Cheri Smith

Of the 184 homes that sold in July, 57 were bank owned and 40 were short sales. Distressed sales made up nearly 53% of the home sales in July. Of the 275 homes pending, 142 are short sales or foreclosures (52%). Of the 1751 homes for sale, 397 are distressed (22%). The average days on market before selling was 229 for the short sales, 134 for the bank owned homes, and 144 for traditional sales. If you're a first time home buyer hoping to take advantage of the $8000 tax credit, this is important to think about.

In order to get the credit you must close on the purchase of your home before December 1, 2009. With the average days on market for short sales at 229, if you're considering purchasing a short sale but haven't already written an offer, it might be too late. Even with foreclosures and traditional sales, you might not have as much time as you think. Multiple offers are very common right now with well priced homes. It's not out of the question to think that you might have to submit 2-3 (or more) offers before one finally gets accepted. Many buyers in the lower price ranges have been beaten out numerous times by higher offers or cash offers with a quicker closing date. If the $8000 tax credit is important to you, don't wait until the last minute to start making offers. You'll need a minimum of 30 days to close, and with lending guidelines becoming stricter, it could even be 45 days.

July 2009 Real Estate Statistics

If your home is currently for sale and you have it listed with a real estate agent, do yourself a favor and either pull up your listing on the public MLS site, Realtor.com, etc. or ask your agent to email you the client detail for your home. It's really important that you know how your agent is marketing your home and that you know what home buyers see when they view your home online. Nearly 90% of home buyers are using the internet to shop for homes. The National Association of Realtors asked those internet home buyers which features they found most valuable and 83% said high quality photos. I'll say it again; 83% said high quality photos. Please explain to me then why I find appalling photos like these in the MLS? Make sure to click on the photos to enlarge them and see how bad they really are.

I don't even know what they're trying to say with this photo.

Nice wall. Does your client come with the house?

Spacious laundry room? Washer/dryer not included?

These are just photos I came across today while browsing new listings, price reductions, etc. Perhaps I shouldn't judge. Maybe these homeowners told their agent that they really don't want the house to sell so please make it look as bad as possible so we don't have to be bothered with any showings. Another pet peeve is spelling mistakes in the marketing remarks and photo captions. I totally get that a lot of people out there are not good spellers. Please use spell check then, or ask someone in your office to proof read for you. The following photo captions were all included in the same listing. 5 out of the 10 photos had spelling mistakes or typos. Large Corner lot. Comcplete with the white pickit fence. New laminate florring thrughout. Decorater colors. Remoldeled bathroom. Master sweet.

I vow to keep a file with bad MLS photos and I will be updating periodically.

When I work with buyers moving to Bend from out of the area, particularly from larger cities, they are usually drawn to NW Bend because of the privacy provided by lots of trees and larger lots. One neighborhood that fits the bill is Valhalla Heights. Valhalla Heights is located where Mt. Washington Dr. meets Shevlin Park Rd., making it close to downtown and the Newport Ave. hub, which has coffee shops, restaurants, and Newport Market grocery store. It's also very close to Shevlin Park, a mostly undeveloped park popular with hikers, joggers and mountain bikers because of the extensive trail system and Tumalo Creek, which runs through the heart of the park.

Most of the homes in Valhalla Heights were built in the late 1970's and 1980's and many of them have been nicely remodeled. You'll even find a few newer homes that were built in 2004-2008. The average lot size is roughly 0.25 acre (about 11,000 sq. ft.) and most homes are surrounded by mature Ponderosa Pines. Home prices in Valhalla Heights currently range from $259,000 - $525,000. Schools in this part of Bend are High Lakes Elementary, Cascade Middle School, and Summit High School. There are CCR's but no Home Owner's Association

$259,000 2424 NW Marken St. - 4 beds/4 baths, 2553 SF, 0.3 acre lot, built 1980

$275,000 2621 NW Marken St. - 3 beds/2 baths, 1661 SF, 0.3 acre lot, built 1980

$395,000 2534 NW Torsway St. - 3 beds/2 bath, 1996 SF, 0.26 acre lot, built 1995

$424,000 2716 NW Nordic Ave. - 3 beds/3 baths, 2360 SF, 0.22 acre lot, built 2002

$439,000 2351 NW Torsway St. - 4 beds/3 baths, 3210 SF, 0.28 acre lot, built 1981

$475,000 2650 NW Nordic Ave. - 3 beds/2.5 baths, 2433 SF, 0.18 acre lot, built 2004

$476,500 2461 NW Marken St. - 6 beds/5.5 baths, 4292 SF, 0.19 acre lot, built 2006

$525,000 2463 NW Marken St. - 4 beds/2.5 baths, 2892 SF, 0.52 acre lot, built 1985

Here's a bird's eye view of the neighborhood from bing.com (click to enlarge).

To summarize, there are 1789 homes for sale, 236 contingent, 297 pending, and 158 homes sold in June. In the MLS, when I run the stats for more than one type of property (residential, multifamily, etc) it doesn't allow me to choose a residential subtype (townhome, manufactured, etc.) and it automatically includes properties like time shares and manufactured homes being sold without the land. I don't like to include those properties in my statistics so this time I ran the residential statistics separately from the multifamily and farms so I could eliminate the time shares and other subtypes. That's why it looks like there are fewer homes on the market. There are actually 1850 properties for sale, including time shares, etc. Here's how June compares to previous months:

May 2009: 1829 for sale, 205 contingent, 242 pending, 138 sold.

April 2009: 1825 for sale, 171 contingent, 232 pending, 119 sold.

March 2009: 1834 for sale, 129 contingent, 203 pending, 110 sold.

The median price for the active listings is roughly $350,000. There are 876 homes for sale under $350,000 and 873 homes for sale over $350,000. However, the majority of the sales are under $350,000. 80% of the sales (127 homes) were under $350,000 and 20% of the sales (31 homes) were over $350,000. Although a lot of buyers are excited that decent homes are now available for around $150,000 most of the sales were in the $200,000 - $250,000 price range.

I recently had the pleasure of backing up everything on my computer and reinstalling Windows Vista. Since then I haven't reinstalled Adobe Acrobat and I'm not able to create PDF files. Click on the thumbnail version of the stats and it should open up in a new window. From there you should be able to zoom in. If you have trouble, send me an email and I can give you the excel file. You can also try this link:

http://buyinbend.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/june-20092.gif

These are currently the lowest priced stick built homes (not manufactured) on the market in Bend. Some of them need repairs but others are move in ready. I mentioned the FHA 203K rehab loan in a previous post and some of these homes would be perfect candidates. For qualifying buyers, this particular loan allows you to finance the cost of home repairs in your loan.

$85,000 - 3 bedroom/1.75 bath, 1176 sq. ft. home in SE Bend. This home is zoned RM and currently rents for $900/month. It's a short sale.

$89,000 - 3 bedroom/1.5 bath, 1360 sq. ft. home on a 0.21 acre lot, close to Juniper Park in NE Bend. Bank owned.

$89,500 - 1 bedroom/1 bath, 576 sq. ft. home in Deschutes River Woods on a 0.84 acre lot. This home is not quite finished inside. Not a short sale or bank owned.

$93,500 - $100,000 There are several newer homes for sale in the Cascade View Estates neighborhood near the Old Mill District in SW Bend. These homes have 3 bedrooms/2 baths and range from 1148-1235 sq. ft. These are currently renting for about $800/month. All are currently short sales.

$105,000 - 3 bedroom/2 bath, 1476 sq. ft. home in NW Bend. It's a newer home but it needs some TLC. Bank owned.

$107,217 - 1 bedroom/1 bath, 768 sq. ft. home in NW Bend just off Newport Ave and close to downtown. Bank owned.