Oregon Public Broadcasting

A new report from the Federal Housing Finance Agency shows that the Bend area had the largest home price decline in the country. According to the agency, home prices there dropped more than 23 percent between the first quarter of 2009 and the first quarter of this year.   

That’s a larger drop than was seen in parts of California, Florida, Arizona and Nevada. Still, reporter David Nogueras found that some in the area remain optimistic about the market.

Kathy Ragsdale doesn’t think the real estate market is quite as bad as the government numbers make it out to be.

As the CEO at Central Oregon Association of Realtors she paints a somewhat rosier picture of home prices.  Oh it’s still bad, she says…but things seem to be getting better.

Kathy Ragsdale: "We’ve hit what I consider to be bottom and we’re starting to see things go up now.  What I’m seeing now is sales are going up.  Historically summer time is a busier time for real estate and I’m expecting that to happen because I see the  beginnings of that now."

While you might expect someone who represents Real Estate agents to be optimistic about the market, some residents are feeling bullish too.

Melinda Campbell is one of the people. She and her husband bought a house last year after selling a modest fixer upper she purchased in Bend’s Old Mill district in 2005.

Melinda Campbell: "We bought just before the peak and my thinking on that was if we don’t buy now we won’t be able to afford anything else if the prices keep going up like this." 

After holding onto the house for five years and putting in $10,000 worth of improvements, Campbell and her husband  barely broke even.  But with  prices so low and inventories so high, they quickly found a home at a price they could afford.

Melinda Campbell: "We went from a 900 square foot house with a one car garage to something three times that size with mountain views."

The question now for people watching the market here is whether prices have bottomed out.

Another Oregon city also ranked in the Housing Finance Agency’s top 20 most depreciated real estate markets.  Medford came in at number 15.