Oregon Public Broadcasting

Here in central Oregon, we don’t have all that many 2000 square-foot, 3-bedroom condos on the 23rd-floor of a glass skyscraper.

Okay, so we don’t even have skyscrapers.

But our high-end home market has also been devastated by the recession.

Ken Renner: “It’s basically 4-bedroom, 3-and-half bath, 4054-square feet done in a lodge style. This is one of the bedrooms here.”

Ken Renner is a broker for Sunriver Realty. He’s showing a home in southwest Bend.

Ken Renner: “And, the views of the water are fantastic.”

This is a $1.3 million home with huge bay windows overlooking a bit of whitewater on the Deschutes River.

Ken Renner: “We’ve had the home for over a year. We started out at a $1.75 million. And, had good interest from time to time, but it’s been a little sporadic.”

Sporadic may be one way to characterize it. Another way might be slow.

During its heyday, say the first 9 months of 2006, 23 homes sold in Bend for more than a million-dollars. That’s according to the Central Oregon Association of Realtors.

This year, in the first nine months, realtors in Bend have sold a total of just 9 homes for more than a million.

And if you’re in the market – you’ve got a good selection.

74 homes are available to buy in that range.

Plus, you can negotiate.

Ken Renner: “The homes in 2006 were selling for roughly 98 percent of original list price. The homes that have sold this year have sold for 66 percent of original list price. Typically, sellers in that market, to get a sale, are having to get their prices down there to entice the buyers.”

Foreclosures and bank-owned homes are pushing prices down. More than half of the homes sold in Bend are distressed.

But Renner says that hasn’t helped the million-dollar home sales as much, because homeowners may have more of a cushion in their finances – or buyers may be looking for a second-home they don’t need to move into right away.

At current prices, it would take more than 9 months to sell off the nation’s unsold home inventory.

For homes priced at more than $750,000, the backlog is twice as long.

Greg Jones: “So sometimes we can see these homes on the market for 2-3 years in extreme cases.”

Greg Jones works for Bratton Appraisal in Bend.

Greg Jones: “Generally these people have money, they have a lifestyle change or whatever, and they aren’t forced to sell their home so generally they aren’t in a big hurry to sell.”

Renner, the real estate agent, says perception often plays a big role in high-end home sales.

Ken Renner: “The million-dollar mark is a mental barrier that some people definitely want to be below and some people definitely want to be above. And that mentality is still there today, but people are more interested in the value – they have to feel like they are getting a good deal.”

Still, realtors say that million-dollar mark doesn’t mean as much as you’d think.

A lot of homes selling for more than a million two years ago have dropped below that hurdle.

And, for several years in the 1990s, there were no homes priced above the million-dollar mark in this part of the state.