A4 THE SPOKESMAN • TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 2022
YourBusiness
Praxis Health acquires Redmond clinic
BY SUZANNE ROIG
CO Media Group
High Lakes Health Care
has acquired Central Oregon
Family Medicine in Redmond
as part of the family-owned
and operated health care op-
erations expansion plans.
Operated by Praxis Med-
ical Group LLC, High Lakes
has been on a quest for the
past three years of acquir-
ing smaller, unique medical
groups and incorporating
them into its Oregon network
of primary care doctors and
specialists. This is the fifth
clinic the health care pro-
vider has acquired.
The Redmond acquisition
is the latest and will be com-
bined with the Redmond
High Lakes Health Care at
645 NW 4th Street in Red-
mond starting Nov. 1, ac-
cording to the company state-
ment.
The Central Oregon Fam-
ily Medicine clinic has been
in Redmond for 25 years.
“Central Oregon Family
Medicine has a rich history
in the Redmond community
as high performing, busy pri-
mary care group,” said Dan
McCarthy, Praxis Health
CEO. “They are representa-
tive of everything we evaluate
when acquiring a practice:
They are responsible stew-
ards of the healthcare dollar;
they have a staff that is highly
engaged; and they bring a
level of innovation that we
can learn from.”
The acquisition will in-
clude expanding the hours
and adding more physicians
to keep pace with Redmond’s
growth, McCarthy said. Also
being added will be behav-
ioral health care, and access
to the network of providers
in the Praxis Health system,
he said.
Praxis employs 627 peo-
ple. It purchased High Lakes
in 2006. Dr. Mark Hughes
and Peggy Hayner, a family
nurse practitione, said in a
company statement that they
welcome the partnership and
“look forward to continuing
to serve their patients and the
growing Redmond commu-
nity for many more years.”
█
Reporter: 541-633-2117, sroig@
bendbulletin.com
Ryan Brennecke/The Bulletin
High Lakes’ primary care office is at Shevlin Health and Wellness Center in Bend.
Central Oregon real estate market in transition
BY SUZANNE ROIG
CO Media Group
Central Oregon sellers may
find that they’re not getting
multiple offers within days of
listing their homes for sale, but
that doesn’t mean the market is
turning in favor of buyers.
It does indicate, however,
that a transition is building
from a seller’s market to a
more balanced real estate mar-
ket for Central Oregon, said
Donnie Montagner, owner of
Beacon Appraisal Group in
Redmond. Real estate profes-
sionals say that more homes
are up for sale and taking
longer to sell. When those
two home-sales components
change, it creates a more bal-
anced market for buyers and
sellers, Montagner said.
Prior to the pandemic, in
2020, a single-family home in
Bend could sell within four to
75 days. That time period con-
tracted in 2021 to four to 12
days, Montagner said.
By comparison, during the
height of the Great Recession,
which began in late 2007, a
single-family home took any-
where from 76 days to 153
days to go from being listed for
sale to having a final contract
agreed to by both buyers and
sellers, Montagner said.
In Bend, on average, sin-
gle-family homes should take
about 80 days to sell, he said.
When homes take longer to
sell, it swells the inventory. Typ-
ically a six-month supply of
homes for sale is necessary for
a stabilized real estate market,
Montagner said. But in August,
there was nearly a two-month
Dean Guernsey/The Bulletin
A group of houses for sale in southeast Bend on Monday.
supply of homes for sale.
“We have some ground to
cover in terms of days on mar-
ket,” Montagner said. “We have
to increase the inventory. Until
then, it’s favorable market to
sellers to some degree.”
Home sales have definitely
been affected by rising interest
rates set by the Federal Reserve,
said Tim Booher, SELCO Com-
munity Credit Union mortgage
loan officer. Rates have been
raised three times so far this
year by the Fed as a way to slow
down the economy and rein in
record high inflation caused by
the pandemic.
Looking ahead, interest rates
will continue to rise, Booher
said. But the housing market
transition is also being affected
by people returning to the of-
fice and that dissuades the out-
of-the-area homebuyers from
relocating to Central Oregon,
he said.
“Rising interest rates have
slowed the market from what
had been a record-setting pace
over the last couple of years,”
Booher said. “With higher in-
terest rates, some first-time
homebuyers and our low-
er-income members are being
priced out of the market.”
It’s even affecting new hous-
ing markets. While sales are
still occurring, some new-
home builders have slowed the
pace of building to adjust for
fewer buyers.
“We’re still selling houses,”
said George Hale, president of
Woodhill Homes, which has sev-
eral projects in Bend, Redmond
and Sisters. “People still want to
live in Central Oregon. There are
things in place now that allow
people to work from anywhere.”
In August, the median sales
price of a single-family home
in Bend was $717,000, down
from the month before, but
$82,000 higher than the same
time period the year before, ac-
cording to the Beacon Report.
But in Redmond, the me-
dian price of a single fam-
ily home rose to $542,000
in August, from $505,000 in
July. A year ago, the median
sales price in Redmond was
$450,000, according to the
Beacon Report.
In Sisters, the median sales
price of a single-family home
was $730,000 in August, with
about a 1.3-month supply of
homes for sale, the same as
in July, according to the re-
port. That median sales price
is more than $100,000 higher
than July’s prices.
Sunriver continued to hover
in the same range in August.
The report posted a median
sales price for a single-fam-
ily home at $920,000, down
just slightly from July, when
the median sales price was
$975,000 in Sunriver, accord-
ing to the report.
And in La Pine, the median
single-family home sales price
remained basically the same
in August — $473,000 — as
in July. The supply of homes
for sale remained the same, at
three months, in August as in
July, according to the report.
The Beacon Report uses the
median sales price, which is
the midpoint value of all trans-
actions in a month.
“All in all these are normal
corrections in the market,”
Montagner said. “It’s still a
seller’s market. People are cau-
tious. And until we get con-
sistent interest rates, there will
remain caution from a buyer.
And until the inventory swells,
marketing time extends, it
won’t become a buyer’s market.
The market is in a transition.”
█
Reporter: 541-633-2117,
sroig@bendbulletin.com
Critics say Oregon regulatory barrier delays water conservation projects
BY MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
CO Media Group
A Central Oregon irrigation project
cannot seek key water grant funding
this year due to a regulatory barrier
that critics say is unnecessary and
counterproductive.
Unless an alternative funding
source is found, the project faces de-
lays that threaten to disrupt its com-
plex, multi-year schedule for replac-
ing open canals with pipelines, said
Steven Johnson, manager of the Ar-
nold Irrigation District near Bend.
“It makes it really problematic to be
able to plan for the future,” he said.
The Arnold Irrigation District’s
proposal, which intends to conserve
water while helping threatened Or-
egon spotted frogs, is the third to be
disqualified by the bureaucratic re-
quirement.
The repeated problems encoun-
tered by irrigation districts indicate
the grant requirement is impeding
water efficiency upgrades and should
be revised, said April Snell, execu-
tive director of the Oregon Water Re-
sources Congress, which represents
irrigation districts.
“It should not be something that
prevents them from achieving those
water conservation benefits,” she said.
The regulation disqualifies irriga-
tion districts from state water grant
funding if they fail to update their
“agricultural water management and
conservation plans,” or Ag WMCPs.
However, that requirement only ap-
plies to irrigation districts that wrote
such plans in the first place, while
those that have never developed a
plan are still eligible, she said.
In effect, the requirement penalizes
irrigation districts that voluntarily de-
velop water conservation plans, Snell
said.
“If a district ever submitted one to
the state, they’re going to have to for-
ever update that,” she said. “It’s a huge
disincentive to do an Ag WMCP.”
While state law requires city govern-
ments to develop similar water conser-
vation plans, the process is voluntary
for irrigation districts, she said. Some
elect to create the plans to unlock ac-
cess to other tools and programs.
The plans are considered current
for 5-10 years, depending on the type
of irrigation district, Snell said.
Updating a plan requires hiring
an engineer and undergoing a public
comment process, which is expen-
sive and time-consuming for cash-
strapped irrigation districts, she said.
“Many of our districts don’t feel like
anything has changed since the last
time they did it,” Snell said.
Postponing a project to update the
plan can entail serious risks, she said.
Oregon’s water supply grants are
often used as matching funds for fed-
eral financial assistance, on which the
clock can eventually run out, Snell
said.