INSIDE: DEAR ABBY, HOROSCOPE, PUZZLES & FEATURES
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B USINESS
THE BULLETIN • SUNDAY, JUNE 6, 2021
bendbulletin.com/business
Central Oregon housing
Surge in rentals tightens
market, pushes prices up
BY MICHAEL KOHN
The Bulletin
F
or people looking to rent a
home or apartment in Bend,
the first hurdle is just getting a
foot in the door. All across the
city, rental homes are getting snatched
up faster than ever, and the demand is
causing price hikes.
“It is crazy right now, much like the
housing market,” said Lisa Berg, owner
of Mt. Bachelor Property Management.
“We will post properties for rent and
within an hour will have received mul-
tiple applications.”
Multiple factors are contributing to
the surge in rental interest and prices
in Bend. In part, it’s due to pandemic
rental assistance that is keeping renters
in their homes, which prevents units
from opening up. But the greater factor
has been the tidal wave of newcomers
arriving from other parts of the country.
Medium-sized rural towns like Bend
have become a Mecca for remote work-
ers who no longer need to be tied down
to the big city and its high cost of living
and crowded conditions. Many of those
newcomers have bought property, but
those who couldn’t close a deal quickly,
or just wanted to stay flexible until the
+33%
$1,885
Increase in prices for two-bedroom
apartment in Bend over the past year
Average rent for a two-bedroom apartment
in Bend, according to Zumper.
pandemic subsides, are now renting.
Berg said more than half of her new
tenants are relocating to Central Ore-
gon from out of the area and many are
remote workers. All those new arrivals
have put historic high pressure on the
housing market.
Apartment rentals are typically
leased up within a couple of days after
listing, said Berg, and the vacancy rate
within her company is 1%.
“Prior to the pandemic, the rental
market was still tight, and properties
would be rented within a week or two,”
said Berg. “However, I have been man-
aging rentals in Central Oregon for
over 10 years and this is by far the most
insane I have ever seen it.”
According to Zumper, an apartment
listing website, the average rent for a
two-bedroom apartment in Bend is
$1,885, a 33% increase compared to a
year ago. That price makes Bend just
as expensive as Seattle, where a two-
bedroom apartment will set you back,
on average, $1,995 a month.
Melissa Gottlieb, owner of Bend Re-
location Services said the surge in de-
mand is fueling price increases.
“The supply is incredibly low com-
pared to the demand, giving home-
owners a huge advantage,” said Got-
tlieb. “The average three-bedroom,
two-bathroom single-family home is
$2,800 compared to $2,300 a year ago
and $2,000 two years ago.”
The huge demand for housing is al-
lowing homeowners to be pickier when
it comes to selecting a renter, and many
are opting for those without pets.
“Finding a rental that will accept a
cat is becoming a rarity and for a city
known for having a very strong dog-
friendly community, securing a rental
with a dog is also becoming increas-
ingly more difficult,” said Gottlieb.
Berg said the hot housing market
has forced some landlords to cash in
on their rental properties. When that
happens it just results in more people
forced back into the pool of renters
needing housing.
“We try and relocate them to our
other properties if we can but it doesn’t
always work out,” said Berg.
The city of Bend is working to alle-
viate the stress of the housing market
by creating affordable housing options.
The development of these projects can
be one or two years in the making, but
some are already coming online.
“I can see the projects growing up
out of the ground . Part of it is shock ;
part of it is relief,” said Mayor Sally Rus-
sell.
In February, the Bend City Council
approved $1.3 million in funding for
the construction of 400 new affordable
housing units. Russell said the situa-
tion improves day by day as construc-
tion companies work furiously to build
more units.
“The situation is improving every
day ; people need to understand that,”
said Russell. “There is so much inven-
tory that is on the verge of coming on-
line in the city of Bend now.”
Reporter: 541-617-7818,
mkohn@bendbulletin.com
A sign advertising
apartments and
townhomes on N E
Ross Road in Bend.
Dean Guernsey/The Bulletin
Workers around the world return to weirder offices
BY TODD GILLESPIE AND JACK SIDDERS
Bloomberg
Masked, desk-bound and unable to
recognize their colleagues in an eleva-
tor, people are starting to return to of-
fices in cities around the world where
the pandemic is receding. Many will
find their offices transformed, too.
In the challenge to make offices
both COVID-19-safe and attractive
places to work, firms have been exper-
imenting with working arrangements
and space while employees toiled at
home. Some gave up floor space to
adjust to less rigid schedules, others
introduced movable walls to create
flexible areas. Many installed safety
innovations such as touchless lifts and
worked to improve air quality.
Lockdowns have provided a “fan-
tastic opportunity to create and recre-
ate a new world for each of us, which
may, for each company, be slightly dif-
ferent,” said Neil McLocklin, a Knight
Frank partner.
Employees of Arcadis, a design and
engineering consultancy, will be able
to choose one of 20 different types
of workspace via an app when they
move into new offices in the city of
London next month. The compa-
ny’s Building Intelligence app, devel-
oped during the pandemic, provides
options for meeting spaces, focused
work and collaboration, as well as
social and well-being areas such as a
winter garden.
The app will help monitor the
number of people using different
spaces, ensuring capacity limits de-
signed to prevent the spread of in-
fection are never exceeded. The limit
will initially be set to about one-third
of the company’s 1,200 London office
users, as it shifts to more work from
home. That also means less space is
needed: Its London office is about
30% smaller than before.
“The app is the critical enabler,”
Arcadis’ U.K. Chief Executive Offi-
cer Mark Cowlard said. “It helps us
understand when people are using
meeting spaces so they can be cleaned
afterward.”
At the Lloyd’s Building, the iconic
home of the 300-year-old insurance
market, the externally-clad ventilation
ducts inject fresh air from the ground
up and ejects it after it’s risen through
the floors.
“That way of keeping the air fresh
in the space is the best,” said Ivan
Harbour, senior design partner at
Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners, who
cut his teeth on the Lloyd’s building
project as a young architect in the
1980s. “Our projects since C OVID
have really brought that home.”
But ventilation isn’t enough on its
own. As the building reopens, face
coverings are now a requirement in
most of it, underwriters sit at desks
bordered by perspex screens and use
an app to order their lunch to-go.
The importance of making space
accessible and interesting to be in
isn’t lost on HR departments. Bring-
ing staff back to the office is already
a retention issue: almost 30% of peo-
ple said they’d look for another job if
they need to come back to the office
five days a week, according to a global
McKinsey & Co. survey.
“It’s like a Rubik’s Cube. You are
solving for so many different things
at the same time,” said Andrea Alex-
ander, associate partner at McKinsey
in Houston, who advises some clients
to take a team-based approach so em-
ployees are only expected to come in
when their close colleagues are too. “It
requires you to really think through
what are those moments that matter
that should be in person.”
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