Bend-area home prices rise, report says

However, 9.25 percent increase is least in eight quarters

Bulletin staff report /

The Bend area recorded the highest yearly home price appreciation of Oregon’s eight metro areas, according to federal data released Tuesday.

Between the first quarters of 2014 and of this year, home prices increased 9.25 percent in the Bend-Redmond Metropolitan Statistical Area, which comprises all of Deschutes County, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s quarterly All-Transactions Home Price Index. Over the last five years, home prices in the Bend-Redmond MSA have appreciated nearly 36 percent.

The index, a gauge of the housing market, tracks home prices and refinancing loans for individual properties sold or guaranteed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-controlled mortgage-buying agencies.

The Medford MSA, which comprises all of Jackson County, had a 9 percent increase. The state identified Deschutes and Jackson counties as two of the hardest-hit in the state during the Great Recession.

All eight Oregon metropolitan statistical areas recorded increases in home value in the first quarter, with the Grants Pass MSA, which comprises Josephine County, having the smallest increase, at 2.67 percent.

Home prices in the Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro MSA, made up of seven counties in Oregon and Washington, increased 8.18 percent, according to the report.

For the Bend MSA, the 9.25 percent increase was the lowest in eight quarters, going back to the first quarter of 2013, when home prices appreciated 7.69 percent, according to the agency. It was also the first time in eight quarters that the Bend area did not rank among the top 20 metro areas in the country for home-price appreciation. It ranked 23rd in the latest report. The Medford MSA ranked 28th.

Nationally, the area around Naples, Florida, came in first, with home prices increasing about 20 percent in 12 months. The Greensboro, North Carolina, area had the lowest increase, at 1.69 percent. It ranked 256th.

In Bend, the median price for a single-family home was $309,000 in April, and in Redmond it was $208,000, according to a monthly report from The Beacon Appraisal Group, of Redmond. In April 2014, the median prices were $281,000 and $196,000, respectively.