Risk Vs. Reward: The Value of Buying a Home in Today's Economy

Originally published in the Real Estate section of The Bulletin, Bend, Oregon's newspaper, earlier this month, this excerpt from an article by our own David Pease gives some insight into making the decision to buy a home. 

Prospective buyers who are waiting for prices to bottom out should consider the possibility of rising interest rates... those who wait until they feel prices have reached the absolute bottom may see their bargains disappear if mortgage interest rates fluctuate upward, as many industry observers predict they will.

“Predicting the bottom of the market is like reading tea leaves,” observed Sandy Garner, CEO of The Garner Group Real Estate in Bend, Oregon. “From what we see in terms of low inventories and absorption rates, we are at or close to a bottom by any workable definition.”

Absorption rates are “inside baseball” in the real estate community, but they are a useful way to measure the market. They calculate how long it would take to sell existing inventory based on the number of sales and homes on the market. Simplified, they show 4.8 months of inventory for June in the Bend, Oregon residential real estate market. The most recent high was 6.3 months in August, 2010.

“In the real estate business, anything under six months is considered a seller’s market,” Garner said. Rates are based on Central Oregon MLS Listing statistics.

Look for more from this article on Bend, Oregon real estate in upcoming posts! 

Pending Home Sales Rise in June - Bend, Oregon Real Estate Trends

According to the National Association of Realtors (NAR), pending home sales in June have risen by a couple percentage points - with largest increases in the West (yep - Bend, Oregon!) and South. All regions are showing significant gains over last year at this time. 


In the article, which was posted yesterday, the NAR says that the Pending Home Sales Index,* a forward-looking indicator based on contract signings, rose 2.4 percent to 90.9 in June from 88.8 in May and is 19.8 percent above the 75.9 reading in June 2010, which was the low point immediately following expiration of the home buyer tax credit. The data reflects contracts but not closings.


We're keeping a close eye on the statistics and trends across the country, and are hopeful that trends in Bend, Oregon real estate will continue to rise!


For the complete article, and video, click here.  

COBA Tour of Homes in Bend, Oregon

With the first weekend of the 2011 Central Oregon Builders Association Tour of Homes under our belts, we're looking forward to next weekend in the Bend, Oregon real estate market! Our agents are in homes all around Bend, including NorthWest Crossing, ready to show you what our beautiful town has to offer. 


Check out our website to see all the homes that are open during the tour. In Bend, Oregon's NorthWest Crossing neighborhood alone, you'll want to make sure to check out these great family homes:

2330 NW Lolo Drive, Bend

2498 NW Drouillard Avenue, Bend
















And many more - including several in NorthWest Crossing alone. Let our Bend, Oregon real estate experts help you find your dream home! We're excited to see what this weekend has to bring. COBA Tour starts Friday at noon!

Zero Net Energy Home Preview: Bend, Oregon Tour of Homes

We're so excited to host at many open houses this weekend at the kick-off to the 2011 Central Oregon Builders Association Tour of Homes - a showcase of Bend, Oregon real estate! While the actual tour starts at noon on Friday, July 15 we are co-hosting a special "Premiere and Reception" event at one of the very special homes on the Tour: SolAire Homebuilders' Zero Net Energy home. The first zero net energy home in Bend! 


Join us on Thursday, July 14 from 5-7 p.m. at 2328 NW Dorian Way in Bend, Oregon's NorthWest Crossing neighborhood. Cindi and Mike O'Neil and other representatives of SolAire Homebuilders will be available to explain the advanced energy-saving features that make this home unique. The home has created a lot of buzz in advance of the Tour, so this will be an opportunity for a casual and unhurried "look and learn" experience before the Tour begins.

And don't forget to visit us during the Tour! Nearly 25 percent of this year's tour homes are in our home neighborhood of NorthWest Crossing. We'll see you there! 

Front Porches in Bend, Oregon's NorthWest Crossing

Ever thought the front porches you see on nearly every home in Bend, Oregon's NorthWest Crossing were an accident? Think again! Front porches are rising swiftly on homebuyers' wish lists - in fact a recent study by the National Association of Home Builders found that a front porch ranked higher that patio and rear porch in a report titled The New Home 2015. Since 1997, the number of homes with front porches has risen dramatically - more than 50%.

Why? Not only do front porches raise the value of the home (it is what home buyers are looking for), but people with front porches find that they have other benefits as well as indicated in a recent article from the Chicago Tribune. One front porch owner said that her front porch changed the "tempo and pace" of her life - being out on the porch encourages relationships with neighbors. "When a neighbor needs help, we galvanize."

A designer said that while the front porch gives definite curb appeal, it also provides a warm and inviting feel. The porch adds to the "architectural appeal of the house."

In Bend, Oregon, we're lucky enough to have a few neighborhoods that feature front porches. None more though than NorthWest Crossing on Bend's west side, where we are lucky enough to work every day (that's where our office is!).

Have you Seen the Signs? It's All Part of Bend, Oregon Green Real Estate!

We were so excited to launch QR codes on our "for sale" signs recently - a first for Bend, Oregon real estate. What's a QR code you may ask? Well, QR - or Quick Response - is a matrix barcode that is readable by smart phones. When the code is scanned, your phone will show you some interactive content. In our case - it's more information about the house for sale. 

This is a great initiative for us for many reasons, one of the top being that we're committed to sustainability. The QR codes on the signs reduce the need for printing fliers for distribution at sales locations, as most people can get the information that they want through their mobile device. This saves paper and contributes to our overall goals for conducting a green real estate business in Bend, Oregon. 

“There’s been a lot of hype in the real estate industry surrounding the use of QR codes, but no one has given a lot of attention to the green aspects of using codes instead of fliers,” said Sandy Garner, President and CEO of The Garner Group. “We obviously wanted to use them to help people find the information they needed quickly and easily, but we also see them as contributing to our corporate sustainability goals by reducing our paper usage.”

This isn’t our first step toward a more sustainable future. In 2009, we relocated its headquarters to the award-winning, “green” neighborhood of NorthWest Crossing. The building that houses its offices was built to high standards for sustainability and energy efficiency.

In addition, we have more agents than any other Bend, Oregon real estate company that have earned the National Association of Realtors’ GREEN designation. The certification by NAR’s Green Resource Council is earned through the completion of a three-day course focusing on fundamentals of green building practices, consumer awareness and marketing of homes built to green standards. The Garner Group has nine agents that hold this green real estate designation.

Going green! Scan one of our QR codes next time you see one! 

The Pendulum is Swinging in Bend, Oregon Real Estate: A Look at the Numbers

With trustworthy amounts of sunshine becoming a reality in Bend Oregon, people are starting to think about spring and summer activities. There are street festivals, outdoor concerts, paddle boarding, hiking, biking and so much more to do all around Central Oregon. Typically, spring also brings heightened activity in the Bend Oregon real estate market, where the number of available homes has been decreasing while the number of homes sold has jumped dramatically.

Realtorsâ and other crystal ball gazers study absorption rates—the comparison of inventory and sales figures used to calculate the theoretical number of days it would take to sell the plate clean. From this source, we can compare sales and listing totals accrued from December through May of this year with comparable six-month numbers in each of the three previous years (12 months in the case of 2008). The number of homes sold over the full period increased by 72% while the number of active listings dropped by 64%. (Figures based on MLS statistics for Bend, Oregon residential listings on less than one acre.)

Date of Report        Active Listings            Homes Sold in the Prior 6 Months

May 2008                    1417                            473

May 2009                    1131                            490

May 2010                    738                              639

May 2011                    513                              814

What follows is a little wonky but stick with us: Annual rates of change were not equal between active listings and sales. Six-month totals ending in May 2009 showed the number of active listings dropped 20% while the number of sales increased only 4% over the comparable period a year before. The pace of sales picked up considerably the following year, to 30%, increasing another 27% for the six months ending May 2011. The number of listings continued to dive, 35% and 30% in subsequent years, measured in comparable six-month periods.

Bend Oregon real estate sales exceeded the number of active listings for the first time in the six months that ended this May. During the same period, Bend had one-third as many residential real estate listings as it did in 2008 and nearly twice the number of homes sold. While we see more listings coming on the market as spring moves toward summer, the numbers don’t lie. We can see the pendulum swinging back toward a seller’s market. This is good news for homeowners, and a little push for buyers to start finding their dream homes.

With fewer active listings and more sales, demand is outpacing supply. And that’s something we can all cheer about!