The west side of Bend is the place to be if you want to live in Bend. Ask anyone whether it's a doctor, lawyer, waitress, grocery clerk or real estate broker where the most desirable place to live in Bend is and most likely they will say on "The west side."
It seems that the ability to walk to town is very high on many buyer's priority list for a home in Bend. Downtown Bend features many events every year. It has cobble stone sidewalks, trees and many shops. Here's a partial list of events scheduled for 2013:
July 25, 26, 27, 28-Downtown Bend Sidewalk Sale
August 2-First Friday Art Walk
August 2, 3, 4-Classic Car Show-Flashback Cruz-Saturday night cruise downtown!
August 30 & 31-Little Woody Craft Brew Fest
September 6-First Friday Art Walk
September 8-Great Drake Park Duck Race
September 20 & 21-Bend Oktoberfest
October 4-First Friday Fall Art Hop
October 5 & 6-Bank of the Cascades Bend Fall Fest
October 10-13-Bend Film Festival
October 18 & 19-Bend Venture Conference
November 1-First Friday Art Walk
November 7-10-The Nature of Words Literary Event
November 11-Veteran’s Day Parade
November 30-Holiday Tree Lighting
December 1-Jingle Bell Run
December 1-Bend Christmas Parade
December 7-First Friday Art Walk
The price of homes shows the high demand for homes close to downtown. One of the high demand homes is the older fixer upper homes. The average older home on the west side was 863 square feet and sold for an average of $233.52 a square foot. On the other hand the average older home sold on the east side was 1,428 square feet and sold for an average of $91.36 a square foot.
So, the bottom line is if you want to live on the west side close to downtown be prepared to pay a premium price. I recently sold my newer home on the river for $240 a square foot and I thought I did well selling it at that price. That comparison shows the premium placed to west side homes.
This last weekend I was working with clients looking for a west side home under $250,000. A new listing came on the market for $229,500. It was older and dated but not really a fixer upper. My clients offer $20,000 over the listing price. There were multiple offers and an offer better than ours was accepted. Since it's confidential until a sale closes we don't know how much it sold for.
So if you are looking for a cute cottage on the west side of Bend be prepared to pay 3.8 time more than you would on the east side. You can search west side homes HERE or call us to view homes for sale.