Home prices increase in Bend, Redmond

Published 12:00 am Wednesday, April 15, 2015

Area home prices back on the rise

Median home prices in Bend and Redmond increased in March after a winter lull in sales, according to a report released Tuesday.

In Bend, the median price for a single-family home last month was $327,000, a 10 percent increase from February’s median and a 21 percent increase over the median price in March 2014, according to a report from the Beacon Appraisal Group, of Redmond.

Bend recorded 172 single-family home sales last month, 52 more than the previous month and 17 more than in March 2014.

In Redmond, the median price for a single-family home was $212,000, about 3 percent higher than February’s median price and about 18 percent higher than the median price in March 2014, according to The Beacon Report.

Fifty-five homes sold in Redmond last month, two more than in February and 14 more than in March 2014.

New retirement protection rules

Federal regulators Tuesday proposed rules to provide more consumer protection for retirement savings, requiring a broader group of investment professionals to act in their customers’ best interest when dealing with their retirement money.

The financial services industry can be a minefield for ordinary investors, who often cannot tell whether their advisers are putting the investors’ interests first; the legal term for this is fiduciary duty. The rules are part of the Obama administration’s mission to support the middle class.

The proposed rules would eliminate some of the loopholes that allow brokers to avoid acting as fiduciaries when providing advice on retirement money held inside accounts such as 401(k)s and in individual retirement accounts, which hold roughly $7 trillion, as estimated by the Federal Reserve.

The new rules would update the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, or ERISA, which was written in 1975, when many retirees relied on pensions and did not have to worry about managing the bulk of their retirement savings.

Investors are particularly vulnerable when they roll over the savings they have accumulated in their 401(k)-type retirement accounts into individual retirement accounts.

— Staff and wire reports