Who’s buying homes in Bend?

Published 12:00 am Saturday, March 14, 2015

Empty nesters, retirees and new arrivals are snatching up homes in Bend that builders thought would attract entry-level buyers, some brokers and builders say.

“We noticed a shift in the demographic make-up of, particularly, the new home sales in NorthWest Crossing a couple of years ago,” said David Ford, general manager at the subdivision. “Probably as much as 60 percent of our sales” went to the older demographic.

Jay Campbell, president of Woodhill Homes, and real estate broker Tim Buccola have had similar experiences at two developments in southeast Bend: Reed Pointe, at SE 15th Street, and IronStone, on Sonata Way east of Parrell Road.

Prices were set with first-time homebuyers in mind, Campbell said. Two homes in IronStone, both 1,468 square feet, are listed by The Buccola Group of The Hasson Co. at $279,950. Three Reed Pointe homes range from $249,950 to $276,450 and from 1,400 square feet to almost 2,000 square feet.

“Ideally, we were building them for entry-level, first-time homebuyers,” Campbell said. “But, we’re finding there’s a lot of retirees and empty nesters; we ended up with a lot of single stories.”

The median price for a single-family home in Bend stood at $297,000 in February, down from $322,000 the month prior, according to the Beacon Appraisal Group, of Redmond.

At McCall Landing in northeast Bend, Hasson Co. real estate broker Rhianna Kunkler said the builder, Pahlisch Homes, set a price to attract first-time homebuyers. A 1,400-square-foot home there starts at $235,000. Entry-level buyers showed up, but so did older buyers looking to downsize or be free of maintenance chores. Investors buying with cash are in the mix, too, along with retirees, Kunkler said.

“It wasn’t what I expected,” she said.

First-time homebuyers still appear hesitant to rejoin the market as it recovers from the Great Recession, Buccola said. They remain wary in light of the housing bubble that burst and hastened the recession.

“Many of them are still shy,” he said.

Chris Starling, a mortgage broker and vice president at Arbor Mortgage Group in Bend, said he sees many empty nesters and retirees moving to the area and looking for homes, as well as homeowners looking to buy up into a larger home. First-time homebuyers are active in Central Oregon, but the median home price in Bend may be pushing them to Redmond and elsewhere, he said.

“A lot of what’s in my pipeline are folks who moved here a year ago,” Starling said. They rented until finding the right home to buy, he said, and now they’re pulling the trigger.

Woodhill and Buccola may be pricing their homes for what the market demands in Bend, he said. Nonetheless, a homeowner in the city needs to earn about $66,000, annually, about 25 percent more than the median household income for Deschutes County, or face a tough time paying anything other than the mortgage, Starling said.

Ford, Campbell and Kunkler all said homes are selling in their developments about as fast as crews can build them.

— Reporter: 541-617-7815, jditzler@bendbulletin.com