Looking at sales data for June, the most striking thing might not be another record median sales price in the Bend, Oregon, real estate market. Instead, it might be the composition of the two most active price tiers.
Homes in the $525,100 to $625,000 tier had the most sales – 64. The price tier with the second-most sales was the most expensive one, homes priced at $925,100 and up (61 sales). For the first time this calendar year, if not ever, the near-million-dollar slice of the market was within easy reach of having the most sales in a given month.
Given that the $925,000-plus level ended June with a comfortable lead in the category of most pending sales, it is conceivable this price tier will have the most sales in July.
Of course, there’s more to the raw numbers of sales and prices than this analysis, and it’s not to say that million-dollar homes now dominate the Bend, Oregon, real estate market. After all, the $925,100-and-above price range had a sizable lead in the number of homes available and the highest inventory in June, so it’s logical that in a high-demand environment, a considerable number of homes of that price range would be sold.
Those homes at $925,100 and above contributed to June’s median sales price of $654,500. That exceeded the previous record of $652,000, set in April, by less than one-half of 1 percent. June’s median sales price was 4.2 percent more than the median in May, and, as noted, 41 percent more than the $463,000 median of June 2020.
June ended with 156 active listings, which in our data set (dating to the start of 2007) is less than half of the previous low for any June. The average days on market remained seven, and June ended with sixth-tenths of a month of inventory – the 12th consecutive month that Bend’s inventory has been less than one month.
Still, for all of the pressure on the buy side in the market, there were at least fledgling signs that things might be easing up. Might.
First, there were 308 homes new to the market in June, which is the most in any month since May 2019 and above the average for the previous eight Junes (incorporating that time since the housing market rebounded from this century’s recession). That indicates supply might be inching up.
The net change in sales prices to list prices among all homes sold in June was minus-6.4 percent – the biggest decline from the list price for any month in at least eight years. This shows buyers aren’t blindly throwing their money at whatever sellers are asking (although, we’ll note, the average sales price to list price in June was 104 percent, down one percentage point from May).
In each of the first six months of 2021, the year-over-year increase in median price in the Bend, Oregon, real estate market has been at least 29 percent. This period includes comparisons to the pre-pandemic portion of 2020, before the already fevered demand for homes in Bend rocketed even higher. It will be interesting to see what the rest of 2021 holds, whether the upward pressure on sales prices continues or whether we’ve now moved beyond the most radical increases in home prices.
Wherever you are in your real estate journey – either looking to buy or considering selling your home – I encourage you to contact me at (541) 362-1031 or to visit Bend Property Search to connect with me through my website.