No doubt — it’s a seller’s market right now.

In some Central Oregon locations, it could take less than a week to sell a home.

Real estate agents are earning their keep culling through multiple offers as real estate prices continue to climb. And they’re working to manage the expectations of buyers, said Lester Friedman, a Coldwell Banker Bain broker.

In Bend, the median sales price for March was $590,000, up $15,000 over the prior month and up more than $100,000 from the same time the year before.

In Redmond, the price of a single-family home sold in March was $412,000, up $49,000 from February and $73,000 from March 2020, according to the Beacon Report for Central Oregon.

There is a tremendous amount of cash buyers out shopping, and they’re putting down mega down payments, said Donnie Montagner, owner of the Beacon Appraisal Group of Redmond in his monthly report. The market is more solid than the last boom in 2005 and 2006, he said.

The rising prices are the result of more people moving to Central Oregon and low interest rates, Montagner said.

“It’s basically a case of supply and demand,” said Friedman, a broker with 21 years of experience. “Central Oregon is a great place to live and that’s what is driving up demand. We’re on everyone’s list as a great place to live.”

Inventory is also low, Friedman said. On April 1, there were 118 town homes, condominiums and single-family homes available for sale. A year ago there were 491 homes for sale, and in 2009, following the financial crisis, there were 1,627 homes for sale.

The Beacon Report uses the median sales price, which is the midpoint value of all transactions in a month.

The robust real estate market mirrors the national front where about a week’s worth of homes are on the market. In February, the month where data are most current, the median sales price for new homes was $349,400, up from the median price of $331,800 the same time the year before, according to the U.S. Census Bureau monthly residential sales report. February’s median home prices are slightly down nationwide, compared to the month before when the median price was $353,200, according to the Census Bureau.

Montagner said in an email that the in-migration is affecting sales prices in Redmond, which is putting upward pressure on prices as more people look for alternatives to the Bend housing market.

In Sunriver, the inventory of homes for sale also was about a week’s worth of inventory, and the median sales price was $775,000 in March.

“There’s definitely an increase in the smaller markets,” Montagner said. “The upper-end products in Redmond are pushing median price. What’s interesting is that happened in Bend last July and then Bend stayed the course.”