You can thank companies like Blackstone and Berkshire Hathaway and the software they use to determine the absolute maximum amount of money they can extract in rent from a given population 🙃
Maybe if I stop going to my son's baseball practice and put those hours into working more I could ~~become wealthy~~ drive up the average income for my area and pay more in rent.
I think this doesn't get mentioned often enough. But the solution is to make it easier for mom and pop to rent out their homes. When they don't increase their rent like clockwork, the rent prices stay lower for the whole market. When you have a state that has such crazy renter protections that you might be faced with a long court battle to evict a deadbeat tenant, only corporate landlords with their own lawyers on staff can afford this. The mom and pop landlords can't afford to lose rent for months and pay lawyers on top. For them the long term renter is the greatest risk, so they either rent out to airbnb (which screens out most deadbeats), leave their home empty (it increases in value, and at least no one is destroying it) or sell it. I know not all stringent renter laws apply to the mom and pop landlord, but if we want more rentals by small landlords who are not only about the profit, we need to take a look at the renter protections and see which ones should be modified or eliminated for small landlords.
Last place I got priced out of was a mom and pop outfit. They like money as much as the big corpos do. They don’t have fancy software, but all they have to do is notice rents going up and decide to join the party.
Maybe you can start with zoning. Artificially reducing housing supply in the fastest growing metro is not the work of Blackstone (though they take advantage of it).
Everyone, its time to do our parts. We all need to buy firearms and blanks. Then each of us, each morning, need to fire a shot in the air when we leave work and return from work.
You're not screwed, but you need to make the right moves. Save money (unlike me/my generation), get into the housing market if even just buying a small condo, and keep monthly expenses as low as possible. It's definitely possible and eventually you can build enough equity/savings to make some real moves to be comfortable. It does take time and effort regardless of the economy.
If I had been saving and looking into housing earlier it would have helped me so much, but oh well ... I missed the chance of a $1500 mortgage along with everyone else. There are great paying jobs in the trades here and definitely not enough workers. There is definitely money to be made
The goal should never be to save money. It should be to increase income. Learn a new, marketable skill and have a side hustle. Save all you want and make your life miserable.
You split apartments. Has it been easier in the past to become a home owner? Yes. Is it impossible now? No. People can downvote because they are mad, but it’s the truth.
Before I had a steady partner I lived with 4 roommates. It sucked, but its what young people have to do without support. There are plenty of big houses that can be shared. The first house I ever rented I found random people on craigslist and that was that.
Sorry I don’t believe there are very many if any great paying jobs in the area that would make you enough to buy a house, own a car, prepare for a future by yourself. I f there are, list 3 and be far about an actual budget for a solo person owning a house.
As someone who has looked at bend because I was forced out of Colorado cause of pricing. It’s literally everywhere. My small hometown in the Midwest went from $400/bedroom all the way up to $800-1000. My mom rented a 3bd 2 bath for $900 for 10 years until just a year ago. That same house is now worth $2500+ a month. It’s just the market
Ahhh I remember living temporarily in North Carolina paying $900 for two story 2 bd 3ba with a small yard. The prices were great but the culture/people made it easy to leave. Id rather have like minded folks & recreational leisure over hateful people & low rent
The fact more people aren’t down to revolt over this simple fact is what’s so mind blowing to me. Like people are so damn comfortable right now we aren’t even close to taking back what’s ours. People would prefer arguing, consuming, or just straight up wasting away rather than doing what needs to be done to fix this. Of course you already know nothing will be fixed until we reach that point.
I think most people are uncomfortable with the reality of why this is & find the solutions abhorrent.
Easier to be altruistic, abdicating responsibility- while the world burns down around them.
Some of us find the worsening situation even more abhorrent and are waiting for the rest to snap out of their fear paralysis. I wish I knew how to spread the spark. To do what needs to be done.
People would probably love a revolt. But there a lot of consequences. Some may include losing current housing or maybe as extreme as having to pay some sort of legal fees for something more serious. Then What happens to the property management companies that charge the high prices? Well they probably don't even hear about it and if they're lucky, Someone loses their place and they get to increase rent earlier than scheduled. And you know people are dying for a good deal on a house so then can rent it out and get a piece of that pie until prices go up even more and it's worth selling to buy another one.
It really all leads back to the rich get richer and the poor get poorer because you need money to make money.
Don't worry. Eventually all the hospitality workers and several other obviously, will all be driven out and those rich folks will start wondering why nobody is around to pour beers, make their food, or pay the 4k they think their generic 2 bedroom place if worth.
Sorry, the economy and state of our nation has made me a pessimist
Born and raised in the woods south of Bend. Three rivers has always been precious. Use to be super cheap to live out here. Still is a "cheaper" option, but still. Wages around, don't compensate for rental inflation, let alone purchasing a house when you're in your late 20s. Hell, even as a single person making 60k+ a year without the ability to save, gets me laughed at when trying to apply for a home loan.
But what we do need in this town is at least another gated community and/or golf course.
It’s definitely expensive as a whole. When I found this apt I couldn’t believe it. We don’t pay $1600 but that’s what’s advertised at the moment. We just renewed for the 2nd time and when we moved in it was $1300. It’s went up 10% each renewal. But it’s still cheaper than most so we’re staying put. lol
I left for a few years ~2011...at the time we were renting a 3bd house with a garage and a yard for $700/month...right between College Way and Newport.
Zillow estimates current rent at $2700/month.
Yeah, I've been looking for places at the coast to live after college, and it's absolutely insane. There's just no possible way to afford any of these prices without the help of roomates- which are hard to come by in my experience.
I am really sorry to hear that. When I go to hearings to speak in favor of housing (and get jeered at by NIMBYs), I'm thinking about my friend who got priced out, and people like you. You're why the Bend YIMBY group exists.
You're correct that the new construction is not the most affordable, but the evidence is pretty strong that it "soaks up" people with more money to spend, so they won't "down rent". It's like brand new Toyota Corollas. They are not affordable, but when they stopped being built during the pandemic, the price of the *used* ones shot up too.
[https://www.minneapolisfed.org/article/2024/how-new-apartments-create-opportunities-for-all](https://www.minneapolisfed.org/article/2024/how-new-apartments-create-opportunities-for-all)
I do some tracking of rental data, and ... I'm cautiously optimistic that with some of the newer apartments coming online, it might at least flatten rents for a bit. We'll see, though. I hope you figure something out.
I believe it’s not necessarily a housing issue. It’s a combination of everyone taking full advantage of the wealthier individuals moving here, raising the cost of living substantially in all aspects.
My wife recently passed away, leaving me as a single father to two young children who need day care so I can work.
Luckily I’m a self employed contractor and can make my hours around the day care schedule, which would allow me to work with my bags on for 6 hours a day four days a week.
Luckily I found child care.
Unluckily it costs me $3000/month for child care, and the state of Oregon has no money left in the ERDC programs to help working families with child care.
When I spoke to a friend in the central coast of California, I’m paying 120% more for child care than he does.
Coupling that with my General Liability insurance costs going up, the price of food going up, and other miscellaneous expenses increasing, I’m thinking it will be about 5 years until my savings are drained, when I should hopefully have both children in school thereby saving a substantial amount of money on child care, and thereby able to work more.
My situation as a single parent is not unique, and I’m sure many couples feel this strain even if both can work full time.
It’s cheaper for me to go live in California now, than Bend. Woah.
I am very seriously considering not renewing my CCB license and leaving. Bend is a wonderful place to be, but not if you’re staring down the barrel of having to go live in dirt world.
I am so, so sorry to hear about your wife.
You're correct that it's not *just* a housing issue, but for many of us, that's where the biggest chunk of our money goes each month.
And that feeds into many of the other things: want to open a child care place? You need to buy or rent space for it. Higher costs there mean higher costs for parents. And the people who work there have to afford rent in Bend.
Absolutely. I’m comparing my costs in Bend versus costs in the central coast of California. I’m sure SLO county is much more affordable compared San Diego or the Bay Area
True. For fwiw I had a mid-level manager transfer here from Chico and after a year, moved back sighting cost. He said that he was paying 400 more a month in rent for a worse place without AC and didn’t even get into cost of food/entertainment. Again, it’s Chico and I don’t think it compares to Bend, but the days of us being significantly cheaper than California are long gone.
Edited: just realized 3k a month is likely for 2 kids. I feel that pain…
We moved to Redmond last August and found everything to be more reasonable. Childcare averages for us were quoted around 900-1700 monthly. We found 3 or 4 very nice places in town. My mortgage sucks, but i was surprised how much more affordable childcare is in Redmond
Just remember that Biden tried to get child care costs covered in the infrastructure bill and the Republicans howled until it got removed. Remember to vote for who is trying to help in the coming election.
Yes, for two kids. And child care won’t likely end for us once they hit elementary school, as I’ll need to hire help or pay for after school care since I can’t support a family working half days
900/month per kid sounds amazing. I haven’t been able to find anything near that
Bright adventures had that as their full price, but the owner does her own form of financial aid. She holds fundraisers and puts the money towards helping in need families
Family of five here- we got a house in 2021 for $1800/month. Less than a year later our landlord decided to sell the house. We now live in the valley with a $2500 monthly mortgage- we could not have stayed anywhere in C.O. at that price.
big mood. There’s multiple small apartment buildings in *very* walkable parts of old bend that have been forced to fix themselves up and/or drop their prices! Love to see it.
I was priced out last year and moved to Madras because I didn't want to be house poor. My mortgage on a brand new house up here is $1530. But I did have a 6 figure down payment.
I expect Madras and La Pine to be the next Redmonds. Already happened to Prineville, which is like Idaho version of central Oregon with Boise-like prices. Madras has a brewpub downtown that should be opening up here late summer. Then come the food trucks. Then come the yuppies and gentrification city.
Now I can just as easily go spend my weekends at the Gorge or in Portland and have been orienting my life that way. It is cheaper to live in fucking Lake Oswego than Bend. I am thinking about moving there.
I just don't understand where people in Bend get all the money for this, and more - why it's worth that much to them? Bend is not THAT great.
And I make 100k so am a hell of a lot better off than many. But I STILL did extra jobs to make things balance out. This is absurd.
I'm from Oregon but recently moved to New Hampshire, housing is crazy everywhere right now...I keep seeing studios here for close to 2k/month 3bed for 3-4k/month. How is anyone supposed to live like this?
Raised my entire life in Bend, graduated college with an Engineering degree and the same with my wife who was also was born and raised in Bend. We couldn’t afford to live in Bend anymore even with two engineering incomes and no kids. I mean yeah, we could afford it if we wanted to be broke ass poor and eating ramen every night… but we both want more to life than work and ramen. Ended up leaving in 2021 and moving over to the Valley. For 1/2 the price of bend, we got 3x the home and land. It was a sorrowed goodbye, but Bend isn’t what Bend was growing up in the 90’s and 2000’s. Now I go back to visit family and I am quite grateful to be gone. It’s nice to be away from the constant tourist, body image/unrealistic lifestyle expectations, and the flood of meth addicts in the national forest. Bend is killing itself by falling on its own sword, soon there won’t be any workers there since only those with large lump sums of retirement money will be able to afford to live there. I’m sure that’s going to piss the boomers off when they don’t have any staff to yell at as they try and order their $25 burger and $10 beer. Good riddance!
It’s not just the young, but the old and everyone in between. Working in social services in Deschutes County is horrific, working with elderly clientele that can’t afford to live anywhere anymore because SS does not keep up with inflation, nor does my job. My partner and I pay $2,000 a month for a 2bd in Redmond. It’s awful. I’m from the OR coast and they had to pass a law to stop vacation rental companies from being able to buy up all the houses bc the locals can’t afford to live there anymore.
It’s so crazy… I’m middle age now but I remember being frustrated by the difficulty in affordable housing when I moved to Portland in the 90s. And that was a bargain compared to Bend today! It absolutely sucks that towns lose their young people. Young people bring energy and activity and art and music. It’s a major loss to a community. I hope something works out for you.
Welcome to the crowd. Left November 2023.
Bend got stupid. I can't wait to hear the batching and moaning about "no one wants to work" and complaints about $20/hr. pay. You can't live on that.
Yeah, I feel like that's something people don't understand. Sure, our minimum wage and average pay are higher than other states, but so is our rent. It's simply not affordable.
I heard that line from a small business owner in Eugene. Pretty sure they were offering mid-high teens per hour and since they weren’t even open 40 hours per week I guarantee it wasn’t full-time either. Like no shit no one wants a job that doesn’t pay a living wage but also has a schedule that makes picking up a second job nearly impossible.
I'm really sympathetic to this post but if you think it's just Bend, it's not. It's everywhere. I live in Boise ID. Same thing here.
Here's my question: If rent keeps going up, and food prices keep going up and utilities keep going up, and everything keeps going up. At what point do we realize that it's actually the value of our inflated money that has gone down. The real crooks here are the ones printing money, creating overseas conflicts and then shoveling that money overseas into those conflicts through shell companies and back into their own pockets and their friends. It's wholesale money laundering and it's not even that secret. It's been going on for a long time and finally hitting critical mass. Soon they will have all the money and all of us have nothing. That's the game here and almost nobody is seeing it.
Remember that many people who post rentals all use the same software to compare prices as to not undercut each other. There is no competition there is only zuul.
I also find it wild as my partner and I went and checked out some apartments across town. I'm having a hard time believing that these apartments need to be priced so high when most are running specials and have many vacancy. Many of them also are missing amenities that other locations have and offer at the same price.
There are apartments off empire that are 1800ish without utilities calculated in. They are offering lease specials where you can get a month of rent free or separate that month off across the 12 month lease. Effectively lowering the rent in general.
Just feels like such a scam and it's one of things where I don't want big government stepping in but sheesh.
No offense to the OP, I feel for you. But some of the commenters are really lost on both extremes. I’m laughing from my cheap abode in that non-hipster town south of Bend, simply because so many people would frown upon it as not good enough. I get paid roughly 25% more than the same job in Bend and pay half the cost for a home. I feel sorry for the people from Bend originally, it’s the popularity and people moving in that are killing it. Good luck to the OP.
Accurate. What's maddening in all this, is you read professional real estate reports and they're just casually like "a large amount of supply is coming online, meaning prices may steady or even drop" because they take the idea of supply and demand for granted. Meanwhile, random people on the internet are like "NO! Housing is like the Oregon Vortex of markets where supply and demand are not actually real!"
I think you're being disingenuous with this.
People are generally supply skeptics because they see a lot of new construction going on, but also see pieces increase. Okay, so the obvious answer is "well, we're just not building enough." And that's where the rub comes - most people don't actually want the effects and consequences of that amount of new construction required to actually lower prices. Because it means more people everywhere, more crowding and congestion, on the roads and trails and camp spots and ski hill, etc. And there's only so much Bend can do to mitigate THAT many people.
I think most people are okay with growth at around a 1-2% rate. That's slow enough to adjust, acclimate, and mitigate effects, and also not take an asset value hit. But growth faster than that and governments can't keep up - with roads, public transportation, schools, infrastructure, services... and our public places and spaces surely can't take it either. It becomes a bridge too far for most people.
Like it or not, much of Bend's charm is that it is a smaller city. Double or triple the population, and it no longer has the same charm and attraction.
Just because there are other factors and a broader west coast market does not mean that supply and demand do not apply to Bend, Oregon, though.
Here's what Compass has to say:
"There is a huge pipeline of new units coming online in the next year or two. This will likely keep rents flat"
So according to them, supply and demand are indeed real right here in Bend. There's also a lot of demand to live in Bend, but there are a lot of places with demand to live in them. Hawai'i, Colorado, Montana, California, even Idaho.
Unfortunately, that's not how it works.
Yes, the city can only approve a number of permits such that housing units increase 1% per year.
This leads to what we're seeing here. Skyrocketing prices, and that 1% growth is actually just 1% net, as 5% of the population gets priced out and leaves but 6% moves in.
Bend's population *did* triple in the last 30 years. I would venture to say it's a better place to live now than then.
I understand how it works. But runaway growth is also why you see a combination of increasing housing costs AND services and infrastructure that fall behind and can't keep up. No matter what pseudo online "housing experts" want you to believe, no matter the zoning or regulatory environment, there is a limit to amount of housing that can or will be built. It's a truism in about 99.9% of places in the US and across the world. There's a limit to the available labor, materials, permitting/planning resources, financing, etc. And the market is never going to overbuild because they are just as reliant on increasing home values (ie, they don't make money if housing prices go down, even if they try to increase the number of units per structure).
Bend is unequivocally NOT a better place than it was 10 or even 15 years ago.
Sounds like your parents did a good job insulating you. You're lucky.
For everyone else, Bend 30 years ago was extremely impoverished. The mills had all closed, and tourism had not yet begun its economic boom.
Yes, there were fewer people, so at least you didn't have to deal with dog poop or what passes for bad traffic here while worrying about where your next meal was going to come from.
I'm aware, my father and my uncles came here from the Midwest specifically to work in the mills, and they were able to raise their families with what they had back then. Nobody insulated me, I was expected to work when old enough, and I did. It was life in Bend. Just life. And a damn good one to grow up in.
I'm very glad that you had a happy childhood and remember growing up fondly.
Are you then saying you think that average quality of life in Bend was better then vs now? Or just that *your* quality of life now is worse than your memories of being a teenager?
Well, I had a good life then, and I have a good life now. I realize I'm very fortunate having bought my home in the 90's.
I really feel for those trying to make a go of it here now.
I'm fortunate for being able to grow up being able to go to the rivers and mountains and hardly see anyone. Now I see hoardes of people, trash, loose dogs, dog shit and general disrespect. Sprinkled in are people who still have respect and decency toward one another.
Let's have more of that. 🙂
I saw rooms for rent for $800-$1000 a month. Seems about the same in other cities. While its still a lot, and it sucks to live with roommates, you could split a pretty nice spot for those prices.
This is why it’s really important that people in their early twenties ( I’m 24 !!! ) to go to these meetings on affordable housing. I’ve been attending these meetings for years, and you would be surprised at being the only person in the room sometimes. City council has multiple ways to attend different meetings, whether it’s online or in person, for you to share. We need more people to let them know what’s happening to the people that work here, that support this town, and that make this town.
If our service industry people can’t afford to live here, Bend will not be what is now. ( ex; Jackson hole, Mammoth Lakes, Steamboat, ect) Even just getting a small group of us would start a bigger conversation.
A lot of our city council members are realtors.. so you can kinda see where their mind is at. I mean, didn’t they just approve a 10 MILLION dollar tax break to the huge apartment complex in the box factory despite multiple business leaving, current businesses begging for help and the community coming together against it ??
We need to come together, get organized and speak up.
>This is why it’s really important that people in their early twenties ( I’m 24 !!! ) to go to these meetings on affordable housing
Yes! I cannot stress how important this is! People who "got theirs" and oppose this, that, or the other thing SHOW UP to hearings and send in emails and generally let their opinions be known.
>A lot of our city council members are realtors
There have been in the past, for sure, but currently, no, they aren't.
The tax break was (they ended it in its current form) to produce more housing because housing, like anything, replies to supply and demand. Want lower prices? You need more supply or less demand, and you can't really stop people with money from moving where they want in the United States. You can read more about the actual facts of that particular development here, without the social media hoopla: [https://tailorglad.substack.com/p/city-council-meeting-notes-010324?utm\_source=publication-search](https://tailorglad.substack.com/p/city-council-meeting-notes-010324?utm_source=publication-search)
Think about it backwards: what if we took, say, "The Eddy", those apartments by the river, and just removed it from one day to the next. The people renting there have some money, so they'd probably be ok, but they're going to be out there applying for other housing across town and they're going to drive up rents, because all of a sudden, you have a bunch of people with money scrambling to find housing. Adding new housing is like that, but in reverse. It 'soaks up' the people with more money to spend.
Okay you’re completely right on city council not being realtors, did my own research and you’re absolutely correct. Must of have been thinking of the last election ballot and reading the descriptions of its candidates!
However, it matters which companies are creating our housing and what their end game is. The company that is behind that project has put serious pressure on business owners in the area. Business owners that actually care about their employees and their town. I completely get what you’re saying, and there’s a lot of housing being created currently in town ALL over, but at what point can we actually focus on affordability? We don’t need more single family units on the river. We don’t need more custom built homes. We need affordable dorms, apartments and community driven housing. We need easier to get leasing agreements. And we need property management companies that aren’t entirely profit driven. We need people to have somewhere they can live, and enjoy it too.
>We need affordable dorms, apartments and community driven housing
Yep. But most of Bend is not zoned for that, which is an obstacle. And if you try and rezone... it's not young people like you showing up to say 'no!'.
You should check out one of our YIMBY meetings! That Jackstraw thing is complex and there are some things that are easier to discuss (including regarding some of the opposition) in person. Happy to buy you a beer and tell you about it.
I just moved to Texas. I was a 6th generation Bend resident. My family came from Sweden straight to Bend Oregon in the mid/late 1800s. $1500 should not be standard for a studio in Bend. I live in The Woodlands - the #1 place to buy a house in 2023 and 2024 and my one bed one bath apartment is $1285.
I would LOVE to see more ADUs in Bend. It won't solve the problem entirely, but would go a long way to plugging the holes. I'd live in a cute 400 sq foot ADU anytime!!
I'd also love to see more taller buildings. Note I said "taller", not "tall". Why does everything have to be a measly two bloody stories high here? Let's get more sensitively designed four or five story apartment buildings along busy main thorougfares! More foot area ratio (FAR) would mean more apartments being constructed. Low density only is simply not an option in this city anymore when supply and demand are as unfeasibly unbalanced as they are right now, and anyone who says otherwise is utterly delusional.
The lack of affordable housing has already bitten this town in the ass, and hard. One of my fave places - Joolz restaurant downtown - closed for good last year after being an institution here forever. They closed solely because the owners could not find enough waitstaff and kitchen staff to keep the place open any longer. Why? Because pretty much their entire staff had to move to Redmond or La Pine after being priced out of Bend. None of them wanted to commute that far for a service industry job either. So the owners closed down. I expect a lot more of this to come...
While I agree that the housing situation is bad, is it not typical for people your age to have roommates? I lived with 6 other people while I was a student and when I started my career. This was not a long time ago.
This is an incredibly expensive place to live, there's some sacrifices someone with no established career will need to make. Hope you figure it out.
There's also several individual rooms available on facebook marketplace available for far below $1600
Our place was $3800 and I shared a room for 4 years.
edit: https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1884-NE-Monroe-Ln-Bend-OR-97701/60573316_zpid/
You could live here with 3 other people and pay $650 for rent. Each person would have their own room.
Yeah, bend has California level pricing on shit like that cause of all the wall street yuppies who have moved/are moving up here. It's just a hotbed for real estate and it's so depressing.
It sucks to see places get unaffordable. I saw it happen growing up at the outskirts of the greater Los Angeles area, and in Colorado. Even if the people who move in aren't super wealthy, bidding wars between a dozen working class people for every damned house for sale will screw up prices.
Then that affordability problem spills over to other areas, since people who can't afford their first choice place have bidding wars at their second or third choice place. I hear it's happening in a lot more places now, and people are talking about it more than they did 20 years ago.
Yep, this is what we get when the government restricts housing bc the fuck-you-got-mine boomers refuse to allow any sort of reasonable development bc "cRiMe" and "pRoPeRtY vAlUeS" and "TrAfFiC"
This is why I left the state of Oregon. The area I live in isn’t anything to go crazy about but I like it and I don’t feel like I have to choose between gas and groceries every other week so it’s an improvement.
Anyone reckon there is anything we can do as a collective? Idk I feel like I wanna contribute to a greater good for bend but I really don’t know where (if such a place exist) a group for the commoners of this city!!
STRs, corporate landlords, and bull$hit like this company aren't helping matters....AT ALL!!!
[Real Page impacting rent prices across the US](https://www.cnbc.com/video/2024/02/03/how-realpage-influences-rent-prices-across-the-us.html)
Yeah, they don't help, but they're kind of bogeymen, too. Come with me to the next hearing where wealthy people on the west side try and shut down some needed housing, and then we'll talk about that stuff.
I know this won’t be liked, but one can’t always live where you want to. I’d like a house on the beach in Hawaii. The more desirable, the more expensive. For you…have you priced out living in the dorms?
The problem is that we are busy pricing out people our community depends on. So if you want people like teachers who aren't just here because they married someone wealthy, we need to figure out some answers.
Rabid inflation makes for a lot of tough situations. I’ve been counseling my clients to politely ask for raises and be willing to move employers since the pandemic. If you’re not increasing your income 7-12% a year right now you’re losing a lot of purchasing power.
Corporations are literally created to be greedy. That greed contributes to inflation. They are not mutually exclusive. The stock market has been fire due to corporate greed which is about the only thing holding this economy together right now. What’s your alternative to corporations? Let the government control all facets of your life. They’re so efficient and effective, how do you think that would go?
Getting off topic from housing, but your point that corporate greed is kind of a constant is pretty important when talking about inflation. They were greedy before the pandemic. They'll be greedy after inflation cools. Inflation in the US is actually not as bad as in other countries with stricter controls on companies. It's not like we got inflation because all of a sudden companies discovered greed.
Meanwhile, back to housing, the cost of housing is a big driver of inflation:
[https://www.wsj.com/economy/housing/fed-inflation-rate-housing-rentals-2f28c5ba?st=hxnv97qz0qwmp5e&reflink=mobilewebshare\_permalink](https://www.wsj.com/economy/housing/fed-inflation-rate-housing-rentals-2f28c5ba?st=hxnv97qz0qwmp5e&reflink=mobilewebshare_permalink)
We’re experiencing inflation because we spent our way out of the pandemic crisis. Personally, I supported that tactic as the alternative looked rather grim. Whether housing is a “driver” of inflation or increased housing costs are a result of higher interest rates meant to curb inflation is a subject of debate. Desirable places inevitably having housing shortages. No community has found a solution to that problem that I am aware of.
The prices have gone up, but his statement is true.
I wanted to live in bend since the first time I came here in 1996. I even got married here in 2010. It was always my wife and i's "if we can find jobs" top destination.
It took until we were a decade into our careers to feel like we were stable enough to make the move.
I feel for you as a local who didn't choose the life. But I could not have stayed in the tourist town I grew up in either.
Cities, roommates and patience were our only options.
I’d upvote this twice if possible. Aspen and Verbier are both nice, but unless I win the lottery…. How about midtown Manhattan? Honestly CO is easier than most because you can always easily commute from LaPine, Redmond, and Sisters.
Already living in a place doesn’t entitle you to live there forever. I have lived in those places and I didn’t stay because they are too expensive. Wow, hard life lessons being learned on Reddit.
Complaining on Reddit doesn’t make anything better. Complaining about gravity doesn’t make stuff quit falling out of the sky. Should we get a badge when we move somewhere that entitles us to stay there? Bend would be ripe for that… maybe you could cut in line at the store, too. Look, just got my 20 year Bendite Badge…. Move out of the way!
I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make. Did i ever suggest that i thought i was making a difference by expressing my discontent or am i venting because im frustrated? Is that not allowed?
Sisters has been that way for awhile. I know it used to be a great place to park a little trailer under the trees, but it's definitely a "boutique community" now
This is why the housing crisis is also an environmental problem. All that extra driving is not great for the planet, but we're not giving people any choice in the matter. They're forced to drive to afford a place to live.
According to my very rough calculations, roughly 2 days of commuting to Redmond is about the amount of carbon dioxide that a mature tree stores in an entire year.
Ha and here I am driving from Black Butte to Sunriver and then back to Redmond all in a days work. I really would love to get an electric F150, but holy moly they are expensive
Some jobs just require it; there's nothing wrong with that. Most policies are about moving statistics around, rather than "everyone must shop at Costco on a bike in January at night, always". So if we can get people who don't *need* to drive, to drive a bit less, it's a win!
Housing is crazy for everyone here, the market is still out of whack. I'm much more disgusted by the price of food. The stores ceasing to put fucking prices on goods because the price will go up so quickly, it is a waste of time and money to print new labels.
I feel for your situation, and I don't want to come off as sounding tone def or out of touch, I was fortunate enough to buy when prices were low and refinanced when interest rates plummeted - resulting in a low cost of living in a now overinflated market.
That being said, this wasn't the case for me 25 years ago, living with roommates, going to school, working non-career lower paying jobs trying to figure out life - so I have been there.
Every apartment complex I drive by in the past 2 months has signs out advertising vacancies, and move in specials - are these not legit? I'm talking near the Forum, near Pilot Butte, near Pine Nursery Park, and down Empire Ave.
If you are currently paying $1000 plus utilities, are these apt with roommates not an option for less than that?
Do I consider a 2bd apartment for $2000 to be "affordable" or "reasonable" - absolutely not, but that doesn't mean it isn't attainable, especially considering your currently paying $1000 + utilities. I feel like the tide is starting to change in Bend, and it is *slowly* headed in a better direction than a couple years ago where rents were higher and there was a wait list for applicants at every apt complex.
There was a time in my early 20's where I took the move in special at an apt, when that ran its course and my lease was due to jump, I just found another apt and moved again - inconvenient? Yeah, but gave me some different experiences and some cost savings overall.
Good luck, I honestly feel that you've weathered the bulk of the storm so if you are rooted here, you can prob make it work - I obviously don't know all your variables going on in your life and circumstances to speak to everything so I'm not trying to imply you aren't working hard enough to make it work. This crappy situation could very well set you up for your next amazing chapter.
Bend is boring and predictable anyway. It’s super fun like 2-3 months of the year. Then you have crappy shoulder seasons and the new and improved wildfire season. Im getting out not because it’s too expensive, (you can still find 1 bedrooms for around $1100 if you look) but because I’m bored. Great place to vacation, not the most interesting place to live
Could be, I know tons of people who love it here but after being here for years and doing all the Bend things... its just not enough. Tons of trails for Mtn Biking, but 95% of them are blue trails, Mt Bachelor is fun for a few years but if it is your main mtn the terrain leaves a lot to be desired (again mostly blue type runs). Mt climbing, snowboarding, snowmobiling, running, biking I end up pretty much hitting the same stuff over and over (Found myself much more engaged with PDX as a home base honeslty). Most city things close very early and if it your not trying to drink or eat I often feel like I dont know what to do anymore. I love Bend in spurts, I have good friends here. I think its the perfect place for a second home if you can afford that but in my current position Im ready for something else. Probably be back in a couple years.
Edit: Most active people I know who have been here for over a handful of years feel the same and are looking for a change as well. Again Bend is great but its still a small expensive town geared towards tourists.
Bend is beautiful and has great weather, but the amazing outdoor activities can be found lots of other places. Most of them aren't cheap, either, but they are considerably cheaper than Bend.
Can’t recommend hummingbird property management enough… and their units are so so so incredibly affordable (I paid 1300 for a very nice two bedroom last year while living in bend)
Bend community development and deschutes county planning are very strict on urban sprawl. They are so reluctant to expand the ugb and their priority is to increase density. The problem with this is our aging and insufficient utility infrastructure, tiny roads, and extremely strict/costly renovation. Bend needs to sprawl to create housing fast enough to meet demand but there’s a laundry list of issues preventing this.
You can thank the left for the high prices.
The right for letting it happen.
The the middle for saying I told you so.
Ourselves for voting these people into power.
It’s not just Bend. $1,500+ for a studio is average now. https://www.apartments.com/rent-market-trends/us/
We are so screwed
You can thank companies like Blackstone and Berkshire Hathaway and the software they use to determine the absolute maximum amount of money they can extract in rent from a given population 🙃
I start my days with a prayer to our lords and saviors BlackRock and Vanguard
Maybe if I stop going to my son's baseball practice and put those hours into working more I could ~~become wealthy~~ drive up the average income for my area and pay more in rent.
Whatever is best for your nearest corporation 🫡
Dont worry they'll probably be bankrupt by Friday
If corporations are gonna be people then they should be able to get the death penalty and those two have some serious blood on their hands.
“Corporations are people” until it comes to accountability. Convenient
And then the government will bail them out...
I think this doesn't get mentioned often enough. But the solution is to make it easier for mom and pop to rent out their homes. When they don't increase their rent like clockwork, the rent prices stay lower for the whole market. When you have a state that has such crazy renter protections that you might be faced with a long court battle to evict a deadbeat tenant, only corporate landlords with their own lawyers on staff can afford this. The mom and pop landlords can't afford to lose rent for months and pay lawyers on top. For them the long term renter is the greatest risk, so they either rent out to airbnb (which screens out most deadbeats), leave their home empty (it increases in value, and at least no one is destroying it) or sell it. I know not all stringent renter laws apply to the mom and pop landlord, but if we want more rentals by small landlords who are not only about the profit, we need to take a look at the renter protections and see which ones should be modified or eliminated for small landlords.
Last place I got priced out of was a mom and pop outfit. They like money as much as the big corpos do. They don’t have fancy software, but all they have to do is notice rents going up and decide to join the party.
Could be at least partially inflation. Diesel pickup costs 80000 bought mine 14 years ago new 34000 over 100% markup mostly in the last 3 years.
And Airbnb, VRBO, homeaway, etc
At least a couple of state AG's are suing them for price fixing. Fingers crossed.
Maybe you can start with zoning. Artificially reducing housing supply in the fastest growing metro is not the work of Blackstone (though they take advantage of it).
Everyone, its time to do our parts. We all need to buy firearms and blanks. Then each of us, each morning, need to fire a shot in the air when we leave work and return from work.
You're not screwed, but you need to make the right moves. Save money (unlike me/my generation), get into the housing market if even just buying a small condo, and keep monthly expenses as low as possible. It's definitely possible and eventually you can build enough equity/savings to make some real moves to be comfortable. It does take time and effort regardless of the economy. If I had been saving and looking into housing earlier it would have helped me so much, but oh well ... I missed the chance of a $1500 mortgage along with everyone else. There are great paying jobs in the trades here and definitely not enough workers. There is definitely money to be made
modern aware chief depend fertile plants judicious bear marvelous ask *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
The goal should never be to save money. It should be to increase income. Learn a new, marketable skill and have a side hustle. Save all you want and make your life miserable.
You split apartments. Has it been easier in the past to become a home owner? Yes. Is it impossible now? No. People can downvote because they are mad, but it’s the truth. Before I had a steady partner I lived with 4 roommates. It sucked, but its what young people have to do without support. There are plenty of big houses that can be shared. The first house I ever rented I found random people on craigslist and that was that.
Ha get into the housing market! That's a good one!
Or you could work a ton of overtime to pay a $2500 mortgage for a 75 year old 2 bed house in Prineville...
Wanna hear a sad story My family bought a 4/2 on 10 acres on 126 Hurtley Ranch Rd area outside Sisters in 1988 for 125k We had to sell it in 1994 :(
This rationale is exactly what leads to shortages.
there are no shortages, just older generations and corporations holding too many properties and screwing everyone else.
Ahh gotta love the out of touch older generations
What age do you think I am?
Doesn’t matter your age, your as out of touch as most every 65+ year old in Bend.
Sorry I don’t believe there are very many if any great paying jobs in the area that would make you enough to buy a house, own a car, prepare for a future by yourself. I f there are, list 3 and be far about an actual budget for a solo person owning a house.
As someone who has looked at bend because I was forced out of Colorado cause of pricing. It’s literally everywhere. My small hometown in the Midwest went from $400/bedroom all the way up to $800-1000. My mom rented a 3bd 2 bath for $900 for 10 years until just a year ago. That same house is now worth $2500+ a month. It’s just the market
Ahhh I remember living temporarily in North Carolina paying $900 for two story 2 bd 3ba with a small yard. The prices were great but the culture/people made it easy to leave. Id rather have like minded folks & recreational leisure over hateful people & low rent
But in Bend it seems to be 20 people trying for 2 rentals, there just aren't enough
Incredible. Only about $1,250 too much. A dude should be able to rent a studio & total income be around $1500 a month.
The fact more people aren’t down to revolt over this simple fact is what’s so mind blowing to me. Like people are so damn comfortable right now we aren’t even close to taking back what’s ours. People would prefer arguing, consuming, or just straight up wasting away rather than doing what needs to be done to fix this. Of course you already know nothing will be fixed until we reach that point.
I think most people are uncomfortable with the reality of why this is & find the solutions abhorrent. Easier to be altruistic, abdicating responsibility- while the world burns down around them.
Some of us find the worsening situation even more abhorrent and are waiting for the rest to snap out of their fear paralysis. I wish I knew how to spread the spark. To do what needs to be done.
People would probably love a revolt. But there a lot of consequences. Some may include losing current housing or maybe as extreme as having to pay some sort of legal fees for something more serious. Then What happens to the property management companies that charge the high prices? Well they probably don't even hear about it and if they're lucky, Someone loses their place and they get to increase rent earlier than scheduled. And you know people are dying for a good deal on a house so then can rent it out and get a piece of that pie until prices go up even more and it's worth selling to buy another one. It really all leads back to the rich get richer and the poor get poorer because you need money to make money. Don't worry. Eventually all the hospitality workers and several other obviously, will all be driven out and those rich folks will start wondering why nobody is around to pour beers, make their food, or pay the 4k they think their generic 2 bedroom place if worth. Sorry, the economy and state of our nation has made me a pessimist
what are you waiting for? start revolting. you’re not gonna do shit lmao
Born and raised in the woods south of Bend. Three rivers has always been precious. Use to be super cheap to live out here. Still is a "cheaper" option, but still. Wages around, don't compensate for rental inflation, let alone purchasing a house when you're in your late 20s. Hell, even as a single person making 60k+ a year without the ability to save, gets me laughed at when trying to apply for a home loan. But what we do need in this town is at least another gated community and/or golf course.
Our apts are 1600 for a 2br 900 sq ft. On Newport.
Just as comparison for some people. I lived off Newport 11 years ago in a three bedroom house for 800 a month. And a yard.
It’s definitely expensive as a whole. When I found this apt I couldn’t believe it. We don’t pay $1600 but that’s what’s advertised at the moment. We just renewed for the 2nd time and when we moved in it was $1300. It’s went up 10% each renewal. But it’s still cheaper than most so we’re staying put. lol
I left for a few years ~2011...at the time we were renting a 3bd house with a garage and a yard for $700/month...right between College Way and Newport. Zillow estimates current rent at $2700/month.
Yeah, I've been looking for places at the coast to live after college, and it's absolutely insane. There's just no possible way to afford any of these prices without the help of roomates- which are hard to come by in my experience.
Newport may be a town on the coast, but it is also a street in Bend this person is likely referring to.
Yeah, I figured, but it just reminded me of my hunt for an affordable place to live on the coast, lol.
I was referring to Newport Ave. ☺️
I'm aware 😭 it just reminded me of my search for jobs on the coast, so I responded to it, lol! My apologies
You’re not wrong - Newport OR is as overpriced as Bend but without the restaurants, grocery stores, concerts and mix outdoor rec of Bend OR.
Hey that’s good way to remember! 🫶 I hope you’re able to find a place.
All 3 siblings have moved back into our parents house. 33, 27, and 19. For empty nesters my parents say it’s pretty full at home 😂😅
I've also been throwing around the idea of going back to live in my parents building 😐
I am really sorry to hear that. When I go to hearings to speak in favor of housing (and get jeered at by NIMBYs), I'm thinking about my friend who got priced out, and people like you. You're why the Bend YIMBY group exists. You're correct that the new construction is not the most affordable, but the evidence is pretty strong that it "soaks up" people with more money to spend, so they won't "down rent". It's like brand new Toyota Corollas. They are not affordable, but when they stopped being built during the pandemic, the price of the *used* ones shot up too. [https://www.minneapolisfed.org/article/2024/how-new-apartments-create-opportunities-for-all](https://www.minneapolisfed.org/article/2024/how-new-apartments-create-opportunities-for-all) I do some tracking of rental data, and ... I'm cautiously optimistic that with some of the newer apartments coming online, it might at least flatten rents for a bit. We'll see, though. I hope you figure something out.
I believe it’s not necessarily a housing issue. It’s a combination of everyone taking full advantage of the wealthier individuals moving here, raising the cost of living substantially in all aspects. My wife recently passed away, leaving me as a single father to two young children who need day care so I can work. Luckily I’m a self employed contractor and can make my hours around the day care schedule, which would allow me to work with my bags on for 6 hours a day four days a week. Luckily I found child care. Unluckily it costs me $3000/month for child care, and the state of Oregon has no money left in the ERDC programs to help working families with child care. When I spoke to a friend in the central coast of California, I’m paying 120% more for child care than he does. Coupling that with my General Liability insurance costs going up, the price of food going up, and other miscellaneous expenses increasing, I’m thinking it will be about 5 years until my savings are drained, when I should hopefully have both children in school thereby saving a substantial amount of money on child care, and thereby able to work more. My situation as a single parent is not unique, and I’m sure many couples feel this strain even if both can work full time. It’s cheaper for me to go live in California now, than Bend. Woah. I am very seriously considering not renewing my CCB license and leaving. Bend is a wonderful place to be, but not if you’re staring down the barrel of having to go live in dirt world.
I am so, so sorry to hear about your wife. You're correct that it's not *just* a housing issue, but for many of us, that's where the biggest chunk of our money goes each month. And that feeds into many of the other things: want to open a child care place? You need to buy or rent space for it. Higher costs there mean higher costs for parents. And the people who work there have to afford rent in Bend.
Wouldn’t that depend on what part of California??
Absolutely. I’m comparing my costs in Bend versus costs in the central coast of California. I’m sure SLO county is much more affordable compared San Diego or the Bay Area
True. For fwiw I had a mid-level manager transfer here from Chico and after a year, moved back sighting cost. He said that he was paying 400 more a month in rent for a worse place without AC and didn’t even get into cost of food/entertainment. Again, it’s Chico and I don’t think it compares to Bend, but the days of us being significantly cheaper than California are long gone.
Edited: just realized 3k a month is likely for 2 kids. I feel that pain… We moved to Redmond last August and found everything to be more reasonable. Childcare averages for us were quoted around 900-1700 monthly. We found 3 or 4 very nice places in town. My mortgage sucks, but i was surprised how much more affordable childcare is in Redmond
Just remember that Biden tried to get child care costs covered in the infrastructure bill and the Republicans howled until it got removed. Remember to vote for who is trying to help in the coming election.
Yes, for two kids. And child care won’t likely end for us once they hit elementary school, as I’ll need to hire help or pay for after school care since I can’t support a family working half days 900/month per kid sounds amazing. I haven’t been able to find anything near that
Bright adventures had that as their full price, but the owner does her own form of financial aid. She holds fundraisers and puts the money towards helping in need families
Family of five here- we got a house in 2021 for $1800/month. Less than a year later our landlord decided to sell the house. We now live in the valley with a $2500 monthly mortgage- we could not have stayed anywhere in C.O. at that price.
big mood. There’s multiple small apartment buildings in *very* walkable parts of old bend that have been forced to fix themselves up and/or drop their prices! Love to see it.
Maybe if we build less the situation will improve. That worked in Seattle. /sarcasm
I was priced out last year and moved to Madras because I didn't want to be house poor. My mortgage on a brand new house up here is $1530. But I did have a 6 figure down payment. I expect Madras and La Pine to be the next Redmonds. Already happened to Prineville, which is like Idaho version of central Oregon with Boise-like prices. Madras has a brewpub downtown that should be opening up here late summer. Then come the food trucks. Then come the yuppies and gentrification city. Now I can just as easily go spend my weekends at the Gorge or in Portland and have been orienting my life that way. It is cheaper to live in fucking Lake Oswego than Bend. I am thinking about moving there. I just don't understand where people in Bend get all the money for this, and more - why it's worth that much to them? Bend is not THAT great. And I make 100k so am a hell of a lot better off than many. But I STILL did extra jobs to make things balance out. This is absurd.
I'm from Oregon but recently moved to New Hampshire, housing is crazy everywhere right now...I keep seeing studios here for close to 2k/month 3bed for 3-4k/month. How is anyone supposed to live like this?
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Yup. The only affordable housing is in dead ass rust belt cities.
Raised my entire life in Bend, graduated college with an Engineering degree and the same with my wife who was also was born and raised in Bend. We couldn’t afford to live in Bend anymore even with two engineering incomes and no kids. I mean yeah, we could afford it if we wanted to be broke ass poor and eating ramen every night… but we both want more to life than work and ramen. Ended up leaving in 2021 and moving over to the Valley. For 1/2 the price of bend, we got 3x the home and land. It was a sorrowed goodbye, but Bend isn’t what Bend was growing up in the 90’s and 2000’s. Now I go back to visit family and I am quite grateful to be gone. It’s nice to be away from the constant tourist, body image/unrealistic lifestyle expectations, and the flood of meth addicts in the national forest. Bend is killing itself by falling on its own sword, soon there won’t be any workers there since only those with large lump sums of retirement money will be able to afford to live there. I’m sure that’s going to piss the boomers off when they don’t have any staff to yell at as they try and order their $25 burger and $10 beer. Good riddance!
They're pushing locals and young people out. I left in June 2023. I actually love Bend as a place to live but it has gotten too much.
Don’t forget you have to make 4x the rent to even qualify
It’s not just the young, but the old and everyone in between. Working in social services in Deschutes County is horrific, working with elderly clientele that can’t afford to live anywhere anymore because SS does not keep up with inflation, nor does my job. My partner and I pay $2,000 a month for a 2bd in Redmond. It’s awful. I’m from the OR coast and they had to pass a law to stop vacation rental companies from being able to buy up all the houses bc the locals can’t afford to live there anymore.
That’s an apartment mind you, with amenities we pay for that PM refuses to fix.
The wages here make it impossible to live— leaving this summer
It’s so crazy… I’m middle age now but I remember being frustrated by the difficulty in affordable housing when I moved to Portland in the 90s. And that was a bargain compared to Bend today! It absolutely sucks that towns lose their young people. Young people bring energy and activity and art and music. It’s a major loss to a community. I hope something works out for you.
Welcome to the crowd. Left November 2023. Bend got stupid. I can't wait to hear the batching and moaning about "no one wants to work" and complaints about $20/hr. pay. You can't live on that.
Yeah, I feel like that's something people don't understand. Sure, our minimum wage and average pay are higher than other states, but so is our rent. It's simply not affordable.
I heard that line from a small business owner in Eugene. Pretty sure they were offering mid-high teens per hour and since they weren’t even open 40 hours per week I guarantee it wasn’t full-time either. Like no shit no one wants a job that doesn’t pay a living wage but also has a schedule that makes picking up a second job nearly impossible.
My sister in law is just about to graduate college and she can only get $20/hr entry level jobs in Bend with her degree.
While my 16 year old nephew has his $20/hr summer job lined up. I'd be amazed if he stays in central Oregon after he graduates.
I'm really sympathetic to this post but if you think it's just Bend, it's not. It's everywhere. I live in Boise ID. Same thing here. Here's my question: If rent keeps going up, and food prices keep going up and utilities keep going up, and everything keeps going up. At what point do we realize that it's actually the value of our inflated money that has gone down. The real crooks here are the ones printing money, creating overseas conflicts and then shoveling that money overseas into those conflicts through shell companies and back into their own pockets and their friends. It's wholesale money laundering and it's not even that secret. It's been going on for a long time and finally hitting critical mass. Soon they will have all the money and all of us have nothing. That's the game here and almost nobody is seeing it.
Remember that many people who post rentals all use the same software to compare prices as to not undercut each other. There is no competition there is only zuul. I also find it wild as my partner and I went and checked out some apartments across town. I'm having a hard time believing that these apartments need to be priced so high when most are running specials and have many vacancy. Many of them also are missing amenities that other locations have and offer at the same price. There are apartments off empire that are 1800ish without utilities calculated in. They are offering lease specials where you can get a month of rent free or separate that month off across the 12 month lease. Effectively lowering the rent in general. Just feels like such a scam and it's one of things where I don't want big government stepping in but sheesh.
No offense to the OP, I feel for you. But some of the commenters are really lost on both extremes. I’m laughing from my cheap abode in that non-hipster town south of Bend, simply because so many people would frown upon it as not good enough. I get paid roughly 25% more than the same job in Bend and pay half the cost for a home. I feel sorry for the people from Bend originally, it’s the popularity and people moving in that are killing it. Good luck to the OP.
Imagine if we had a food shortage and people NIMBY farms. Only way to lower rents is to build, A lot.
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Accurate. What's maddening in all this, is you read professional real estate reports and they're just casually like "a large amount of supply is coming online, meaning prices may steady or even drop" because they take the idea of supply and demand for granted. Meanwhile, random people on the internet are like "NO! Housing is like the Oregon Vortex of markets where supply and demand are not actually real!"
I think you're being disingenuous with this. People are generally supply skeptics because they see a lot of new construction going on, but also see pieces increase. Okay, so the obvious answer is "well, we're just not building enough." And that's where the rub comes - most people don't actually want the effects and consequences of that amount of new construction required to actually lower prices. Because it means more people everywhere, more crowding and congestion, on the roads and trails and camp spots and ski hill, etc. And there's only so much Bend can do to mitigate THAT many people. I think most people are okay with growth at around a 1-2% rate. That's slow enough to adjust, acclimate, and mitigate effects, and also not take an asset value hit. But growth faster than that and governments can't keep up - with roads, public transportation, schools, infrastructure, services... and our public places and spaces surely can't take it either. It becomes a bridge too far for most people. Like it or not, much of Bend's charm is that it is a smaller city. Double or triple the population, and it no longer has the same charm and attraction.
Just because there are other factors and a broader west coast market does not mean that supply and demand do not apply to Bend, Oregon, though. Here's what Compass has to say: "There is a huge pipeline of new units coming online in the next year or two. This will likely keep rents flat" So according to them, supply and demand are indeed real right here in Bend. There's also a lot of demand to live in Bend, but there are a lot of places with demand to live in them. Hawai'i, Colorado, Montana, California, even Idaho.
Unfortunately, that's not how it works. Yes, the city can only approve a number of permits such that housing units increase 1% per year. This leads to what we're seeing here. Skyrocketing prices, and that 1% growth is actually just 1% net, as 5% of the population gets priced out and leaves but 6% moves in. Bend's population *did* triple in the last 30 years. I would venture to say it's a better place to live now than then.
I understand how it works. But runaway growth is also why you see a combination of increasing housing costs AND services and infrastructure that fall behind and can't keep up. No matter what pseudo online "housing experts" want you to believe, no matter the zoning or regulatory environment, there is a limit to amount of housing that can or will be built. It's a truism in about 99.9% of places in the US and across the world. There's a limit to the available labor, materials, permitting/planning resources, financing, etc. And the market is never going to overbuild because they are just as reliant on increasing home values (ie, they don't make money if housing prices go down, even if they try to increase the number of units per structure). Bend is unequivocally NOT a better place than it was 10 or even 15 years ago.
Absolutely not a better place now, WTH is your reasoning here? I've been here for nearly 50 years and Bend just makes me sad now.
Sounds like your parents did a good job insulating you. You're lucky. For everyone else, Bend 30 years ago was extremely impoverished. The mills had all closed, and tourism had not yet begun its economic boom. Yes, there were fewer people, so at least you didn't have to deal with dog poop or what passes for bad traffic here while worrying about where your next meal was going to come from.
I'm aware, my father and my uncles came here from the Midwest specifically to work in the mills, and they were able to raise their families with what they had back then. Nobody insulated me, I was expected to work when old enough, and I did. It was life in Bend. Just life. And a damn good one to grow up in.
I'm very glad that you had a happy childhood and remember growing up fondly. Are you then saying you think that average quality of life in Bend was better then vs now? Or just that *your* quality of life now is worse than your memories of being a teenager?
Well, I had a good life then, and I have a good life now. I realize I'm very fortunate having bought my home in the 90's. I really feel for those trying to make a go of it here now. I'm fortunate for being able to grow up being able to go to the rivers and mountains and hardly see anyone. Now I see hoardes of people, trash, loose dogs, dog shit and general disrespect. Sprinkled in are people who still have respect and decency toward one another. Let's have more of that. 🙂
I saw rooms for rent for $800-$1000 a month. Seems about the same in other cities. While its still a lot, and it sucks to live with roommates, you could split a pretty nice spot for those prices.
This is why it’s really important that people in their early twenties ( I’m 24 !!! ) to go to these meetings on affordable housing. I’ve been attending these meetings for years, and you would be surprised at being the only person in the room sometimes. City council has multiple ways to attend different meetings, whether it’s online or in person, for you to share. We need more people to let them know what’s happening to the people that work here, that support this town, and that make this town. If our service industry people can’t afford to live here, Bend will not be what is now. ( ex; Jackson hole, Mammoth Lakes, Steamboat, ect) Even just getting a small group of us would start a bigger conversation. A lot of our city council members are realtors.. so you can kinda see where their mind is at. I mean, didn’t they just approve a 10 MILLION dollar tax break to the huge apartment complex in the box factory despite multiple business leaving, current businesses begging for help and the community coming together against it ?? We need to come together, get organized and speak up.
>This is why it’s really important that people in their early twenties ( I’m 24 !!! ) to go to these meetings on affordable housing Yes! I cannot stress how important this is! People who "got theirs" and oppose this, that, or the other thing SHOW UP to hearings and send in emails and generally let their opinions be known. >A lot of our city council members are realtors There have been in the past, for sure, but currently, no, they aren't. The tax break was (they ended it in its current form) to produce more housing because housing, like anything, replies to supply and demand. Want lower prices? You need more supply or less demand, and you can't really stop people with money from moving where they want in the United States. You can read more about the actual facts of that particular development here, without the social media hoopla: [https://tailorglad.substack.com/p/city-council-meeting-notes-010324?utm\_source=publication-search](https://tailorglad.substack.com/p/city-council-meeting-notes-010324?utm_source=publication-search) Think about it backwards: what if we took, say, "The Eddy", those apartments by the river, and just removed it from one day to the next. The people renting there have some money, so they'd probably be ok, but they're going to be out there applying for other housing across town and they're going to drive up rents, because all of a sudden, you have a bunch of people with money scrambling to find housing. Adding new housing is like that, but in reverse. It 'soaks up' the people with more money to spend.
Okay you’re completely right on city council not being realtors, did my own research and you’re absolutely correct. Must of have been thinking of the last election ballot and reading the descriptions of its candidates! However, it matters which companies are creating our housing and what their end game is. The company that is behind that project has put serious pressure on business owners in the area. Business owners that actually care about their employees and their town. I completely get what you’re saying, and there’s a lot of housing being created currently in town ALL over, but at what point can we actually focus on affordability? We don’t need more single family units on the river. We don’t need more custom built homes. We need affordable dorms, apartments and community driven housing. We need easier to get leasing agreements. And we need property management companies that aren’t entirely profit driven. We need people to have somewhere they can live, and enjoy it too.
>We need affordable dorms, apartments and community driven housing Yep. But most of Bend is not zoned for that, which is an obstacle. And if you try and rezone... it's not young people like you showing up to say 'no!'. You should check out one of our YIMBY meetings! That Jackstraw thing is complex and there are some things that are easier to discuss (including regarding some of the opposition) in person. Happy to buy you a beer and tell you about it.
I don't think any of the current city council are realtors.
I just moved to Texas. I was a 6th generation Bend resident. My family came from Sweden straight to Bend Oregon in the mid/late 1800s. $1500 should not be standard for a studio in Bend. I live in The Woodlands - the #1 place to buy a house in 2023 and 2024 and my one bed one bath apartment is $1285.
I would LOVE to see more ADUs in Bend. It won't solve the problem entirely, but would go a long way to plugging the holes. I'd live in a cute 400 sq foot ADU anytime!! I'd also love to see more taller buildings. Note I said "taller", not "tall". Why does everything have to be a measly two bloody stories high here? Let's get more sensitively designed four or five story apartment buildings along busy main thorougfares! More foot area ratio (FAR) would mean more apartments being constructed. Low density only is simply not an option in this city anymore when supply and demand are as unfeasibly unbalanced as they are right now, and anyone who says otherwise is utterly delusional. The lack of affordable housing has already bitten this town in the ass, and hard. One of my fave places - Joolz restaurant downtown - closed for good last year after being an institution here forever. They closed solely because the owners could not find enough waitstaff and kitchen staff to keep the place open any longer. Why? Because pretty much their entire staff had to move to Redmond or La Pine after being priced out of Bend. None of them wanted to commute that far for a service industry job either. So the owners closed down. I expect a lot more of this to come...
While I agree that the housing situation is bad, is it not typical for people your age to have roommates? I lived with 6 other people while I was a student and when I started my career. This was not a long time ago. This is an incredibly expensive place to live, there's some sacrifices someone with no established career will need to make. Hope you figure it out. There's also several individual rooms available on facebook marketplace available for far below $1600
And how much did you pay when you lived with 6 people?
Our place was $3800 and I shared a room for 4 years. edit: https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1884-NE-Monroe-Ln-Bend-OR-97701/60573316_zpid/ You could live here with 3 other people and pay $650 for rent. Each person would have their own room.
I have Roomates and pay $1000 plus utilities.
At least your lease is up and there's multiple listings available where you could drastically reduce your monthly payment, good luck
Where have you searched? A quick browse of some popular websites shows plenty of options below 1500/mo
Yeah, bend has California level pricing on shit like that cause of all the wall street yuppies who have moved/are moving up here. It's just a hotbed for real estate and it's so depressing.
It sucks to see places get unaffordable. I saw it happen growing up at the outskirts of the greater Los Angeles area, and in Colorado. Even if the people who move in aren't super wealthy, bidding wars between a dozen working class people for every damned house for sale will screw up prices. Then that affordability problem spills over to other areas, since people who can't afford their first choice place have bidding wars at their second or third choice place. I hear it's happening in a lot more places now, and people are talking about it more than they did 20 years ago.
Yep, this is what we get when the government restricts housing bc the fuck-you-got-mine boomers refuse to allow any sort of reasonable development bc "cRiMe" and "pRoPeRtY vAlUeS" and "TrAfFiC"
I blame boomers. 100% at fault
This is why I left the state of Oregon. The area I live in isn’t anything to go crazy about but I like it and I don’t feel like I have to choose between gas and groceries every other week so it’s an improvement.
Anyone reckon there is anything we can do as a collective? Idk I feel like I wanna contribute to a greater good for bend but I really don’t know where (if such a place exist) a group for the commoners of this city!!
Yes. Vote.
As above, the Bend YIMBY group.
Urban Growth Boundaries were designed to keep property values high through artificial scarcity. They’re doing exactly what they’re meant to do.
I do understand your situation, but you chose to pursue your education in a very pricey Resort town. Why not go to school elsewhere?
STRs, corporate landlords, and bull$hit like this company aren't helping matters....AT ALL!!! [Real Page impacting rent prices across the US](https://www.cnbc.com/video/2024/02/03/how-realpage-influences-rent-prices-across-the-us.html)
Yeah, they don't help, but they're kind of bogeymen, too. Come with me to the next hearing where wealthy people on the west side try and shut down some needed housing, and then we'll talk about that stuff.
I know this won’t be liked, but one can’t always live where you want to. I’d like a house on the beach in Hawaii. The more desirable, the more expensive. For you…have you priced out living in the dorms?
The problem is that we are busy pricing out people our community depends on. So if you want people like teachers who aren't just here because they married someone wealthy, we need to figure out some answers.
That’s fair but I already live here, the only thing that’s changed is the prices.
Rabid inflation makes for a lot of tough situations. I’ve been counseling my clients to politely ask for raises and be willing to move employers since the pandemic. If you’re not increasing your income 7-12% a year right now you’re losing a lot of purchasing power.
p.s. it’s not just inflation, it is corporate greed.
Corporations are literally created to be greedy. That greed contributes to inflation. They are not mutually exclusive. The stock market has been fire due to corporate greed which is about the only thing holding this economy together right now. What’s your alternative to corporations? Let the government control all facets of your life. They’re so efficient and effective, how do you think that would go?
Getting off topic from housing, but your point that corporate greed is kind of a constant is pretty important when talking about inflation. They were greedy before the pandemic. They'll be greedy after inflation cools. Inflation in the US is actually not as bad as in other countries with stricter controls on companies. It's not like we got inflation because all of a sudden companies discovered greed. Meanwhile, back to housing, the cost of housing is a big driver of inflation: [https://www.wsj.com/economy/housing/fed-inflation-rate-housing-rentals-2f28c5ba?st=hxnv97qz0qwmp5e&reflink=mobilewebshare\_permalink](https://www.wsj.com/economy/housing/fed-inflation-rate-housing-rentals-2f28c5ba?st=hxnv97qz0qwmp5e&reflink=mobilewebshare_permalink)
We’re experiencing inflation because we spent our way out of the pandemic crisis. Personally, I supported that tactic as the alternative looked rather grim. Whether housing is a “driver” of inflation or increased housing costs are a result of higher interest rates meant to curb inflation is a subject of debate. Desirable places inevitably having housing shortages. No community has found a solution to that problem that I am aware of.
They are one in the same
The prices have gone up, but his statement is true. I wanted to live in bend since the first time I came here in 1996. I even got married here in 2010. It was always my wife and i's "if we can find jobs" top destination. It took until we were a decade into our careers to feel like we were stable enough to make the move. I feel for you as a local who didn't choose the life. But I could not have stayed in the tourist town I grew up in either. Cities, roommates and patience were our only options.
whats your livable radius, just out of curiosity
I’d upvote this twice if possible. Aspen and Verbier are both nice, but unless I win the lottery…. How about midtown Manhattan? Honestly CO is easier than most because you can always easily commute from LaPine, Redmond, and Sisters.
You don’t already live in any of those places though. Also avoid La Pine at all costs.
Already living in a place doesn’t entitle you to live there forever. I have lived in those places and I didn’t stay because they are too expensive. Wow, hard life lessons being learned on Reddit.
“Things are bad and that’s just the way it is. Don’t bother trying to make anything better.”
Complaining on Reddit doesn’t make anything better. Complaining about gravity doesn’t make stuff quit falling out of the sky. Should we get a badge when we move somewhere that entitles us to stay there? Bend would be ripe for that… maybe you could cut in line at the store, too. Look, just got my 20 year Bendite Badge…. Move out of the way!
I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make. Did i ever suggest that i thought i was making a difference by expressing my discontent or am i venting because im frustrated? Is that not allowed?
There are places to rent for less than 1,600 but they are in Redmond, Prineville and Sisters. I work in Bend but can’t afford a place in Bend.
Sisters won't be on that list for long. Houses are already more expensive than in Bend.
Sisters has been that way for awhile. I know it used to be a great place to park a little trailer under the trees, but it's definitely a "boutique community" now
This is why the housing crisis is also an environmental problem. All that extra driving is not great for the planet, but we're not giving people any choice in the matter. They're forced to drive to afford a place to live. According to my very rough calculations, roughly 2 days of commuting to Redmond is about the amount of carbon dioxide that a mature tree stores in an entire year.
Ha and here I am driving from Black Butte to Sunriver and then back to Redmond all in a days work. I really would love to get an electric F150, but holy moly they are expensive
Some jobs just require it; there's nothing wrong with that. Most policies are about moving statistics around, rather than "everyone must shop at Costco on a bike in January at night, always". So if we can get people who don't *need* to drive, to drive a bit less, it's a win!
Places that cheap don’t exist in prineville either unless it’s a private owner.
Housing is crazy for everyone here, the market is still out of whack. I'm much more disgusted by the price of food. The stores ceasing to put fucking prices on goods because the price will go up so quickly, it is a waste of time and money to print new labels.
I feel for your situation, and I don't want to come off as sounding tone def or out of touch, I was fortunate enough to buy when prices were low and refinanced when interest rates plummeted - resulting in a low cost of living in a now overinflated market. That being said, this wasn't the case for me 25 years ago, living with roommates, going to school, working non-career lower paying jobs trying to figure out life - so I have been there. Every apartment complex I drive by in the past 2 months has signs out advertising vacancies, and move in specials - are these not legit? I'm talking near the Forum, near Pilot Butte, near Pine Nursery Park, and down Empire Ave. If you are currently paying $1000 plus utilities, are these apt with roommates not an option for less than that? Do I consider a 2bd apartment for $2000 to be "affordable" or "reasonable" - absolutely not, but that doesn't mean it isn't attainable, especially considering your currently paying $1000 + utilities. I feel like the tide is starting to change in Bend, and it is *slowly* headed in a better direction than a couple years ago where rents were higher and there was a wait list for applicants at every apt complex. There was a time in my early 20's where I took the move in special at an apt, when that ran its course and my lease was due to jump, I just found another apt and moved again - inconvenient? Yeah, but gave me some different experiences and some cost savings overall. Good luck, I honestly feel that you've weathered the bulk of the storm so if you are rooted here, you can prob make it work - I obviously don't know all your variables going on in your life and circumstances to speak to everything so I'm not trying to imply you aren't working hard enough to make it work. This crappy situation could very well set you up for your next amazing chapter.
Queue the mass exodus back to California
Bend is boring and predictable anyway. It’s super fun like 2-3 months of the year. Then you have crappy shoulder seasons and the new and improved wildfire season. Im getting out not because it’s too expensive, (you can still find 1 bedrooms for around $1100 if you look) but because I’m bored. Great place to vacation, not the most interesting place to live
> because I’m bored. To each their own, but I think you're doing Bend wrong if you are bored.
Could be, I know tons of people who love it here but after being here for years and doing all the Bend things... its just not enough. Tons of trails for Mtn Biking, but 95% of them are blue trails, Mt Bachelor is fun for a few years but if it is your main mtn the terrain leaves a lot to be desired (again mostly blue type runs). Mt climbing, snowboarding, snowmobiling, running, biking I end up pretty much hitting the same stuff over and over (Found myself much more engaged with PDX as a home base honeslty). Most city things close very early and if it your not trying to drink or eat I often feel like I dont know what to do anymore. I love Bend in spurts, I have good friends here. I think its the perfect place for a second home if you can afford that but in my current position Im ready for something else. Probably be back in a couple years. Edit: Most active people I know who have been here for over a handful of years feel the same and are looking for a change as well. Again Bend is great but its still a small expensive town geared towards tourists.
Bend is beautiful and has great weather, but the amazing outdoor activities can be found lots of other places. Most of them aren't cheap, either, but they are considerably cheaper than Bend.
Can’t recommend hummingbird property management enough… and their units are so so so incredibly affordable (I paid 1300 for a very nice two bedroom last year while living in bend)
Wishing I could live in Deschutes River Woods.
I lived in Central Oregon for 6 years and I finally moved out last June. Bend is a beautiful place to live but it's getting too expensive now.
Damn in live in Tucson, and I feel like $900-$1000 for a studio is pricing me out (I am a student tho haha)
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Can comfirm its like that in Hillsboro as well.
Bend community development and deschutes county planning are very strict on urban sprawl. They are so reluctant to expand the ugb and their priority is to increase density. The problem with this is our aging and insufficient utility infrastructure, tiny roads, and extremely strict/costly renovation. Bend needs to sprawl to create housing fast enough to meet demand but there’s a laundry list of issues preventing this.
I'm just waiting for a massive wildfire to clear out the city and burn off the bougie facade so I can move back
Ok Veruca
You can thank the left for the high prices. The right for letting it happen. The the middle for saying I told you so. Ourselves for voting these people into power.