Bend, Oregon Real Estate Market 2026: Score 27, 118% Overvalued, Demand Score 8.7

Bend, Oregon scores 27 out of 100 on the PropertyIQ index as of February 2026.

That is a score that has been declining since May 2025, when it was 54. The fall has been consistent: 54, 51, 48, 41, 34, 27. Every data point in the trailing nine months has moved lower or held at a depressed level.

PropertyIQ scores Bend a 27 out of 100 as of February 28, 2026. Scores are updated monthly using Zillow, Census, and Realtor.com data.

The Overvaluation Problem in Bend Oregon

The overvaluation reading for Bend is 118.1% as of February 2026.

That figure represents the gap between what homes actually cost and what local income fundamentals support. The calculated affordable home price for the Bend metro is $321,709 based on 2023 median household income of $85,509. The median listing price is $698,191. That is a $376,000 gap between what the local income base can sustain and what homes are actually trading for.

The income required to purchase at the median listing price is $185,576 per year. The metro median household income is $85,509. The income-to-buy ratio is 2.17. A typical Bend household would need to more than double its income to comfortably qualify for the median-priced home.

The Zillow home value is $464,779 as of January 31, 2026, which is lower than the median listing price of $698,191. The divergence between list price and Zillow's estimate of transacted values suggests the active listing pool skews significantly toward the higher end of the market, while the typical transaction price is lower. Even at the $464,779 Zillow value, Bend homes remain severely overpriced relative to local incomes.

The price per square foot is $375 as of February 2026. In comparison, Allentown, Pennsylvania, which scores 96, transacts at $216 per square foot. The Bend premium relative to economic fundamentals has no parallel in comparable Pacific Northwest markets.

Bend Oregon Housing Market: Supply and Demand Divergence

The demand score for Bend is 8.7 out of 100 as of February 2026. The supply score is 14.7. The hotness score is 11.7.

These are near-floor readings. A demand score of 8.7 places Bend in the bottom decile of the national PropertyIQ dataset for buyer activity relative to available inventory. There is a structural mismatch between the supply hitting the market and the pool of buyers who can afford or are willing to transact at current prices.

Active inventory is 1,248 homes, up 3.48% year over year as of February 2026. New listings are 518, up 29.5% year over year. More sellers are entering the market as buyers pull back. That supply-demand divergence is the structural condition that produces a 27 score.

Pending listings are 470 as of February 2026. The pending ratio is 0.38. For every 100 active listings, 38 are under contract. In a healthy market, that ratio exceeds 0.70.

Days on market is 85 as of February 2026. Homes are sitting for nearly three months before finding a buyer. The sale-to-list ratio is 97.97%, meaning sellers are accepting roughly 2% below asking on average.

Price reductions affect 15.99% of active listings. One in six sellers has already reduced their asking price and is still waiting for a buyer.

Home sales volume year over year is down 16.89% as of February 2026. Transaction activity is contracting even as new listings increase. That combination means inventory is accumulating faster than it is being absorbed.

Bend Real Estate Forecast and Five-Year Appreciation

The Zillow one-year price forecast is 0.9% as of December 2025. Essentially flat appreciation over the next twelve months, in a market that is already pricing at more than double what local incomes support.

The five-year appreciation rate is 15.42% as of February 2026. For context, this is materially lower than mid-tier Midwest markets that have appreciated 35% to 45% over the same period from much lower bases. Bend captured significant appreciation through the 2020-2022 period when remote work migration drove demand, but the normalization since then has brought the five-year rate down considerably.

The unemployment rate is 4.7% as of November 2025. The homeownership rate is 71.31%.

The Lifestyle Premium and Its Limits

Bend's reputation as an outdoor recreation and lifestyle destination drove years of migration from Portland, San Francisco, and the broader West Coast. Property values reflect that demand history more than current local economic conditions.

The problem visible in the data is that migration-driven demand does not persist indefinitely. When the buyers who can afford $700,000 homes in a metro with $85,000 median incomes stop arriving, the remaining buyer pool is too small to sustain the pricing. The score decline from 54 to 27 over nine months tracks the reduction in buyer velocity that results when the lifestyle migration wave subsides.

Rent data shows an index of $2,131 per month as of December 2025. At a Zillow home value of $464,779, the gross rent multiplier is approximately 18.2. That is not a cash flow market.

The income required to afford Bend rents without exceeding a 30% cost burden is $85,234 per year, closely matching the metro median income of $85,509. Renters can access the market. Buyers cannot.

How Bend Compares to Other Pacific Northwest Markets

Eugene, Oregon scores 75 with a much lower price point and a more balanced income-to-price relationship.

The broader Pacific Northwest market context matters for understanding Bend's position. Portland and Seattle carry their own overvaluation concerns, but both are larger economic centers with deeper employer bases that sustain demand more durably. Bend lacks the employment density to anchor its pricing to anything other than lifestyle preference and external migration. When those external buyers slow or stop, the market lacks a local economic floor that would prevent deeper price corrections.

What the Score of 27 Means for Different Buyers

For buyers relocating to Bend for lifestyle reasons, the data presents a straightforward risk disclosure. Paying $698K in a market where the PropertyIQ score is 27, the demand score is 8.7, and the five-year price forecast is essentially flat means accepting significant risk in exchange for a location preference.

For investors, the combination of high GRM, negative transaction velocity, rising inventory, and a score that has moved in one direction for nine months does not offer a favorable entry point. The PropertyIQ score does not predict whether Bend prices will fall. It scores current market conditions. The current conditions score 27.

For anyone watching Bend and waiting, the data suggests a market still finding a clearing price. New listings rising 29.5% year over year while sales drop 16.89% is a math problem that takes time to resolve.

PropertyIQ score as of February 28, 2026. Listing and inventory data as of February 1, 2026. Zillow home value data as of January 31, 2026. Sale-to-list data as of November 30, 2025. Forecast data as of December 2025. Census data as of 2023. Economic data as of November 2025. All data for informational purposes only.