Ibex Global, a Bend call center at the edge of the Old Mill District, plans to more than double its workforce by hiring 450 employees by summer’s end.

“This year will be the biggest we’ve ever been in Bend,” said Alec Campbell, vice president of client services for Ibex, formerly TRG Customer Solutions.

The company, headquartered in Washington, D.C., employs more than 9,000 in 18 call centers in five countries, according to its website. The Bend call center, on Southwest Hill Street near Wilson Avenue, currently employs about 400, Campbell said.

The first training class starts June 8, and the company plans to recruit until September, Campbell said.

Heidi Simila, recruiting manager for Ibex Global Bend, said she started hiring about a month ago. By the end of the week, she expects to have about 75 new employees. She said the openings are in customer service technical support positions. Pay starts at $10.50 an hour during training and increases to $12 an hour after workers complete training. Employees also are eligible for benefits after 30 days.

Ibex was the sixth-largest private employer in Central Oregon, according to Economic Development for Central Oregon’s most recent survey, wrote Roger Lee, EDCO executive director, in an email.

“The news about the Ibex expansion is both exciting and very significant for the region,” Lee wrote.

Lee said EDCO worked with a company called Sky Alland and Old Mill District developer William Smith Properties in 1999 to establish a call center in the building, which was originally constructed for Tektronix. About the time the company expanded to Bend in 2000, the name changed to iSky.

Since then, the company has undergone three name changes. As of February it became Ibex Global. Over the years, it has handled customer service phone work for a variety of businesses, including American Express, BMW, Honda, Owens Corning and Sotheby’s. In 2009, TRG representatives said the company was handling product and technical support for Apple Inc., according to The Bulletin’s archives.

Call centers in Deschutes County shed about 670 jobs between 2008 and 2012, Damon Runberg, regional economist for the Oregon Employment Department, wrote in an email. T-Mobile laid off more than 350 employees when it closed its Redmond call center in June 2012, according to the newspaper archives.

But last year, he said, call centers in the county showed strong growth, adding back nearly 150 of those lost jobs. If Ibex added 400 workers, he said, the industry as a whole would account for about 2 percent of total nonfarm employment in Deschutes County.

“It’s likely that many of the call center workers who lost a job in the recession either found a new call center job or found work in another industry,” he wrote in an email. “However, there are still potentially hundreds of experienced call center workers who are either unemployed or underemployed. Ibex’s plan to expand is great news for those still looking for … work.”

Ibex has not been the only call center hiring. Consumer Cellular, which took over the Redmond call center vacated by T-Mobile, said earlier this year that it planned to hire 200 employees, bringing its workforce to about 600.

Ibex offers an entry-level job with training in consumer electronics, said Campbell.

“It can be viewed as a stepping stone for young people looking to establish a career, either at Ibex or another company,” he wrote in an email. “We also hire people who have been laid off from manufacturing or other declining industries and help them re-establish themselves.”

Darren Cooper, who came from the trucking and manufacturing industry, just celebrated his two-year anniversary as a telephone technical support specialist for Ibex.

“The employment market was pretty bad, and I decided to take a chance,” he said. “As a male in my mid-40s, I found myself working in an environment I had never been in before, one that was very diverse and full of opportunities.”

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

A program that helped more than 700 Central Oregonians get current on their mortgage payments will end July 1.

The federally funded Home Rescue Program in Oregon paid out about $120 million in three years to 9,500 qualified homeowners who, due to job loss or a pay reduction, fell behind on their mortgages. The U.S. Treasury Department gave Oregon $148 million for the mortgage program, part of $220 million the state received from the federal Hardest Hit Fund established in February 2010. The Hardest Hit Fund provided $7.6 billion to the District of Columbia and 18 states hardest hit by the 2007 housing market collapse that accompanied the Great Recession.

“We’re really excited that this program has been so successful,” said Alison McIntosh, spokeswoman for Oregon Housing and Community Services. “We’re on track to commit the entire amount of money allocated by the Treasury.”

In Deschutes County, 585 homeowners benefited from the Home Rescue Program; along with 112 in Crook County and 97 in Jefferson County, said Scott Cooper, executive director of NeighborImpact, the local agency that assists homeowners with their applications.

Five application windows of one week each remain before the program concludes as its funds run out, McIntosh said. The application periods open at noon on alternate Wednesdays and close the following Tuesday. The final cycle starts June 25 and ends at noon July 1, she said. The state estimates another 1,500 may apply.

Home Rescue provides up to 12 months of mortgage payments or $20,000, whichever comes first. It also provides a maximum $10,000 to qualified homeowners to bring their mortgages current. To qualify, homeowners must now earn at least 10 percent less than they earned in either 2011 or 2012 and less than 120 percent of state median income. Prospective applicants may find out if they qualify by answering a questionnaire online atwww.oregonhomeownerhelp.org.

The program, one of three created as part of the Hardest Hit Fund to assist homeowners, proved more popular statewide than anticipated. But Cooper said efforts to reach mortgage holders in arrears in Crook and Jefferson counties fell short.

“We had a greater response in Oregon than we could meet, but we were beating the bushes repeatedly in Crook and Jefferson trying to get people to apply for the program,” he said. “Percentage-wise, there was an even greater need in those two counties.”

The state agency held its application response time to four months, though it sometimes stretched as long as 155 days, McIntosh said.

Two other Hardest Hit programs aimed to reduce homeowners’ costs by refinancing their mortgages. The Loan Refinancing Assistance Pilot Project and the Rebuilding American Homeownership Assistance program remain in effect, McIntosh said. The Loan Refinancing Assistance program assists homeowners in Crook, Deschutes, Jackson, Jefferson and Josephine counties, specifically. More information is available at the agency website.

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

Getting a building permit from Deschutes County or planning a new subdivision could get more expensive this summer.

Deschutes County’s Community Development Department is pushing for a 2 percent increase in the fees it charges on most permits, for services such as building inspections, new plumbing systems, demolition permits and electrical work.

And, the county surveyor’s office wants 15 to 25 percent increases on fees to plot out boundaries for new residential neighborhoods.

All told, the heads of eight Deschutes County government departments have asked county commissioners to change fees on a variety of services for the next fiscal year, starting July 1.

County commissioners discussed the fee changes during a work session this week.

A majority of the proposed changes would raise fees by $50 or less, and only figure to affect small groups of people. Deschutes County Justice Court wants to add $20 on the fees for people who don’t appear for a citation hearing, for example.

Even the Community Development changes are small, mostly $1 to $10 increases. Building site evaluation fees would rise from $210 to $215, for instance. The fee to install a range of water-related systems in a home, such as sinks, dishwashers and water heaters, would rise from $25 to $26.

But those costs could add up for property developers and homebuilders, department Director Nick Lelack told commissioners this week.

He said an uptick in building permit activity has the county under pressure to add new staff positions. Lelack also pointed to inflation, which has raised the cost of equipment by 3 percent.

The fee increases would help add two employees and keep up with the department’s daily needs, he said.

“Other (counties) aren’t seeing the permit levels we are,” Lelack said. “And we’re trying to get a number of costs back to full service rates.”

Other fees could go up significantly higher. The surveyor’s office wants to raise minimum fees on a partition plat review from $500 to $625.

Partitions are a common step for large property owners looking to split up a piece of land into smaller lots.

For more complex reviews, as on subdivisions planned for condominiums, the proposal would raise fees from $780 to $900.

The surveyor fees have been frozen since the recession, according to Chris Doty, director of the county’s Road Department, which oversees the surveyor’s office.

“We don’t frequently review fees,” Doty said. “It’s been six or seven years since the surveyor fees were adjusted.”

As Community Development, Doty said the improving real estate market is putting pressure on the surveyor’s office to offer more services.

No decisions have been made yet. The fee increases will be part of each department’s proposed budget, which commissioners and budget committee members will discuss later this month.

Besides Community Development and the surveyor’s office, the county clerk’s office, Information and Mapping Department, Health Services Department, Justice Court, Community Justice Department and legal counsel office requested changes to their fees.

— Reporter: 541-617-7820, eglucklich@bendbulletin.com

A real estate firm’s vision for a major new neighborhood east of Bend may be dead.

Deschutes County commissioners on Monday denied a proposal by California-based Newland Real Estate Group to change the zoning on 171 acres it owns along Northeast Butler Market Road, between the city limits and Bend Municipal Airport.

Newland wanted to change the property’s zoning from exclusive farm use to a less strict, agricultural zoning, which would have let the developer build homes.

Newland paid more than $7 million to buy the mostly bare land back in 2007. In recent interviews, the company said it planned to build hundreds of homes on the site.

But after several public hearings and months of deliberation, commissioners voted 2-1 Monday to deny the zone change, saying the property has some agricultural value and should be kept open for possible farm use.

Commissioners Tammy Baney and Alan Unger voted against Newland’s proposal; Commissioner Tony DeBone was in favor of it.

The application has been contentious since Newland officials requested the zone change in January 2013, with discussions centering on the property’s quality of soil and Oregon’s efforts to preserve a dwindling supply of farmland across the state.

Attorneys for Newland have argued the soil is too poor to make a profit by using the property as farmland. Rezoning it to build homes would give the company the best chance to make a profit, they argued.

But a Deschutes County hearings officer in October recommended commissioners deny the Newland application, saying the company’s soil tests on the site last summer “failed to demonstrate the property is not ‘agricultural land’ as defined in (Oregon) statute.”

Those tests found about two-thirds of the soil was below the county’s classification of farm-quality land. But the property also has higher-quality soil and could possibly be farmed, according to the hearings officer’s decision.

On Monday, Commissioners Unger and Baney said Newland hasn’t established that a farmer couldn’t make a living there.

“Like most lands in Deschutes County, this is not very fertile soil,” Unger said. “But that’s the nature of farmland in Deschutes County. … As I look at this, it’s farmland.”

The commissioners have voted unanimously on just about every item they’ve discussed over the last six months .

But DeBone broke off from Baney and Unger this time, saying he didn’t see a way for Newland or anyone else to make a profit by farming the land.

“The soil is in a situation where it is not really a profitable setup” for farming, he said. “It just doesn’t have the potential for productivity.”

Unger countered by saying most agricultural land in the county is low-quality, but farmers still make a go of it despite a short growing season and tough soil.

And Baney said irrigation, fertilizer and other techniques could make the Newland site suitable for some kind of agricultural use. The land has been farmed in the past, and the property still has water rights.

Whether crops could be grown there, cattle could be raised there or some other use could be found remains to be seen, Baney said.

“I think this property could be enhanced in a way that could make it profitable and productive,” she said.

The commissioners’ decision is still pending a legal review, but it effectively blocks Newland from moving forward with its subdivision plan.

What Newland might do with the property at this point, or whether it plans to appeal the commissioners’ decision, isn’t known. An attorney representing the company didn’t immediately return a phone call seeking comment Tuesday.

— Reporter: 541-617-7820, eglucklich@bendbulletin.com

TERREBONNE — After entering through a 22-foot-wide gate of wood and basalt pillars and traveling up a red cinder-chip road about a half-mile, visitors turn the corner and see what looks like a Tuscan villa in the distance.

It’s the Old Winery Clubhouse at Ranch at the Canyons, a private ranch nestled by the base of Smith Rock that totals 1,700 acres. It includes about 600 acres of working farmland and vineyards, more than 500 acres of land protected by the Deschutes Basin Land Trust and 46 landholdings, 21 of which are still for sale.

In an effort to preserve land and give homeowners at Ranch at the Canyons control of the gated community sooner, its new developers and majority owners, Jeff Creagan and Patrick Ginn, recently reduced the number of landholdings available for development from 60 to 46.

“What that means is that we only have (21) landholdings left to sell and then this community is a fully complete, thriving community,” Ginn said.

When 75 percent of the landholdings are sold, ownership will transfer from Canyons Land and Cattle Co., LLC, owned by Ginn and Creagan, to the homeowners association, said ShanRae Hawkins, director of marketing and communications for Ranch at the Canyons. And the reduction of 14 landholdings means the turnover will be happen much sooner.

“It was a goodwill gesture to say, ‘You guys have been patient,’” Hawkins said .

Boom and bust

For more than three years there wasn’t any direction or activity at Ranch at the Canyons, Ginn said.

“It sat with no forward motion because they ran out of funding and there was no vision for the future,” he said.

Ranch at the Canyons started being developed in 2000, after the original owners, Jim Garner and Mick Humphries, were denied permission to build a destination resort on their property because of land use regulations, Hawkins said. They tried for about eight years to turn it into a resort, she said.

When the economy started to turn down, the duo brought in PacTrust, a Portland-headquartered commercial real estate company, to help. PacTrust later took over majority ownership, and after having the property on the market for about a year it put 29 homesites, as well as controlling interest of the ranch, up for auction.

The reserve price was set at nearly $2.3 million, according to the auction catalogue by Realty Marketing Northwest, an Oregon and Washington-based real estate marketing and brokerage company. The catalogue stated about $30 million had been invested in development and 23 homesites had been sold with sales that exceeded $20 million.

In December 2012, Creagan and Ginn purchased the ranch through the auction.

Creagan said he stumbled upon the ranch by accident while looking for the Central Oregon Pumpkin Co.’s pumpkin patch. He took a wrong turn, followed the rock wall that outlines the community and found the auction sign.

“Honestly my first desire was to get involved with the ranch because I liked the place, I thought it was special,” he said. “I first came out here, drove around looked at it and said ‘Wow, this is probably the most beautiful place I’ve been ever.’”

But then, he said, he thought, “I’d love to have a place out here someday, but not currently the way it is.”

So he teamed up with Ginn, whom he’d worked with on similar projects, to bring momentum back to Ranch at the Canyons.

“I think it was similar to most large, half-built communities that you went into in 2010,” Creagan said, referring to the state of the ranch’s development. “Is it going to be great? Is it going to be finished, or is it going to die on the vine and this is what it is?”

Growing value

When they purchased the ranch, Ginn said, no activity was going on.

“It was discouraging for owners and the developers because things stopped selling,” Ginn said.

In the past five years, Creagan said, only two homes have been built in the development. But this year, he said, there will be at least four, including a 3,698-square-foot, $1.6 million home scheduled to be completed in June.

Ginn said the cost for lots ranges from about $300,000 to $800,000, a value compared with what they were before. Originally, he said, they were selling for $1.3 million just for the land, but when the economy started to tank a landholding was short-sold for $160,000.

“It’s certainly been encouraging for our owners … to see values quickly bouncing back,” Ginn said. “Part of it is the certainty of the ownership and the direction that we’re taking it and part of it is the overall improvement in the real estate market. Its values have increased pretty dramatically from their low.”

In addition to owning a home within the community, he said, owners receive collaborative ownership of the ranch.

“It’s like living on a ranch. We have farming, we have our own vineyards … but you don’t have to go out and start your tractor at 6 in the morning and do the hay or prune the grapes,” Creagan said. Landowners pay for the work via their homeowners association.

A turning point

Mike DeGennaro, the development’s first resident, agreed the ranch was paralyzed for a while but said it’s at a turning point.

“The people that were here enjoyed what they had, but it wasn’t a community yet because there weren’t enough people,” he said.

Creagan and Ginn are working to change the ranch — not through a revolution, but an evolution of the original vision, he said.

“We didn’t want (Ranch at the Canyons) to be like other communities,” he said.

DeGennaro said the vision was to take what’s at the ranch — the land and the views — and work with it, not impose commercial elements such as basketball courts or golf courses.

The decision to reduce the number of landholdings is a reflection of that idea, and something DeGennaro said he and other property owners are happy about.

It’s an effort to lower density and have fewer homes on the ranch, he said.

“Part of what we’re trying to do is be good stewards of the property here. This is a beautiful piece of property and it doesn’t need 60 homes on it,” he said.

—Reporter: 541-617-7818,

Finding a place to rent became a full-time job for Bre Aasland when she decided this year to move out of her parents’ home, where she lived three years after returning to Bend.

“I would like to live on my own but I can’t find someone that will take my money,” said Aasland, 25, who works in accounting and marketing for Bend Garbage & Recycling Inc. “I think just this year alone, I’ve been to about five different walk-throughs and before I can finish filling out the application it’s rented out.”

In Central Oregon the vacancy rate shrank to 0.7 percent this year, lower even than the 1 percent rate last year, according to annual survey results released Friday by the Central Oregon Rental Owners Association and Housing Works.

The survey, conducted earlier this year, found just 29 vacant units out of 3,376 surveyed in Crook, Deschutes and Jefferson counties.

The demand for any rental unit — apartments, duplexes, single-family homes — is creating sharp elbows among would-be tenants in Central Oregon.

“A friend told me he’d gone down to Deschutes River Woods for a manufactured home for $1,200 a month,” said Kenny LaPoint, housing director of Housing Works, which manages subsidized rental properties for low-income renters and provides qualified renters with vouchers. “It was like an auction. Eight people were waiting to rent it.”

With demand, rents have climbed. A two-bedroom apartment in a complex of five or more that rented for $704 a month in 2013 goes for $770 this year, according to the survey. A three-bedroom home in Bend that rented for $1,110 in 2013 now goes for $1,221.

Rental owners association President Kevin Restine said rents have climbed but are not inflated. Low tenant turnover, in fact, tends to keep rents “conservative,” despite demand, he said.

Still, “Things are moving at warp speed,” Restine said. “The best thing a tenant can do is to look early and often … and make themselves as attractive as possible,” by having good credit and rental histories, he said.

New apartment complexes or rental homes could be years away, said Andy High, vice president of government affairs for the Central Oregon Builders Association. The time lapse between proposing a project to the city and actual construction can take a year or more. Plus, available land on which to build in Bend, for one, is scarce.

But higher rents may encourage builders to erect more apartment complexes, High said.

“That’s been a problem with apartment complexes: Could you make it pencil out to get the financing?” he said. “Now we’re at the point where we’re seeing that. A fair amount of people are trying to make things work.”

In Bend, just one new apartment complex is under construction, the 104-unit Sage Springs on Boyd Acres Road. But that complex, due for completion in June, is 100 percent reserved, according to its leasing agent.

Four other proposed projects in Bend are months if not years away from breaking ground. And on the horizon, plans to expand the Oregon State University-Cascades Campus will create further demand for rental housing.

“It’s now profitable to own investment property again, and that’s going to spur another wave of people providing housing,” Restine said.

In the short term, investors may be enticed again to buy property they can rent for a steady income, said Dan Seim, a Bend real-estate blogger and office manager for Preferred Residential, his wife Becky Seim’s firm. Even though home prices have climbed since 2012, buyers are still willing to spend on an investment property, he said Friday.

“You can make the deal work just about any way as long as it will rent,” Seim said. “It’ll rent as long as owners are not too greedy about how much rent they get.”

The tight rental market results, in part, from the Great Recession and its aftermath, Restine said. Foreclosures turned many homeowners into tenants after 2008, creating a demand for rental property. The recession nearly extinguished new construction, as well, so few new homes, rental or otherwise, were built.

Meanwhile, some homeowners still await foreclosure actions on properties on which they’ve made no mortgage payments in years, said LaPoint. Resolving those cases will free some properties for sale as rentals but may create new tenants.

Meanwhile, Aasland said she’s moved in with a friend until she can find a place of her own. She considers herself a good prospect as a renter: good job, clean credit. She hopes to find something at $850 a month, tops.

“I’ve been pretty annoyed but I’m pretty mellow, so it hasn’t been that big of a deal,” she said. “It’s not that I’m a poor applicant, it’s just that there’s so many people looking that you have to be in the right place at the right time.”

— Reporter: 541-617-7815,