Bend nonprofit to create affordable housing

Kôr Community Land Trust wants homes working class can buy

By Stephen Hamway / The Bulletin / @Shamway1

Published Jun 25, 2015 at 12:01AM

With home prices on the rise in Bend once again, Amy Warren co-founded Kôr Community Land Trust, a nonprofit designed to help working-class residents buy affordable homes.

“If you’re a single parent working full time making minimum wage, the idea of ever getting into a home of your own is just not there,” Warren said.

Warren moved to Bend 19 years ago, and while she saw home prices increase in the early 2000s, she said the recent lack of housing options is a relatively new phenomenon. While Bend’s economy has continued to grow following the recession, construction has not kept pace. For example, 2014 was the first year that building permits issued for new homes approached prerecession levels, with 753 permits issued in 2014, compared to 760 in 2007.

The result has been a jump in housing costs due to a lack of availability as well as a spike in demand. According to U.S. Census Bureau data, the median household income in Deschutes County in 2013 was $50,209.

The median home price in Bend at the end of that year was $269,000, according to Central Oregon Association of Realtors data. Last month, the median reached $325,000, according to the Beacon Appraisal Group.

“Most of our peers, the people we know in town, can’t afford that,” Warren said.

Kôr received its nonprofit status in May. Warren said the plan is for the organization to solicit grants and donations of money or land to acquire several acres by May 2016 that could become a community of small, zero-energy homes that could be purchased for below market rate.

Warren said the organization differs from affordable housing options in Bend through its focus on energy efficiency, which would allow residents to keep their utility bills as low as possible and help minimize the need for future upgrades. In addition, Kôr is structured around the community land trust model.

The land trust movement began in the 1960s, according to Melora Hiller, executive director of the Portland-based National Community Land Trust Network, which supports Kôr and other community land trusts throughout the country. Hiller said the model emphasizes permanent affordable housing, as buyers can purchase houses to live in, but the land trust maintains control of the property itself.

“When they buy the house, they’re only buying the house, not the land it sits on,” she said.

Warren said that allows the trust to sell houses significantly below market rates and to ensure that buyers can’t make changes that would push the homes out of the affordable housing pool, which is tied to median income for the area.

According to the organization’s website, 25 percent of homes built by Kôr would be designated for buyers at or near median income; 40 percent would be for low-income residents; and 35 percent would be for super-low income qualifiers. Super-low income residents are those who make less than 50 percent of median income for the region.

Warren said the group hopes to acquire a parcel of at least 2 acres and build 20 or more homes, with an average size of 1,000 square feet. She added that the target market would be working-class residents who are willing to embrace the energy-efficient lifestyle.

“We really want to take care of the people who take care of us,” Warren said.

— Reporter: 541-617-7818, shamway@bendbulletin.com

 

 

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OSU-Cascades to break ground

Work on new campus set to begin before July 4th weekend

By Tyler Leeds / The Bulletin

Published Jun 19, 2015 at 12:01AM / Updated Jun 19, 2015 at 12:51PM

 

 

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Bend-area home prices rise, report says

However, 9.25 percent increase is least in eight quarters

Bulletin staff report /

Published May 27, 2015 at 12:01AM

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.

 

 

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Has region’s economy entered expansion?

Central Oregon Business Index hits new peak

By Joseph Ditzler / The Bulletin / @josefditzler

Published May 24, 2015 at 12:01AM / Updated May 24, 2015 at 08:01AM

Recovery no longer describes the Central Oregon economy.

It moved into new territory in the first quarter, a period of expansion, said University of Oregon economist Tim Duy, who compiles the Central Oregon Business Index.

Even though he still uses the word recovery in his summary of first-quarter key business indicators, he concedes the word falls short.

“That’s fair to say, particularly on the employment front,” Duy said Wednesday. “We’ve rebounded quite dramatically since 2012. We’re beyond the pre-recession peak of jobs, which is something of a milestone.”

The Central Oregon Business Index “made strong gains” in the first quarter of this year, Duy wrote in his summary.

The index, which reached a benchmark of 100 in 1998, rose to a new high of 128.8 in the first quarter, increasing over the previous quarter by 2.5 percent and over the first quarter 2014 by 6.3 percent.

The previous peak occurred in second quarter 2006, when the index reached 127.2.

Duy, who’s also the senior director of the Oregon Economic Forum, said he expects further expansion in jobs, housing sales and tourism, as well as other indicators like nonfarm payrolls and building permit numbers.

Home sales in the quarter rose to an average 413 per month in Central Oregon, well above the high of 259 per month sold before the housing bubble, between 1997-2001, according to the index.

Hotels, motels and other types of lodging in Bend produced $2.1 million in lodging-tax revenue, adjusted for inflation. Passengers flying in and out of Redmond reached nearly 44,700 after falling in the third and fourth quarters of 2014. Solid waste dumped at the Deschutes County landfill increased by 787 tons from the previous quarter to 12,060 in the first.

“To what extent can we maintain the patterns of activity that bring about this outcome?” said Duy, who’s also a UO professor. “That relies on the sustained inflow of population that is creating this. One thing we should be watching is the cost of housing and the availability of housing. And I think we’re all aware that housing markets are pretty tight.”

The Beacon Report of Central Oregon showed the median price of a single family home in Bend climbed to $327,000 in March before dropping in April to $309,000.

Meanwhile, sales numbers increased and homes sold faster. A total 203 homes sold in Bend in April, up from 172 the month before, according to the report. The median number of days a property spent on market declined from 137 in February to 101 in March and 78 in April. The trend in Redmond was more marked; the median days on market there fell from 178 in February to 60 in April, according to the Beacon Report.

The cost to buyers of housing and the ability of developers to meet demand were concerns in 2005 and 2006, Duy said. Constraints on the labor supply and the amount of land available for building also bear watching, he said.

“One of the issues that’s been pointed out to me is that builders can’t satisfy that demand for more affordable housing,” Duy said, “until the demand for less affordable housing is satisfied.”

The unemployment rate dropped in all three Central Oregon counties during the first quarter. The 6 percent jobless rate in Deschutes County in March was the lowest since December 2007, according to the Oregon Employment Department. A monthly average of 72,000 people were working in Central Oregon during the first quarter, Duy wrote.

“One sector that will continue to grow is the professional and business services sector and higher paid tech jobs,” he said. But the expansion is taking place across several sectors and not hinged on one sector like construction and housing, Duy said.

“Everything in this community is up, and that speaks to me of fairly broad-based growth,” he said. “That’s the main point here.”

— Reporter: 541-617-7815, jditzler@bendbulletin.com

Editor’s note: The Bulletin has partnered with the University of Oregon’s College of Arts and Sciences and Department of Economics to produce the Central Oregon Business Index. The index provides a regular snapshot of the region’s economy using economic models consistent with national standards. The index, exclusive to The Bulletin, appears quarterly in the Sunday Business section.

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