Frequently Asked Questions

Your home’s value depends on more than square footage and recent comparable sales. In today’s Bend market, how you prepare and position the home can materially affect what a buyer is willing to pay for it.

There were markets where you could put a sign in the yard and expect the house to sell. Today, buyers have choices. The homes getting the strongest results tend to be the ones that are properly priced and exceptionally well prepared from day one.

That means cleaning, decluttering, fresh paint where needed, landscaping, washing windows and knocking out the little handyman items you’ve been putting off.

I tell sellers all the time:

"The best homes, in the best condition, at the right price, are the ones selling quickly."

So I don’t think the best question is simply, "What could we list my house for?"

The better question is: What price and preparation strategy gives us the best chance to sell now while protecting as much of your equity as possible?

That’s what a good market analysis should answer.

The typical Realtor answer is that it’s always a good time to buy or sell real estate. I think there’s a better answer.

It’s a good time to sell when moving makes sense for you and your family.

And despite some pretty gloomy housing headlines, homes absolutely are selling in Bend. June and July 2026 produced some of the strongest monthly sales totals we’ve seen in the last several years, and 160 Bend single-family homes closed in August alone.

The market is moving. It’s just more selective.

If you’re a serious seller who is willing to prepare the home properly and listen to what today’s buyers are telling us about price, there is plenty of opportunity.

If you’re just testing the market at a number you’d only love to get, this is a difficult market for that strategy.

There’s another side people forget. Most sellers become buyers somewhere else. You might give up something on your sale compared with the market’s peak, but you may also gain negotiating power when you purchase your next home.

Don’t let the market decide when your family gets to move. Understand the market, build the right strategy, and then make the decision that’s right for your life.

Usually, the homes selling quickly have several things in common.

They’re well prepared. They’re priced competitively. They show beautifully. Obvious maintenance issues have been addressed. And the seller has an experienced agent giving them realistic advice about the market they’re actually in.

I sometimes compare the market to a high school dance. Some people are on the dance floor having a great time. Other people are standing against the wall wondering why the party sucks.

You want to be on the dance floor.

For our sellers, that can mean considering a pre-listing inspection, taking care of deferred maintenance, servicing the HVAC, looking at the roof, neutralizing unusual paint colors, decluttering aggressively and making sure the landscaping looks great.

None of that is particularly glamorous. It works.

Then we price the home to create demand while the listing is fresh.

Today’s buyers are already dealing with higher monthly payments. When they walk into a house and immediately see a long list of projects, it can be enough to make them move on to the next one.

Our job is to eliminate as many reasons as possible for a good buyer to say no.

Pricing is part data and part art.

We start with comparable sales, competing inventory, pending activity, location, condition and the features that make your property different.

A 2,000-square-foot house with a great shop, for example, can absolutely command a premium over another 2,000-square-foot house. But it can’t command an infinite premium. Eventually the market tells us what that feature is worth.

My background is in financial markets, so I tend to think about pricing almost like a bid-ask spread. We want to understand the defensible range of value and position the home where it can create early demand.

In a softer market, sellers who round down tend to have a much better experience than sellers who round up.

One of my favorite ways to explain it is:

"Price it like you already made two painful price cuts, and start there."

I’d rather get the pricing right while your listing is new and exciting than spend 60 days chasing the market down.

Usually, no.

It sounds logical. Price it high, leave some negotiating room, and see what happens.

The problem is that your listing price is an invitation to buyers. It isn’t you setting the value of your home.

If a house is worth roughly $800,000 and you list it at $1 million, the buyers who can actually afford an $800,000 home may never even see it in their search. Meanwhile, your house is now competing against properties that really are worth closer to $1 million.

That’s a bad place to be.

I’d much rather have my seller receive three offers we can negotiate or turn down than sit there waiting for one buyer to magically agree with an unrealistic asking price.

Pricing creates traffic. Traffic creates competition. Competition creates negotiating leverage.

Start with the low-hanging fruit.

Fix obvious defects. Touch up paint. Clean everything. Handle deferred handyman items. Service the furnace. Look at the roof. Wash the windows. Freshen the landscaping.

These aren’t always expensive projects, but buyers notice them.

A furnace service might cost a few hundred dollars and give a nervous buyer confidence that the system has been maintained. The same idea applies to having an older roof inspected and tuned up before listing.

Where I get cautious is the giant remodel.

You can spend $100,000 remodeling a kitchen and not necessarily add $100,000 to the sale price. And the next buyer might have preferred different finishes anyway.

We’re not trying to flip your house before we sell it. We’re trying to remove objections and put the home’s best foot forward.

Call us before you start writing big checks. We’ll help you decide what is actually worth doing.

For Bend single-family homes that closed in August 2026, the median was 34 days on market.

But median days on market doesn’t tell the whole story.

Some homes sell during their first week or first month. Others take 60, 90 days or longer. Higher price points can behave differently from entry-level homes, and seasonality matters too.

That’s why I don’t love answering this question with one number.

The more useful question is: What do we need to do to put your home in the group that sells sooner rather than later?

That’s something we can actually influence.

We don’t sit around hoping.

At Bend Relo, we typically establish 21-day and 45-day pricing strategy reviews when we take a listing. Our goal is to never need them because we’re already pending.

But if we’re still active at day 21, we look at everything.

How many showings did we have? What did buyers say? How was open-house traffic? How many people viewed the listing online? What happened with competing properties? Did anything new hit the market? Did similar homes reduce their prices or go pending?

There is a big difference between getting showings but no offers and getting almost no showings at all.

The first may tell us buyers like the property but aren’t quite seeing the value. The second is a stronger signal that something about price, presentation or positioning isn’t connecting.

The good news is that you can regain momentum if you respond early.

The market gives us feedback. Our job is to listen to it.

Expect some negotiation.

Today’s buyers are paying close attention to their monthly payment, so negotiations aren’t always just about purchase price.

We regularly see buyers thinking about some combination of price, closing-cost credits, rate buydowns, repairs and buyer-agent compensation.

The amount of leverage usually depends heavily on the listing.

A beautifully prepared home that’s been on the market for four days is a very different negotiation from a home that’s been sitting for four months.

That’s why we look at the actual data and circumstances rather than assuming every buyer deserves a giant discount or every seller should hold firm.

Days on market, competing inventory and seller motivation all matter.

We’re a relationship company and a digital marketing company.

Great photography is the baseline now. We also believe strongly in video, drone imagery and 3D tours when appropriate because buyers increasingly experience a home online before deciding whether it’s worth seeing in person.

But there’s another piece that matters to me.

You can’t just send a photographer to a house.

We need to experience the property ourselves. What does the seller love about it? Where does the morning light come in? What’s special about the lot? The shop? The view? The neighborhood?

Then we help our media team tell that story.

We also use our agent network. For certain listings, we’ll identify brokers who have recently represented buyers or sellers of similar homes nearby and personally reach out. Years of transactions in Central Oregon have created relationships that are incredibly valuable when we’re trying to find the right buyer.

And we work as a team. Open houses, follow-up, digital exposure, networking and ongoing strategy aren’t a one-and-done event.

We keep working the listing.

There isn’t one universal number.

Costs can include listing-broker compensation, any buyer-broker compensation a seller agrees to pay, title and escrow charges, prorated taxes, negotiated buyer credits, repairs and other transaction-specific expenses.

Our listing compensation is commonly 2.5%, but every transaction is negotiable and buyer-agent compensation is negotiable as well.

Rather than throwing out a generic percentage, we’re happy to prepare a seller net sheet for your specific property so you can see the estimated sale price, costs and expected proceeds before making a decision.

Absolutely.

The trick is structuring the two transactions correctly.

Depending on your finances, options may include selling first, writing a contingent offer, using a bridge loan, accessing a HELOC, cross-collateralized financing or qualifying to temporarily carry both properties.

There’s no single right answer.

Whenever possible, we’d rather avoid putting a client into a stressful situation where they have 30 days to sell one house, buy another one, move their family and hope everything lines up perfectly.

Good planning gives you options.

We work closely with local lenders to figure out what’s realistic before you start writing offers.

My answer is: both.

As of our September 2026 market report, Bend had about 3.5 months of inventory for single-family homes. That’s enough inventory to give buyers choices, but it certainly doesn’t mean every seller is desperate.

A stale listing that’s been sitting for months may feel very much like a buyer’s market.

Then Saturday morning you walk into a beautiful, properly priced house that just hit the market and discover three other buyers love it too.

Suddenly it doesn’t feel like a buyer’s market at all.

Bend isn’t one market. Price point, neighborhood, property type, condition and days on market all matter.

I don’t think anybody should buy a house because a Realtor tells them, "Now is the time!"

The right time is when the home, the payment and the move make sense for your family.

Trying to perfectly time housing is incredibly difficult. If you’re planning to stay in Central Oregon for years, can comfortably afford the payment and find a property you love, today’s market can provide opportunities that buyers didn’t have when inventory was extremely tight.

More choice. More time to think. More opportunities to negotiate.

And Bend is still Bend.

The trails, mountains, high desert, restaurants, rivers and lifestyle that brought people here didn’t disappear because mortgage rates changed.

More than they had during the frenzy, but that doesn’t mean every seller is giving away the farm.

The first question I ask is:

How long has the house been on the market?

A new listing that is well priced may have very little negotiating room. A listing that’s been sitting for months may be an entirely different conversation.

Seller motivation matters too.

That’s why we don’t negotiate based on a housing-crash video somebody watched on YouTube. We look at comparable sales, current competition, days on market, price reductions and whatever we can learn about that specific transaction.

Buyers today can often negotiate more than just price. Repairs, closing costs and financing concessions can sometimes be equally valuable.

It depends on how you’re financing the purchase and what matters most to you.

For a financed buyer, preserving cash and lowering the monthly payment can sometimes be more valuable than simply reducing the purchase price.

That’s why we may compare several options:

A lower price. Seller-paid closing costs. A temporary or permanent rate buydown. Repair credits. Or some combination of them.

For a cash buyer, the calculation is different because a mortgage-rate buydown obviously doesn’t help.

We like to run the actual numbers with your lender before deciding. Sometimes the offer that sounds like the biggest discount isn’t the one that leaves you in the strongest financial position.

First, Bend is a four-season town.

You’re going to get beautiful summers, snowy winter days, cold mornings, hot afternoons and occasionally wildfire smoke. I’m also firmly Team Air Conditioning, despite this somehow still being a controversial Bend opinion.

Get good snow tires. Don’t wait until the first snowstorm to make the appointment.

Beyond weather, one of the things people tell us they love about Bend is how easy it is to build your life around the outdoors. Mountain biking, skiing, hiking, paddling, golf and the high desert are all right here.

And the people are generally pretty darn friendly.

My advice to newcomers is simple:

Bend is nice. Keep Bend nice.

There isn’t one "best" Bend neighborhood.

There’s the neighborhood that best fits you.

Budget, schools, lot size, commute, walkability, mountain access, newer construction, mature trees, nightlife, trails and whether you want to be close to town or have some elbow room can all change the answer.

Very broadly, Bend’s west side puts you closer to the Cascades and a lot of the mountain recreation. Head east and you transition toward the high desert, often with different price points and weather patterns.

But Bend is still a relatively compact city.

For relocation clients, one of our favorite things to do is a driving tour. You can learn more from a couple hours driving Bend with someone who knows the neighborhoods than from weeks staring at listings online.

Here’s a wonderfully Bend-specific one:

Look at which direction the driveway faces.

A south-facing driveway gets more winter sun, which can help melt snow and ice. A shaded north-facing driveway can hold onto it considerably longer.

It’s a tiny detail until you’re shoveling the driveway before work.

Beyond that, Central Oregon buyers should pay attention to things like roof condition, HVAC and cooling, irrigation, wildfire considerations, HOA rules, wells and septic systems where applicable, and the property’s elevation and microclimate.

Local knowledge starts to matter when you’re comparing two houses that look nearly identical online.

We build a CMA.

Not a Zestimate. Not the seller’s opinion. Not your uncle’s opinion.

We look at comparable closed sales, pending activity, competing listings, condition, location, days on market and price history.

Then we ask another important question:

Is this one of the homes that’s likely to attract competition, or is this one we should negotiate aggressively?

An experienced buyer’s agent should be able to explain why a home is worth what they believe it’s worth before asking you to put hundreds of thousands of dollars behind that opinion.

Because this stuff is personal to us.

People write the story of their lives through real estate.

This isn’t buying something off a shelf at Target. It’s where families live, love and laugh. Kids go from toddlers to teenagers. People get married, change careers, become empty nesters, retire, move closer to family or decide it’s finally time for a completely new adventure.

We get to participate in those moments.

That’s why we talk about forever clients. We don’t want to disappear after closing. We want to be the people you call years later when you need a contractor, want to understand what your home is worth, are thinking about an investment or are ready for the next chapter.

We’ve helped hundreds of families navigate real estate in Central Oregon, and that experience gives us perspective on what works and what doesn’t as markets change.

Experience matters. Relationships matter more.

I’m David Keyte, founder and Principal Broker of Bend Relo.

Before real estate, I spent 12 years trading commodity futures and options, including at the Chicago Board of Trade.

I’ve always loved markets. Auctions. Supply and demand. Negotiation. Managing risk and figuring out what something is actually worth.

Eventually I realized those skills translated remarkably well to real estate, except now the outcome actually means something personal to the people I’m helping.

That’s what hooked me.

Today I get to combine that market background with something much more important to me: helping families make smart decisions around their homes, investments and next chapters.

And when I’m not doing that, I’m usually spending time with my family, mountain biking or finding somewhere good to eat.

Bend Relo serves Bend, Redmond, Sisters, Sunriver, Prineville, Three Rivers South and communities throughout Central Oregon.

Our team works with buyers, sellers, investors and relocating families across the region.

If you’re not sure whether you’re inside our normal service area, give us a call. If we’re not the right people for the job, chances are we know somebody who is.

Absolutely. It’s right there in our name.

We’ve helped many families coordinate moves into Central Oregon from outside the area, and we’ve also helped longtime Bend residents start their next chapter somewhere else.

For us, relocation isn’t just finding a house.

It can mean learning neighborhoods, coordinating remotely, finding a rental, connecting with movers and contractors, navigating inspections from another state, figuring out utilities and services, and eventually becoming part of the community.

We offer relocation guidance, local vendor connections and ongoing client events because we want people to feel connected after the moving truck leaves.

Relocation is the spice of life. Whether you’re coming to Central Oregon or leaving Bend for a new adventure, we’re here to help you make your move.