http://Bendhomepage.com/index.htmlHot News!enuser@domain.comCopyright 2008 Thom Gardner2015-04-03T11:22:27-07:00 hourly 1 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00 Tue, 30 Sep 2008 13:17:06 -0700user@domain.comBend Real Estate MarketBend Home Prices2015-04-03T11:22:27-07:00http://Bendhomepage.com/REALdeal/files/An%20explanation%20of%20the%20effects%20of%20Bend%20Oregon's%20move%20from%20regional%20to%20national%20real%20estate%20player%20on%20increasing%20home%20prices%20and%20low%20inventory%20and%20why%20they%20both%20should%20continue%20for%20many%20years%20to%20come%20.html#unique-entry-id-16http://Bendhomepage.com/REALdeal/files/An%20explanation%20of%20the%20effects%20of%20Bend%20Oregon's%20move%20from%20regional%20to%20national%20real%20estate%20player%20on%20increasing%20home%20prices%20and%20low%20inventory%20and%20why%20they%20both%20should%20continue%20for%20many%20years%20to%20come%20.html#unique-entry-id-16Thom's explanation of Bend Oregon's unique real estate market, its move from regional to national renown, and why our home prices are and should continue to increase faster than most of the rest of the country's.]]>user@domain.comEnergyHome healthGreen HomesEnergy TrustGreen remodeling2015-01-08T11:04:56-08:00http://Bendhomepage.com/REALdeal/files/Green%20remodeling%20incentives%20and%20audits-%2021st%20Century%20Inspections.html#unique-entry-id-15http://Bendhomepage.com/REALdeal/files/Green%20remodeling%20incentives%20and%20audits-%2021st%20Century%20Inspections.html#unique-entry-id-15user@domain.comBend Real Estate, Bend Real Estate MarketBend2014-01-20T13:07:33-08:00http://Bendhomepage.com/REALdeal/files/67cd48e16898867511284f644e0ba665-14.html#unique-entry-id-14http://Bendhomepage.com/REALdeal/files/67cd48e16898867511284f644e0ba665-14.html#unique-entry-id-14user@domain.comBend Real Estate Market2013-06-03T10:39:04-07:00http://Bendhomepage.com/REALdeal/files/2e2008aa563764c93d67e0132e28b372-13.html#unique-entry-id-13http://Bendhomepage.com/REALdeal/files/2e2008aa563764c93d67e0132e28b372-13.html#unique-entry-id-13Last year I had a divorce that ended up in a demand from my ex wife to sell our Bend home so that she could get her equity into her pocket. I loved that house, and had put a ton of sweat equity into it. I bought it in a fixer condition, and knew that I had made a very large and tidy profit on it. So, after much gnashing of teeth and softly preparing my daughter for the loss, we indeed sold the house. Despite my admonitions to my ex wife that we would get much more money for it this Summer, we sold it in Spring, and it closed sale on April 30th.

Meanwhile, I had been looking. Homes in Bend that were perfect for what is rapidly becoming my new family, homes which I had seen for sale last Fall for $350,000 ish, were now $425,000. I was undaunted, as I was selling a $300,000 home, and my new Love was selling her $220,000 home, so we should be able to afford $425,000, right? Well, not exactly. Banks have actually tightened their lending standards since I bought in January 2011, and though we had a ton of money for a down payment, fluctuating self employment income and my Love's full time student status brought us down to Earth rapidly- they would only give us enough to buy in the very low $300,000 range.

Now I had been using an MLS portal, the same type I set up for my clients, and I knew that 4 bedroom Bend homes in the $300,000 range with a large lot and a 3 car garage were almost non existent. When they did exist, they were in areas I simply would refuse to live, areas I know well to be problematic from my 23 years in the area. We could get a 3 bedroom, with no office for my business, and a 2 car garage, with no space for the ski boat or other "Bend" type recreational toys, and we could get a smaller lot. Not exactly inspiring stuff! After living for a month in my new Love's house in a neighborhood where people can hear their neighbors' conversations in their back yard, I wanted to get back to the sort of home I had sold; one with an idyllic, large back yard and outdoor entertaining space. I grew up in the Southwest, so outside is the way I like to live when at all possible.

After chasing down a few homes which we ended up being too late to nab (Seriously, the $300k range is about the worst in terms of inventory here, being about the mid-line of home purchases in Bend and having the largest demographic of the buying public perusing them), we had a choice to make, a choice I have seen clients wrestle with in recent months as well. Do I hold my nose and buy something less than perfect and try to fix its limitations, or do I rent and wait for several months hoping that inventory improves?

It did not take long to decide. Option 2 is out, and here are the reasons why.

Rising rates. We saw rates spike a quarter point in less than a week, and they don't look to be stopping. A home we planned to buy at $325k is no longer available to us because of that quarter point jump. It puts us over the magic 45% debt to income ratio that banks use as their dividing line these days (It was 51% when I bought my last house). If we wait until next year, my guess is we are looking at 6% or so. Not a bad rate historically, but one's buying power is crushed with each tiny tick up in rates.

Rising Prices. Prices rose 20% last year, and they have risen about 10% so far this year in Bend. With the low Bend Home inventory and so many buyers hearing the "ALL CLEAR" bell ring at the same time, they are going to rise more quickly the rest of the Summer and Fall, in my opinion. If we wait we risk BOTH rising rates AND rising prices crushing us to the point where we won't be able to buy anything, a position I was in back in the 2005 era, where I had given up on buying a decent home here, as the median Bend home price was around $465,000.

Rising rents, fewer homes. Lastly, rents are rising very quickly in Bend as well, which is a historic change. Traditionally, rents here have been low as our economy does not support the kind of jobs that pay high rents. However, with so many people having moved to Bend in the last two years and far fewer of them buying than before, and so many others having lost their homes and no longer able to buy, the renter pool is massive these days, and since almost no new homes were built for four years here, there are fewer homes to go around. So, the same dynamic is occurring in the rental market that we see in the home purchasing market- a large demand and a tiny supply is pushing rents upward. Add to this the fact that we lose major tax benefits (both of us being self employed) by renting, and this is the last nail in the coffin of waiting to buy a home.

And so, friends, I am left with only one decision. HOLD MY NOSE AND BUY SOMETHING! And that is exactly what we are doing. We made an offer on a Bend home that needs some work (it has no furnace, just wall heaters, only 3 bedrooms when we need 4, and is only 1650 square feet, when we need well over 2000) this weekend. It came down to the same thing that ended up deciding my last home purchase- the lot. You can change a home, you cannot change (at least not in terms of size, privacy, location) the lot. This is a gorgeous lot, at the end of a cul de sac, a half acre, very private with lots of potential for gardens, greenhouses, and room for the dogs and the kids. To make it work we will have to spend a bundle to convert the garage to a real master suite, and then build a new garage next to the home. Not to mention putting in one of the new Japanese style Mini-split ductless heat pump systems.

But it does accomplish a few things. It gets me back to the West side of Hwy 97, where traffic is lighter and flows better, trains don't stop your progress daily, and restaurants, pubs, trails, and the river are all in biking distance. It gets me back into a home like the one I had, which was very private, has gorgeous and idyllic backyard space, and has lots of quiet in the evenings and on weekends. Even better, this one is not on a busy road as was the last. And, by increasing the footage to over 2000, and bringing the 90's styling inside the home into the 21st Century, we should have a $400,000 home by Fall, albeit with a much smaller mortgage.

So, my message is this. We are indeed in a tough market. If you are the picky type, this is not the Bend real estate market for you, though you would have loved it two years ago when my buyers (including myself) had the run of the place and could buy anything. Now, there is not much out there to buy. And time based financial pressures (rising rates, rising prices, and rising rental prices with limited availability) are all saying that if you don't buy now, you will either get much less for your money later, or like many in the pre-boom and boom years, may be pushed out altogether. This Bend real estate market takes an open mind, a lack of fear, and a sense of creativity. Cash helps if you have it, and if you are an all cash buyer but find yourself in the same situation I am in where I can't find what I want at my price, I HIGHLY recommend you consider a small loan at "still ridiculously low" rates, and then do like I am doing, put that cash into MAKING THE HOME YOUR OWN, MAKING IT THE BEND HOME YOU WANTED!

That way, you end up with what you want, you take advantage of low rates while they still exist, you keep the tax benefits of home ownership, and you beat the herds that will no doubt continue to come and drive our prices up for the next several years. I made 50% on my last home purchase by carefully studying the risk/reward ratio of the situation, though many did not agree with me at the time. Once again, the slight risk we are taking offers great reward, and indeed, it is a much, much lower risk than I was taking at the end of 2010. It seems a no brainer to me, and I have tried to counter argue the points above, to no avail. If you can't either, perhaps you will agree.

Thom Gardner
Thom@bendhomebuyersagency.com OR Bendbrokersrealty@gmail.com
541.480.7554]]>user@domain.comMortgage Rates2013-05-24T14:01:22-07:00http://Bendhomepage.com/REALdeal/files/60a4ab7e323b19a3baf3c4f777bfc28c-12.html#unique-entry-id-12http://Bendhomepage.com/REALdeal/files/60a4ab7e323b19a3baf3c4f777bfc28c-12.html#unique-entry-id-12]]>user@domain.comBuyer's Agency2013-01-27T15:57:27-08:00http://Bendhomepage.com/REALdeal/files/3c9a83634ad2396cc1f5ae3c378fb1d2-11.html#unique-entry-id-11http://Bendhomepage.com/REALdeal/files/3c9a83634ad2396cc1f5ae3c378fb1d2-11.html#unique-entry-id-11One of the questions I often get from prospective clients is, "Why should I hire a buyer's agent instead of just a standard real estate agent?".

The answer is simple. When you want the best work done, you hire a specialist. This is true whether you are looking at medical work, auto mechanics, or website development. Most Realtors are jacks of all trades in our business. A jack of all trades is truly a master of none, right? Right.

But it goes further than that. A listing agent's job is to paint a rosy picture of everything in their sphere of influence, to put the very best possible face on a home they are representing. This is indeed what you want in a listing agent if you are selling your home. Their job, and it used to be mine, is to paint homes in the very best possible light so as to insure a speedy sale. Often this can spill over into their relationships with buyers as well, when one comes along and they take off their listing agent hat. My buyers often tell me that they are not used to hearing honest assessments come out of a real estate agent's mouth, and they are always surprised that I tell them the negatives about individual homes and neighborhoods, rather than just pointing out the positives.

As a buyer's agent my days are spent analyzing homes and the market with a critical eye for my clients. This is what I see as my job, instead of seeing it as a way to turnover homes and make quick money. I don't spend any time with sellers trying to figure out how to paint lipstick on a pig, and so I don't accidentally slip into that sort of chatter with buyers- my whole day, every day is spent on the buy side, digging up dirt, checking to be sure the information that the listing side is using to market a home is correct, and making sure that lipstick isn't covering up a pair of pig lips. I don't want anyone coming back to me and telling me after a sale that what I said was not true, or that I didn't tell them about some obvious negative to a property, a neighborhood, or a locality, so I make sure that I do and that everything is up to a standard that I would accept myself.

One of the things I hear often from fellow agents when I am out shooting a video of a listing of theirs, and I tell them I am looking for flaws and issues, is "You don't have to show those", or "don't you want to make a sale?". Seriously, these are things I have heard, this year alone. Again, this is why you hire a specialist, a buyer's agent, as we are not used to this sort of behavior as a part of our daily job focus.

So, a buyer's agent protects the buyer, at no cost to the buyer, from not only the emotional ugliness of home sale negotiations, which can of course be dramatic, but also from making bad decisions by listening to marketing rhetoric about how wonderful everything is, and that "this house is just perfect for you". My job is to protect the buyer, and thought I often lose sales by alerting my buyers to problems and issues (you can read my testimonials to see that what I say is quite true), what I gain is loyalty from that buyer, who quite often will only use me in the future, as the bar of trust has been raised by my representation.

I am a buyer's agent. I am only a buyer's agent. The only homes I sell are my own or those of family members, that's it. And those are of course rare. If you are going in for surgery and the last thing you hear from your surgeon is "I'm really an anesthesiologist, but I moonlight in back surgery from time to time", you're going to be nervous, right?

As a buyer's agent I make less money than most "jack of all trades" agents. So be it. But I regard myself as a highly honest person, and I sleep better this way, as there is never pressure on me from the people that matter (my clients) to be anything less than totally honest and completely forthcoming. End of story.]]>user@domain.comBend Home Price Increases2012-10-23T08:16:37-07:00http://Bendhomepage.com/REALdeal/files/Bend_area_rising_home_prices.html#unique-entry-id-10http://Bendhomepage.com/REALdeal/files/Bend_area_rising_home_prices.html#unique-entry-id-10Last Friday I had a class with Scott Langston, the Deschutes County Tax Assessor, the topic of discussion being Bend area home values, tax rate calculations, and the tax assessments that he certified that very morning. The numbers discussed were extraordinary.

Bend area home sales prices (Deschutes County) are up 34% this year, and that only takes into account the 9 months between January and September. Now, on the surface that number sounds more extraordinary than it really is. The reason it is so high is simply that more expensive homes are now selling, and that the cheap homes are long gone. So, this skews the average sales price upwards.

HOWEVER, the next number he came out with is outstanding, and very much a real World picture of our market here, clearly one of the best in the Country. Bend area home VALUES, on a house per house basis, are up 14.2% in that same nine month period. I don't think I need to tell you how extraordinary that is, especially taken in concert with the continuing slow growth in the economy as a whole. This does not look to diminish any time soon, and my feeling is that we are heading back to the rates of the 1990's, which were 10-15% growth per year, rather than the ridiculous 35% a year we had in the boom years. There is a tremendous amount of building going on across the city, though they have learned their lesson and are now building homes one at a time and selling them, rather than whole neighborhoods at once. This is very healthy indeed.

It bears mentioning that in the cities these numbers are actually a bit higher, Redmond and Bend especially, as these rates in rural areas continue to be slower, I would guess to be no more than 5- 10%. I have had a very difficult Summer with multiple offers in the city of Bend, and competition for homes there was absolutely fierce from April through August, though it has abated a little as usual in the Fall. The days of lowballing offers on homes in Bend are long over, with the exception of homes bought with cash that are not financeable due to condition, and of course bare land, though it is coming back on the strength of the building boom here.

As always, I am here if you have questions. I can be reached at 541-480-7554, or Bendbrokersrealty@gmail.com.

]]>user@domain.comHome Buying Tips2012-08-30T15:32:28-07:00http://Bendhomepage.com/REALdeal/files/Multiple_offers_in_Bend.html#unique-entry-id-9http://Bendhomepage.com/REALdeal/files/Multiple_offers_in_Bend.html#unique-entry-id-9Beware the new monster lurking in Bend. His name is "Multiple Offer", and he comes in both natural, and artificial, forms.]]>user@domain.comProperty Tax Reduction2012-03-24T12:36:12-07:00http://Bendhomepage.com/REALdeal/files/Deschutes_County_Tax_Hearings.html#unique-entry-id-8http://Bendhomepage.com/REALdeal/files/Deschutes_County_Tax_Hearings.html#unique-entry-id-8A brief summary of my short time fighting the MAN in the Deschutes County property tax assessment protest system. A cautionary tale, indeed.]]>user@domain.comShort Sales2010-06-08T13:07:50-07:00http://Bendhomepage.com/REALdeal/files/Short_Sales_in_Bend.html#unique-entry-id-7http://Bendhomepage.com/REALdeal/files/Short_Sales_in_Bend.html#unique-entry-id-7Thom explains just why he tells his buyers that short sales are most often very bad deals, if they are even legitimate deals at all!]]>user@domain.comTax Credits, Energy Efficiency2010-01-19T13:43:25-08:00http://Bendhomepage.com/REALdeal/files/2010_Energy_Tax_credits.html#unique-entry-id-6http://Bendhomepage.com/REALdeal/files/2010_Energy_Tax_credits.html#unique-entry-id-6Thom points out Federal and State tax credits for efficient energy systems and appliances]]>user@domain.comMortgage Rates2009-05-28T14:13:44-07:00http://Bendhomepage.com/REALdeal/files/8854a573c36271142ea4399a2f5fbae7-5.html#unique-entry-id-5http://Bendhomepage.com/REALdeal/files/8854a573c36271142ea4399a2f5fbae7-5.html#unique-entry-id-5Thom looks back wistfully on the good old days of mortgage rates in the 4% range . . . excuse me, I'm all Verklempt!]]>user@domain.comForeclosures2009-03-26T15:12:43-07:00http://Bendhomepage.com/REALdeal/files/885aaef1edfd1d9c69c0decf32336133-4.html#unique-entry-id-4http://Bendhomepage.com/REALdeal/files/885aaef1edfd1d9c69c0decf32336133-4.html#unique-entry-id-4Thom guides the buyer through the combination of Disney Theme Park and Cambodian mine field that is the process in buying a foreclosed home in Bend, Oregon. Yes, there is a lot of good, and really it is the only way to buy right now, but I think you need to know about the tough stuff as well.]]>user@domain.comMortgage Rates2008-12-17T12:04:21-08:00http://Bendhomepage.com/REALdeal/files/e704a07a7a9b803694a664fa95dfa568-3.html#unique-entry-id-3http://Bendhomepage.com/REALdeal/files/e704a07a7a9b803694a664fa95dfa568-3.html#unique-entry-id-3An open letter to my buy side clients. Jim Cramer believes rates may go to an unprecedented 3.5% soon. How believable is that, and what does it mean for Real Estate, and what exactly is the effect on my house payment?]]>user@domain.comShort Sales2008-11-21T14:50:41-08:00http://Bendhomepage.com/REALdeal/files/ba4b73e99277e38c1623029f03995353-1.html#unique-entry-id-1http://Bendhomepage.com/REALdeal/files/ba4b73e99277e38c1623029f03995353-1.html#unique-entry-id-1user@domain.comBanking Crisis2008-10-21T12:50:52-07:00http://Bendhomepage.com/REALdeal/files/873598236725fcfbe3471bf01ef23d34-0.html#unique-entry-id-0http://Bendhomepage.com/REALdeal/files/873598236725fcfbe3471bf01ef23d34-0.html#unique-entry-id-0