A slip of paper pinned to a message board Tuesday in Ramona Gonzales’ office at CR Property Management Inc. on NE Revere Avenue told the story.

It’s the one, rare property Gonzales had available to lease: a four-bedroom, four-bathroom home on NW Fifth Street at $1,995 a month. She expected it would rent quickly.

“I haven’t had a vacancy in three months,” Gonzales said.

The vacancy rate for rental property in Bend in April was 2.4 percent for a house and 0.8 percent for a duplex, according to the Central Oregon Rental Owners Association annual survey. Between 1.4 percent and 1.6 percent of all Bend apartments surveyed, about 400, were available to rent.

That number’s expected to change in the coming year. After a long drought, a flood of apartment construction is starting to flow in Bend. Financial constraints that kept builders away from the multifamily market have improved to the point that building apartments, particularly, may turn a profit.

In all, more than 1,000 units of multifamily housing, meaning apartments and townhouses destined for the rental market, are in various phases of development in Bend, according to the city Community Development Department. Some builders are in early discussions with city planners, some have building permits under review and two projects are under construction. The projects range from government-subsidized public housing to high-end market-rate apartments.

“This is a huge amount of multifamily housing activity all at once,” wrote Aaron Henson, city senior planner, in a recent email. “To put things in perspective, there was virtually no new multifamily housing built in Bend during the 10-year period from 2004 to 2013.”

Projects in the city include Boulder Pointe, at NE Boyd Acres Road and NE Ross Road, where big yellow excavators are moving soil and rock to prepare the building site. That project calls for 96 apartments on 4.7 acres. It’s adjacent to the one recently built apartment project in Bend, the 104-unit Sage Springs. That complex was fully leased before builders finished it last year.

In NorthWest Crossing, a Portland development firm plans to build 132 apartments in six, three-story buildings on Discovery Park Drive, NW Crossing Drive and NW Clearwater Drive. Those plans are in the first phase of city review. NorthWest Crossing General Manager David Ford said Thursday that THA Architecture, of Portland, which drew up the plans for the Downtown Bend Public Library and the High Desert Museum, is designing the complex.

Tom Cody, managing partner with development firm Project PDX, of Portland, which plans to build and own the apartment complex, describes the prospective tenant as “the modern explorer,” Ford said, “not so much a demographic as a psychographic, individuals or people with higher income or net worth, but they’re very active and very passionate about being active.”

Cody did not return a call seeking comment.

Across town, developer PacWest II is in the planning stage of a 136-unit apartment complex on Empire Avenue. And a Seattle development firm is planning 208 units at the foot of Pilot Butte on NE Linnea Drive. That developer, Evergreen Housing Development Group, describes the project as “high-end, professionally managed” and designed to attract clients who rent by choice.

The sudden surge in multifamily projects indicates the bottom-line calculations in Bend are starting to pencil out, developers said.

“We like the market fundamentals in Bend that we’re seeing right now,” said Andrew Brand, director of development for Evergreen Housing Development Group. “A year ago some of the same fundamentals that we’re looking at right now were in play; they just weren’t quite as strong.”

For instance, rents have risen to a point where developers can profit from building apartment complexes. Rent for a two-bedroom apartment in Bend has increased from an average $629 in 2012 to $847 this year, according to the Central Oregon Rental Association surveys. That’s a rise of nearly 35 percent. Average rent for a three-bedroom house went up more than 55 percent in the same period, from $871 to $1,354, according to survey data.

Employment is also a key indicator, Brand and others said. Not only has Bend recovered most of the jobs lost during the Great Recession, but it’s also moved into growth territory, according to the Oregon Employment Department. The unemployment rate in Deschutes County dropped to 5.6 percent in April, its lowest point since November 2007, according to the department.

Many of those jobs are filled by newcomers to Bend. Portland State University projects nearly 10,000 new arrivals this year, and 16,000 by 2020. Housing is already a problem for many of them, and employers complain that some new employees are commuting to Bend from as far as Prineville.

“It’s hard enough for us to find software developers. They’re in extreme high demand,” said Preston Callicott, CEO of Five Talent, a software company in Bend. “Once you get them, and they come to town, they start saying, ‘Well, I can’t find a place to live.’”

Callicott said he sometimes calls real estate brokers looking for unlisted vacancies, and, in one case, put up a new hire and his family in his own home while they looked for a place of their own.

“I’m afraid we’re going to end up another Aspen,” he said. “We’re going to end up with not a single barista, fireman, policeman, you name it, living in town. They’ll be commuting in.”

Gonzales, the property manager, said she’s seen a typical three-bedroom, two-bath rental home go from $1,400-$1,600 per month to $1,700-$1,900 per month.

“Most people are frustrated that they’re having to pay higher prices,” she said.

Nonetheless, demand for rentals is high, and prospective renters exist in a competitive environment. Leasing a place sight unseen is not uncommon.

“They’re walking in with their applications filled out,” Gonzales said.

Some developers, Eugene-based Paradigm Properties, for one, aim for so-called workforce tenants, those who work in middle-class jobs or see apartment living as a step to homeownership.

Housing Works, the Central Oregon public housing authority, is building 40 units at its Eastlake Village complex on NE Bellevue Drive and has plans for a nine-unit townhouse project on Daggett Lane in northeast Bend.

Other developers say they’re targeting more affluent prospects: retirees, empty-nesters or people who can afford to buy but choose to let someone else take care of building and yard maintenance.

On Alstrup Road in southeast Bend, Hoviss Development Group LLC, of Vancouver, Washington, is tentatively planning 228 units in a project called Seasons at Farmington Reserve, a part of that firm’s Aspen Reserve subdivision. Pete Mann, director of construction and land development for Hoviss, said the project will include a clubhouse, dog park and trail system. Hoviss’ building permit application is under review by the city.

“The demand for apartments has reached an all-time high in Bend,” Mann said. “I think it’s safe to say the story around town is all the same: Housing is in a massive shortage.”

— Reporter: 541-617-7815,

jditzler@bendbulletin.com