The Central Oregon real estate market trends for the major urban areas continue to reflect a seller's market, although residential inventory levels have risen in most locations. The desperate lack of inventory experienced during Covid has changed, and while home prices overall continue to rise, in some smaller markets price reductions can be noted. With more inventory, days on market have also generally gone up, but well priced homes are still selling quickly and multiple offers can happen. Bend, Redmond and Sunriver are showing strong upward trends in all categories with home prices, listings, inventory levels and days on market all rising. Whether or not this trend continues in 2nd quarter with mortgage interest rates well about 7% remains to be seen.
We track on a monthly basis the real estate single family home sales trends for Bend, and on a quarterly basis those of Redmond. However, there are four other cities in Central Oregon which are important markets to our home buyers and sellers. The small city of Sisters typically has had higher prices than the other Central Oregon municipalities, but the access to the Cascades and other recreational opportunities has been a draw for those who like its quaint, western theme. For many for whom Bend is too expensive, wonderful options are available in La Pine, Madras and Prineville.
For the past three years, all three towns have followed the same market trends for their single family home sales as we have seen in both Bend and Redmond. Lack of inventory with high demand drove home prices up through 2021 into mid 2022, at which time the sharp increase in mortgage interest rates led to a...