Ryan Brennecke / The BulletinWoodhill Homes co-founder says this house being built at NW 14th Street and NW Elgin Avenue in Bend will be the companys last spec home.

To adapt to Bend’s changing homebuilding market, Woodhill Homes plans to shift its focus a little, the company’s co-founder said Monday.

Rather than buying west-side lots in Bend to build upscale homes on speculation, as it has for several years, Woodhill plans on creating a new division to build to suit for other property owners and also focus on entry-level homes in Redmond.

“We’ll continue to pick up pieces in Bend,” said co-founder Jay Campbell. “We just have to make sure we can buy land that we can make work, that we can sell at the best price we can get it to. That’s the trick.”

Last year, its best year since 2006, the company built 31 homes, with a construction value of $6.5 million, not counting the cost of land, according to Bend city building permits. In 2014, Woodhill built 27 homes in Bend, worth $5.6 million in construction value.

Citing the high price of land in Bend, Campbell said he and business partner George Hale plan on turning their development efforts to Redmond in the next 1½ years. They still have projects in various stages of completion in Bend: Tuscany Pines Phase 2, Ironstone and Reed Pointe, the latter two designed to attract first-time buyers. But Bend is nearly finished as a place to build entry-level homes for less than $300,000, Campbell said.

“At this point, no,” he said, “land is too expensive.”

That’s a fair assessment, said Catherine Lee, Wells Fargo home mortgage branch manager in Bend. Cash is still king in the housing market, and borrowers often lose out to higher bids. A low vacancy rate in town makes investing in rental properties an attractive prospect, she said.

“It’s not that there’s not anything out there,” Lee said Tuesday, “but they go quickly and they go to cash buyers.”

Also, as housing markets in metro areas like San Francisco, Seattle and Portland regain value, people are cashing out and using the proceeds to move to Bend, Campbell said. He said that more than half of Woodhill’s buyers pay in cash.

“Second homes, retirees, empty nesters,” he said, “we’ve sold more single-story homes this year than ever.”

As the price of a single-family home in Bend continues to rise, entry-level and first-time homebuyers will move to Redmond, Campbell said, where homes can still be found in the $200,000 to $300,000 range. Meanwhile, Bend continues as a popular destination for people seeking to retire, downsize or invest in property.

Woodhill Homes, named 2015 builder of the year by the Central Oregon Builder’s Association, capitalized for several years by buying lots in west Bend, tearing down the aging mill housing and building higher-priced, modern homes on speculation. The rising cost to buy those lots is curtailing that practice, Campbell said.

The company is building its last spec home now at NW Elgin Avenue and NW 14th Street, he said. Woodhill is creating a new division to build individual homes for property owners; Campbell said he just hired a manager for that division. He forecasts building six to eight homes each year priced from $500,00 to $800,000. The number of phone calls he fields indicates plenty of demand for lots in trendy sections of Bend, Campbell said.

“I’ve got roughly six right now that will probably come together, another 15 I’ve sort of vetted,” he said. “A lot of people call me, just wanting information.”

— Reporter: 541-617-7815,

jditzler@bendbulletin.com