Spring is in the air and Central Oregon’s prime realty season is buzzing with renewed hope. Home inventories are down, listings and sales are slowly stirring and realtors are bracing for a return to health and stability in the residential and commercial property arenas. Despite the daily news blaring dire headlines of economic woe, indicators are nudging toward the notion of calm sailing just on the horizon. Redmond and Sisters are two diverse communities whose markets offer unique challenges and opportunities in navigating the rough seas of desirable Oregon real estate.
Peter Storton, principal broker and owner of RE/MAX Revolution in Sisters, sees every reason to be optimistic. His twenty years of experience in the industry has earned him a respected place among his peers and the new expanded offices at Outlaw Station allow his comprehensive team to modernize the way real estate is presented and sold in today’s rapid-fire digital age.
Storton thinks the important thing is to understand and respect what happened here since 2008, and the dramatic drop in home values not only in Sisters but all of Central Oregon with a 40 percent reduction of home values, creating an environment clogged with distressed properties worth far less than originally believed.
“In 2009 I made sure all our agents were certified as distressed property specialists, which meant dealing mostly with short sales,” he said. “It was very important for our office to be able to respond to people and help them go through the process. Banks were new to confronting this volume of properties going into default because people couldn’t afford the mortgage payments. We became very busy handling those types of sales. Probably 30-40 percent of all homes being sold today are short sales.
Central Oregon, due its aggressive growth, had major developers come into town and values became extremely high, way out of proportion to other areas of the county.”
“In Sisters presently I think there’s not a lot left in the way of short sales and we have pretty much satisfied the majority of those distressed homes,” he said. “I feel we’re at the bottom of the price range now.”
Storton believes that after the damaging smoke clears, Sisters is still the same amazing place people came here for.
“We still have the ambiance and the lakes and streams and snow and the mountains. We’re still selling the same amount of units we’d normally sell but we’re now selling them for half price,” he explained. “The general price range of what’s selling today is the $175-275K range and there’s just no inventory present. It might be scary but the pride of home ownership is still huge, the restrictions on borrowing money are more conservative than they’ve ever been but there are still lenders out there, lending at four percent and the price is right. What’s nice is that from here on up you’re into appreciation territory, so this is a wonderful time to buy.”
In time, Storton sees new residential homes starting to sell again, but attempting to peg the absolute bottom is tricky.
“Hayden Homes is still here at The Village at Cold Springs subdivision and they have a lot of homes and condos yet to be built. On the commercial side, things have taken a significant beating. If there’s nobody renting, the value becomes much less. Still, we have so much going on here with the downtown renovation. New sidewalks and benches and themed street lamps. Sisters has its own identity. It’s a special place with an abundance of arts and events and we’re going to do well. Things are going to improve dramatically and those of us still here are going to benefit from that.”
With so many electronic realms to explore and devices to utilize, RE/MAX is poised to capitalize on these cyberspace avenues.
“We can sit here in our viewing rooms and go on virtual tours of properties and neighborhoods and use these wonderful new technologies to enhance our client’s experience,” said Storton. “89 percent of all new home buyers begin their search online, for homes and for agents, so it is vital to maintain a sharp focus on social networking sites and a web presence, using everything from laptops, tablets and mobile devices to deliver listings and content. This is the new way business is conducted.”
“In this industry we have the good times and the bad times. For us it has been a focus to be able to give clients the knowledge and direction to take the necessary steps to get them back to some safer base, where they can overcome the stress this scenario caused so many people.”
REDMOND
Over in Redmond, realtor/broker Cat Zwicker-Grant of Desert Sky Real Estate applies her considerable skills in a geographically and demographically alternate market using her 18 years of realty experience.
“The Redmond market is dynamically different than Sisters because it’s not a small resort community and has more of an industrial base,” she explained. “Redmond has an eye on being a balanced, functioning town with a positive growth outlook. We have a lot more space to stretch out across and so far I’m very impressed with the city’s expansion plans underway. That type of unified community and government involvement is essential for competent and meaningful change.”
Like Storton, nearly 90 percent of her home buyers start their quest online, requiring her firm to make a fundamental shift away from the old-school strategy of print advertising.
“We use the MLS tool as an initial portal but most of my clients go directly online to property websites like Zillow, Realtor.com and Trulia. I think what they’re looking for is keeping things at an arm’s length and browsing at their leisure, then finding a realtor they feel comfortable with based on their profile and previous client feedback.”
Zwicker-Grant finds the inventory for foreclosed homes, while more limited than in the past, has created a bit of a bidding war in the Redmond area, and that’s everything from approved short sales to traditional sales.
“With anything $129K and below, we’re getting multiple offers and if we know going in what parameters the bank is willing to work within it helps tremendously. The bank doesn’t want vacant homes and would like them to be occupied and cared for. They want maintained neighborhoods and would prefer not to have the expense to carry it. So I’m seeing more of those short sales approved because it’s more effective to preserve the property. Many home owners in 2008 and 2009 thought their homes went into foreclosure and walked away.
Now those foreclosures were rescinded or delayed and they’re still owners of a vacant home. The owners were never notified and the property sits in limbo.”
Looking forward, she and her partner see price points becoming more solid in Redmond and some welcome calm being restored.
“Our average price point for first time home buyers and investors was trending in the median $70-$80K and now I’m seeing that price trending stronger and foresee it stabilizing in that value range,” she said. “We can be a little above or below depending on how the inventory fluctuates but it is certainly headed in a promising direction.”
