Sisters, OR

This morning at 7 a.m., under unusually threatening skies, the new Ray's Food Place opened in Sisters (just a block from the old Ray's). And what a scene it was! When I arrived at 9 a.m., the place was packed with folks checking out the new digs.

As required by city code, the store boasts an 1880s frontier-type façade; however, Sisters has never before seen a Western scene quite on this grand a scale: 43,500 square feet, to be exact. That's almost twice the size of the former Ray's.

In truth, the center's block-long sprawl is a bit daunting, although the store's series of mock rooflines (which probably spans more distance than most 1880s downtowns) does help keep the place from feeling like a generic big-box supercenter.

Inside, there's plenty to love about this Ray's: the massive produce department, an impressive wine cellar, expansive seafood section, centrally located Community Meeting Room, small café (not far from the deli counter, of course) and adjacent outpost of Sisters Coffee Co., to name just a few.

There's also additional space adjacent to the center for several more businesses (it's still under construction, see photo, right ). As for the old Ray's...rumor has it that Bi-Mart is considering opening an outpost there.

Here are a few more photos from the opening:

About the Author:
Lisa Broadwater is a Central Oregon-based real estate professional who specializes in listing
and selling homes, especially in Sisters, Tumalo, Redmond and Bend. If you'd like to learn more
about Central Oregon, please visit http://www.centraloregonhome4you.com/.

At last Thursday's monthly Realtor meeting with Sisters Planning Director Eric Porter, consulting planner Susanna Julber discussed some of the details of the new Sisters Housing Plan.

The plan is part of the city's Comprehensive Plan Policy (which was adopted in 2005) and is designed to ensure that Sisters' long-range plan includes an adequate supply of affordable housing.

The goal of the Housing Plan is "to explore and recommend how one in 10 of all new housing units built in the City by 2025 can be made affordable to families with low incomes."

Here in Sisters, that's no mean feat. Nationally, "Affordable Housing" is defined as that in which residents spend no more than 30 percent of their gross household incomes on housing-related expenses. Since the Sisters Area Median Income (AMI) for 2007 was $58,800, that means that for a home on the market to be considered "affordable," it would have to cost less than $180,500.

However, as Julber pointed out, between 2001-2006, the average home price in the Sisters area (including the entire Sisters school district) nearly doubled, from $235,000 to $460,000. Meanwhile, the average payroll in Deschutes County increased by just 17 percent.

Economic forecasts indicate that although job growth will continue in Central Oregon, it will be at a slower pace than previously experienced and most of the job growth is expected in the lower-paying service industry jobs (especially in Sisters, which has a tourist-based economy).

Here are some of Julber's other findings:

• A household would need to earn $102,048 to afford a home in Sisters based on the median home price of $314,900 (according to January 2008 MLS figures), with a monthly payment of around $2,000.
• As of January 2008, a person earning AMI here ($58,800) could not afford a single home for sale in the City (the lowest priced listings as of January included two townhomes priced at $199,990). [As of Oct. 23, 2008, there were five residential listings in Sisters of properties 1,000 square feet or more under $180,000 -- including four short sales.]
• Based on the city's current Comprehensive Plan, there will be a need for 113 "Affordable" units by 2025 (there are currently 59 units of permanent affordable housing planned or existing).

Several strategies have been suggested to address the problem, including the following:

• Create a target income level of 60-120 percent of AMI
• Adopt a package of Developer Incentives
• Create a Housing Trust Fund
• Develop and adopt a Comprehensive Annexation Ordinance
• Adopt an Affordable Housing, or Cash In-Lieu-of-Housing, Fee based on impact of development
• Adopt a new Medium-Density Land Use District
• Support a Homeowner Rehabilitation Program
• Appoint a City staff person to monitor progress on housing goals

Eric Porter says that next month, after a few of the strategies are ironed out, the Housing Plan will be presented to the Sisters Planning Commission. The first public hearing regarding the Housing Plan hasn't been set yet, but Porter expects that to happen sometime in December. Stay tuned...

About the Author:
Lisa Broadwater is a Central Oregon-based real estate professional who specializes in listing and selling homes, especially in Sisters, Tumalo, Redmond and Bend. If you'd like to learn more about Central Oregon, please visit http://www.centraloregonhome4you.com/.

We've had a busy summer in Sisters, but it's still definitely a buyer's market, with expansive inventory in both single family residences and homes on acreage. However, we did experience another slight dip in the number of listings (down from 243 in July to 212 in September). And that decrease should continue into the winter months, when many buyers opt to hibernate, and sellers either pull their homes off the market or wait until spring to list.

Here are a few September highlights:

Active Residential Listings in Sisters: 212 (127 Single Family Residences; 85 Residential with Acreage)

Pending Residential Sales in Sisters: 7 (4 SFR; 3 RW)

Residential Sales in Sisters: 10 (7 SFR; 3 RW)

Average Days on Market: 159 days for Active SFR listings
228 days for Active RW listings
174 days for SFR listings sold in September
242 days for RW listings sold in September

Median Sales Price: $534,500 for Active SFR listings
$380,000 for SFR listings sold in September
$750,000 for Active RW listings
$654,000 for RW listings sold in September

Inventory:
Single Family Residence: 18-month supply (83 sales in the previous 12 months)
Residential with Acreage: 38-month supply (27 sales in the previous 12 months)

Sales Price:
Least-Expensive Single Family Residence Active Listing: $170,065
Least-Expensive Residential with Acreage Active Listing: $279,000
Most-Expensive Single Family Residence Active Listing: $2,295,000
Most-Expensive Residential with Acreage Active Listing: $5,650,000
Price Point with the Most Listings: $350,000-$399,999 in SFR (18 listings)
$1,000,000-$1,249,999 in RW (11 listings)

If you´re interested in studying the market in more depth, I've included a number of charts that capture various aspects of the September real estate market in Sisters in detail, below. If you´d like to learn more about the Sisters real estate market, don´t hesitate to email me at lisabroadwater@remax.net or call me toll-free at 866-963-2760.

No, they haven't begun the reroute of Highway 20 so that it bypasses downtown Sisters, although her downtown streets are dotted with orange cones these days. In case you've recently traveled through town amid the maze, you've probably wondered what exactly is going on. Well, a couple of things: first, an ongoing sidewalk improvement project is in the works; and the confusing five-way intersection at Cascade, Cedar and Larch is being reconfigured into a simpler four-way set-up.

But the discussion about exactly how to handle the ever-increasing traffic that funnels through town on its way to other Central Oregon locales is about to heat up (again). In the next few months, the City of Sisters will attempt to finalize its Transportation System Plan (TSP), which will address that problem.

For a while now, three different potential plans for dealing with Sisters' traffic congestion have been on the table:

Option 1.: Create a Main Street/Hood Avenue couplet through town, at a cost of approximately $47 million;

Option 2.: Create an alternate route from Barclay Drive on the north end of town to Locust Street on the south side, at a cost of approximately $41 million;

Option 3: Do nothing.

The de facto plan favored so far has been Option 3, simply because nobody could agree on anything else (the main concern: Would moving the main flow of traffic away from Cascade Avenue do irrevocable damage to the many businesses there?).

Last week, when Community Development Department Director Eric Porter held his monthly meeting with local Realtors, he discussed the pros and cons of Options 1 and 2. Option 1, he said, would be problematic because it would have to be done all at once (and the Oregon Department of Transportation has no money available until 2013, he pointed out); while Option 2, which is also less expensive, could be done piecemeal.

The TSP is supposed to be completed by the end of the year. However, before it's finalized, area residents will be asked via a public forum to weigh in on their preferences (sometime in the next few weeks). One motivating factor for finalizing the plan, Porter added: Sisters will be eligible for federal grant money once the plan is in place (in fact, he said, the city missed out on $1.5 million last year because the TSP had not been adopted). Let's hope that this time, a workable plan will emerge.

About the Author:
Lisa Broadwater is a Central Oregon-based real estate professional who specializes in listing and selling homes, especially in Sisters, Tumalo, Redmond and Bend. If you'd like to learn more about Central Oregon, please visit http://www.centraloregonhome4you.com/.

Yep, it's deer season. And here in Central Oregon, that doesn't just mean that hunters are on the lookout for our dear four-legged friends. Earlier this week I almost ran into a herd in my driveway -- literally (see photo, right). We have a fairly regular gang that enjoys meandering along the nearby irrigation canal and then plucking pears from our single fruit tree in the back yard.

Yesterday, I passed a herd of at least a dozen clustered in a 10-acre field in Tumalo, munching on a neighbor's freshly cut hay; and today one leapt out in front of my car and zipped across the road as I was about to show property in a rural subdivision a few miles outside Sisters.

All of which prompted me to remind everyone in the area to please take it slow when you're driving through Central Oregon this fall (especially at night) and keep at least one eye peeled for does and their babies or bachelor bucks on the move. No telling where they'll appear (I've run across them in downtown Sisters many times). The only sure thing is that they WILL appear -- often when you least expect it.

Lisa Broadwater is a Central Oregon-based real estate professional who specializes in listing
and selling rural acreage, especially horse properties. If you'd like to learn more
about Central Oregon, please visit www.CentralOregonHome4You.com.