As we step into the final quarter of the year, the Bend housing market is navigating a transitional moment, marked by mixed signals and cautious behavior by all. September’s data reflects a balanced landscape with prices holding steady year over year, listings tapering seasonally, and buyers remaining measured but engaged. While demand remains, both buyers and sellers are proceeding more carefully, often waiting for the other to move first. This is a market that rewards discipline, data awareness, and well-timed action. As we head into the final quarter of the year, staying nimble and well-informed will be key. Let’s dive in.
Mortgage Rates
This past month, we saw a smaller version of what we saw last year and commented on in our last market update. Interest rates dropped leading up to the Fed announcement, but then ticked up afterward. Looking at the chart below, you can see the same thing happened this past month. The line below was the rough date of the Fed announcement, and rates have ticked up slightly since then. As a reminder, mortgage rates generally move in line with 10-year treasury yields and not the Fed Funds Rate. Although factors affecting the fed funds rate affect 10-year yields as well, waiting for the Federal Reserve to formally change its rate will leave buyers a step behind. As a buyer, it is also important to remember that rates are only one part of the “affordability” equation. If you can capitalize on a discounted price at a time of year that often allows that (the next few months), you could save more than waiting to compete against an influx of buyers capitalizing on a lower rate in the future. At that point, you would own a home at a discount and simply refinance to take advantage of lower rates.
Median Price
Honestly, I wish this would stop getting published since it tends to distort the perception of the market more than it clarifies. Monthly, the median in Bend dropped between 3-7% depending on if you are looking at all properties or just non-acreage. This seems significant, but the prior month it was up by about the same amount. What does this show? If you look closely, you can see that the reason for most of these moves is that when there are so few sales happening, and activity falls more toward the high or low end of the market, the median tends to swing dramatically. If you look year over year, the market is flat from last year, and actually, if you zoom out a little further, you can see that Bend prices are flat for the last 3.5 years. If you are curious about what we are seeing with the long-term trends, please reference our latest State of the Market report, which can be found here.
New Listings
Seasonal patterns would tell us that this number will continue to drop throughout the rest of the year. The fact that there were fewer listings in September (216) than in August (224) isn’t surprising. However, this small drop (3.5%) had us wondering what we normally see this time of year. If we look at the drops between these same two months in 2024 and 2023, we see drops of 12% and 23% respectively. This tells us that in September, although there were fewer new listings than the month before, the drop was significantly smaller than normal. This means that there was actually an increased number of sellers coming on the market this late in the season (compared to recent norms). Was this a one-month anomaly or the sign of a potential shift in the supply/demand equilibrium? Good news, we will be watching this closely and keeping you posted. If you are curious how this is shaping up for October and don’t want to wait until next month to find out, give us a call.
Pending Sales
Similar to the number of new listings, pending sales often taper this time of year in comparison to the early summer months. However, also similar to the pattern we just described in the last section, Pending sales stayed remarkably strong in September. We can attribute the tick up in activity in August to the drop in mortgage rates that happened in anticipation of a Fed rate drop. In early September, rates continued to improve, leading to sustained pending sales activity. Despite ticking up slightly in the second half of the month, rates still remain significantly lower than the highs earlier this year. This combo of better rates and more “new listings” than would have been expected seems to have gotten some buyers off the fence. Another factor that could be playing into this is some additional price reductions and negotiations that are taking place right now (see the Other Points to Consider section).
Days on Market (DOM) for Pending Homes
If you have been reading the headlines lately, you would see that Days on Market has increased to roughly 45 days in September. This was an increase from 31 the month before. However, would it surprise you to hear that this number will likely go up by another two weeks next month? How do we know that? We look at the Days on Market for pending homes, not for sold homes. If you watch sold homes, you are watching old data and finding out how long it took to go under contract 30-45 days earlier. If you are a seller considering selling, wouldn’t it be nice to know what is happening right now and not last month? We think so too. Here is the chart of Days on Market for pending sales.
Some other points to consider…
Negotiation: The average Sale to List Price was 98% in September in Bend. This means that after any price reductions, homes generally sell at about a 2% discount from the last list price. In other words, buyers are negotiating about a 2% discount from wherever the home was listed last.
Price Changes: The average Sale to Original List Price was 93.5% in September in Bend. What is the difference from the metric above? This number shows the sale price compared to the original list price before any price reductions. Combining the two, you get the following: the average home sells at a discount of 2% of the list price after taking an average price reduction of about 4.5%.
Macroeconomics: Inflation continues to be a focus of the Fed, but most recently, jobless claims appear to be taking center stage for the Fed. Specifically, there has been a lack of new jobs being formed. Unfortunately, with a government shutdown, the next set of jobless claims, as well as some other economic numbers, may be delayed.
We hope you find this information valuable and that it helps you towards your ultimate real estate goals. If you have any questions about this month’s content or would like to dive a little deeper into the data, please reach out to your Ladd Group broker. If you don’t have one, you can reach me at steve@bendpropertysource.com or on my cell at 541-280-2132.
There are also several ways to reach the team, so please let us know how we can help.
- facebook.com/bendpropertysource/
- Bendpropertysource.com
- info@bendpropertysource.com
- 541-633-4569
- Main office: 650 SW Bond St, Ste 100
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