Bend, Oregon’s Spring 2022 Buyer’s Corner

WHERE ARE THE BUYERS COMING FROM?

Buyers know they are competing with plenty of other people who are also looking to get into this market. We have outlined ways to be competitive and have provided tips for succeeding as a buyer in this market. Now, we thought it would be valuable to look closely at who the competition is and where they are coming from. We will break this down from a few angles and then summarize the resulting population changes in Central Oregon.

PHYSICAL BUYER TRENDS

As many people know, California is a big feeder market for Bend and we saw continued inward migration from there. But we believe it would surprise some to see that although Bend saw the most arrivals from LA County, the next four counties on the list were all from Oregon (Clackamas, Washington, Multnomah, and Lane respectively). This means that most of the influx is actually coming from within Oregon and just across the Cascades.

HOUSEHOLD COMPOSITION OF HOME BUYERS

DEMOGRAPHIC BUYER TRENDS

The number of single women in the market has increased again in 2021, making this demographic the second largest group of buyers at 19%. This is almost double the number of single men purchasing homes (9%), but both groups are still behind married couples (60%). Looking at the chart below, you can see how from 1980 until this year, the number of married buyers has slid by 18%, the number of single male buyers has been relatively constant, and the number of female buyers has increased by 72%.

GENERATIONAL BUYER TRENDS

The chart below helps emphasize the generational distribution of buyers over the last year. The number of buyers in the Millennial/Gen Y demographic is the largest collection of buyers and is expected to continue growing as they approach their peak earning years.

SO JUST HOW MANY BUYERS ARE COMING TO DESCHUTES COUNTY?

Although 2021 net migration numbers are not finalized yet, the numbers are expected to show just over a 2% population increase in Deschutes county between 2020 and 2021. This would rank Deschutes as the fastest growing county in OR (for counties over 100,000) people. The only counties to show higher population growth all had less than 25,000 residents.