FEATURE
WWW.BENDSOURCE.COM / OCTOBER 8, 2020 / BEND’S INDEPENDENT VOICE
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As people from affluent cities pour into Bend to escape COVID-19, home sales and rent prices skyrocket, leaving locals priced out of the market By Laurel Brauns
“I
t’s quite extraordinary. Home sale prices increased by 15% just this summer. Historically, it’s 7% to 9% a year,” said Brian Ladd, a principal agent at Cascade Sotheby’s. Ladd grew up in the real estate industry and has been a broker for the past 20 years. “People are panic buying. I’ve never seen anything like this,” he said. As white-collar workers living in prosperous cities were advised to work from home to prevent the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, they were simultaneously isolated from many of the experiences that make city living worthwhile: theater, live music, unique restaurants, public transportation. In contrast, Bend’s COVID-safer outdoor amenities offer refuge and relief. Many former city-dwellers moved to Bend this summer after making sameday offers on houses sight unseen, Ladd said. Others have happily handed over cash for high-end luxury apartment rentals, which are cheaper than rentals in Seattle or San Francisco. This demand drives up prices for local renters and buyers. If they’re living on Bend’s area median income, finding an affordable place to live just got a lot harder. The median income for a family of four in Bend in 2019 is $78,600, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. (It does not produce statistics for single people, but instead adds together the incomes of everyone in a four-person household.) While skyrocketing home values and rising rents may be cause to celebrate for some Bend property owners—and for those who see it as a path to relative economic stability for Bend—the housing market is just one of many indicators demonstrating the deepening chasm between the haves and the have nots during the coronavirus pandemic.
“What we’re seeing now is how COVID has affected people both economically and health wise where people of lower income, people of color, they’re hit so much harder than the middle class,” said Lynne McConnell, the affordable housing manager for the City of Bend. “How are we as a civilization going to ensure that we have space for folks, for essential workers? This need is exacerbated by the wildfire evacuees.” Locals' lament Justin Serna has lived in Bend on and off since 1987, while also bouncing around to cities including San Francisco and New York. For the past four years, Serna lived in the same rental house on Bend’s west side. Last month, Serna heard from his East-Coast landlord that he was selling. Serna and his girlfriend have to be out by the end of the year. Serna works for Mountain Modern Airstreams and is
a professional mountain bike guide, so he said his one “must-have” is garage or storage space for “toys and tools.” Decades in Bend mean he’s well connected, often finding “unique and fun” owner-managed properties throughout the years, including this last one. Finding places through friends of friends is a way to circumvent the chaotic mayhem of the local rental market, influenced by the desires of tourists and people moving in from out of town. But, this time, Serna’s inside connections—even his friendship with a local property manager—have turned up very little. The statewide moratorium on evictions, combined with a spike in demand from the coronavirus-inspired urban exodus means there’s “just very little out there,” he said. He did find one house 25% above his monthly budget, but when he arrived to The Nest
A photo from a typical apartment listing on the Bend Craigslist page: This one from the “Nest” features granite countertops and stainless-steel appliances in the kitchen. “Enjoy your morning cup of coffee looking at the mountains!” it reads, and rents for $2,305.
look at it, 20 people were already ahead of him. “The competition is high. People are asking you to make three times your monthly rent,” he said. “That, and you have to have first and last, plus deposit. For me, that’d mean $5,000 up front.” If he found a house for $2,000 a month (which he so far hasn’t), he’d have to prove he made $6,000 a month. “The majority of people that are now paying the higher-end rents are working remotely,” he said, noting he’s met a flood of newcomers in this category through work. “The job market does not support the amount of rent that people are paying here. It’s almost cheaper to find a house and buy it at this point: You’ll pay less for your mortgage than you will in rent.” That is of course, if you happen to have $100,000 lying around—the 20% down payment often needed for a $530,000 house. That’s the current median home price in Bend, the highest in the city’s history, according to the September 2020 Beacon Report. What affordability looks like Even in 2019, the Central Oregon Regional Housing Needs Assessment showed that more than half of renters in Deschutes County spent more than 30% of their income on housing and just over a quarter spent more than 50%. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development considers people who pay over 30% of income on rent as “rent burdened,” and people who pay over 50% of their income on rent as severely rent burdened. As rental costs continue to skyrocket, renters with Bend-based jobs are increasingly priced out. To afford a monthly rental payment (with electricity/sewer/ water etc.) of $1,000 a month, renters would have to earn an income of $40,000
