bend as a whole. (Don't get us wrong--we like faeries and unicorns.)"

In addition, the Central Oregon MLS shows that figures are up with the ending of the third quarter of 2012. Compared with the first three quarters of 2011, here's how the number stack up:

Number of homes sold, 1,489, up 17.4%.

•  Average sale price, $258,511, up 9.7%.
•  Median sale price, $216,000, up 12.3%.
•  Total sale volume, $384,922,963, up 28.8%.

The number of transactions was the highest for the period in the rolling five-year MLS report. The median sale price was highest since 2008.

All this adds up to a great time to take another look at Bend, Oregon real estate. Whether you are buying or selling, now's a great time to be a home owner! 

Raising Money for American Cancer Society: 2012 Relay for Life

Now that it's been a couple of months since we participated in the amazing Central Oregon Relay for Life, we can take a moment to reflect on the event and what we were able to accomplish. Being involved together in an event like this was special for all of us, and we are glad that the money we raised will be put to good use fighting cancer.

We are pleased to announce that this year's Relay for Life raised a total of $131,777 - the most money EVER RAISED for the Relay for Life (Bend/Redmond/Sisters). Last year, the event brought in about 2/3 of that amount at $88,813. We put in a lot of hard work and we are so delighted that it paid off!

Several people in The Garner Group's Bend, Oregon real estate offices participated in the planning for the event - Sara LaFaver, our principal broker, co-chaired the event along with Phyllis Mageau; Melody Lessar was co-chair for the Luminaria fundraiser, and Colleen Horton was the food chair.

Not only were many of us involved from the beginning in bringing the event to fruition, but Erica Davis and Alison Mata - our team captains - recruited a huge team to walk during the relay. Several people from our office, friends and family, and brokers from other agencies around town all turned out to lend their support.

Want to get involved? Next year's Relay for Life is schedule for August 10, 2013.

Yes on Oregon's Measure 79!

Hello Oregon! The Garner Group and its individual agents and staff members encourage you to vote Yes on Measure 79 this November. The measure would prohibit state and local governments in Oregon from imposing real estate transfer taxes.

This is one of those ballot issues where Yes means No. Vote Yes for No Additional Taxes.

A real estate transfer tax is a sales tax on any transfer of ownership. Oregon law currently prohibits city or county governments, districts or other political subdivisions from imposing such a tax (except for Washington County, where an 0.1% tax is grandfathered in). This could be changed easily by a vote of the legislature. That is why Measure 79, an amendment to the state constitution, is so important.

As state and local budgets tighten, officials look for new sources of revenue. Legislation to reverse the current prohibition has been introduced in every regular session of the Oregon legislature since 2001. The city of Portland has listed repeal as part of its legislative agenda for 2013.

In other jurisdictions, taxes on agricultural, commercial and residential transactions typically range from 0.1% to 4.0% of the sales price. A county transfer tax of 1.0% and a city tax of 0.5% on the sale of a $200,000 home would add $3,000 to the purchase price, irrespective of profit or loss on the sale.

This is a cost burden, added to system development fees and property taxes, that could price prospective home buyers out of the market. The ripple would extend to builders, subcontractors and suppliers. This could suppress the modest but steady recovery in home building we are currently experiencing here in Bend and elsewhere in the state.

Measure 79 has been endorsed by a number of chambers of commerce and business organizations including the Oregon Assn. of Realtors, Oregon Home Builders Assn. and Oregon Farm Bureau. For more information click here: http://www.yesonmeasure79.com/

Bend, Oregon Housing Market Continuing to Strengthen

Each month, we publish the Central Oregon News Digest, which is stuffed full of all the information you need most about Bend, Oregon real estate. We're happy to say that we've had good news for the past several months about the housing market here in our home region. Most recently, in our July issue, we provided data that showed the following happy news:

• NorthWest Crossing average sale prices year-to-date were 53.9% greater than the Bend area as a whole, exactly the same percentage as last month. The number of residential sales through July 10 increased 90% over the same period in 2011.  
• New homes continue to attract buyers at increasing rates. Year to date figures show new construction represented 12.7% of home sales through July 10, up from 8.0% in the same period a year ago. (Last month the percentages were 11.9% and 7.9%, respectively.)
• The Bend residential real estate market strengthened in the first half of 2012 compared with the same period a year ago. For homes on less than one acre in the Bend area, The Central Oregon Multiple Listing Service reported a 12.6% gain in the number of residential transactions and an increase of 10.2% in the median sale price. 
• Single-family building permits issued in Bend during the first six months of 2012 surpassed the comparable 2011 figure by 71.4%, 192 to 112. First half permits were valued at $42,137,815, up 63.1% from 2011. 

This is all great news for Bend, Oregon real estate, but it's just scratching the surface. For all the details, plus helpful charts - see our complete eNewsletter. Either way - it may be just about time to start celebrating! 

New Website for Bend, Oregon real estate searches

Have you visited www.thegarnergroup.com lately? We've redesigned and relaunched with your needs in mind - it makes finding just the right property in Bend, Oregon even more simple. The site is built around an informative and user-friendly search module that makes it easy for viewers to locate and map all property for sale in Central Oregon.

You'll recognize the familiar slide show of local scenic views and events on the home page, but the Quick Search feature is brand new! Couple that with the new large buttons that connect to an advanced search, open houses, agentinformation and pages containing builder profiles and information on greenbuilding, and you have a website worth visiting! You can even sign up to receive an email message when new listings come on the market that meet your specified criteria.

As if that's not enough, you can also navigate to information about market trends, local information including an active weather report, buying and selling tips and The Garner Group’s newsletter and blog.

The search mechanism sweeps listing information from the CentralOregon Multiple Listing Service and allows you to choose criteria that will narrow the search to properties of interest. Selections display in list form or on an interactive map using Bing mapping technology. You may choose to show points of interest including schools, health care facilities and shopping venues.

“There has been a fundamental change in the way people use real estate web sites,” observed Sandy Garner, the Bend, Oregon real estate company’s president and CEO. “When our most recent site was designed, emphasis was placed on creating an attractive billboard for your business. We achieved that with some pretty advanced graphics for the time.

“Now, site visitors have made it clear that their number one priority is information about all listings in the area, To be competitive, you have to provide one-stop shopping. It’s not enough just to feature your own listings,” Garner said.

While the previous provided an MLS search, “it was pretty primitive compared with the new technology we have in place now,” Garner said. “People are a lot more tech-savvy.” The site is compatible with mobile devices, offering a simplified display that makes it easy to search and find property on the go.

The new site is hosted by Lone Wolf Real Estate Technologies Inc., a company that serves over 9,000 real estate offices in the United States and Canada with software for a variety of business functions including back office accounting, transaction and contact management, lead tracking, data storage, information sharing and web site development.

Visit us today at thegarnergroup.com!

“We have employed Lone Wolf office management products for several years,” Garner said. “They specialize exclusively in real estate and understand our business.”

Bend Oregon Real Estate Agent News

We are excited to welcome back real estate broker John Anderson to The Garner Group Real Estate in Bend, Oregon! John has been a real estate professional in Bend continuously since 2001 and was previously affiliated with The Garner Group from 2008 to 2010.

Before entering real estate for the first time in 1996 in Corvallis, Anderson was a surveyor with CH2M Hill. Anderson grew up in Klamath Falls and graduated from Oregon State University with a bachelor’s degree in agricultural science and minors in fisheries and wildlife, civil engineering and surveying. He is an avid outdoorsman and horseback rider.

In other news, Patsy Roome, a Bend Oregon real estate broker with The Garner Group has recently earned her GREEN Designation from  The National Association of REALTORS® . The Garner Group has more agents who have earned this designation than any other Bend, Oregon real estate company.

The certification by NAR’s Green Resource Council is awarded to those who complete a three-day course focusing on fundamentals of green building practices, consumer awareness and marketing of homes built to green standards. The Garner Group, which specializes in green real estate in Bend, Oregon, has several agents who hold this designation, as well as the Earth Advantage STAR designation.

The Garner Group is headquartered at 2762 NW Crossing Dr., Suite 100, in Bend, Oregon’s NorthWest Crossing neighborhood. http://www.thegarnergroup.com.