Older homes on the east side of Bend, covered in this research by ZIP code 97703 on the south and east side of the city, are selling principally as well located infill housing and, in a large minority of cases, as the sites of the next home. In the sample compiled for this report, older homes in 97703 averaged 21.4 percent of the price of new construction on a comparable lot (Frontier Capitals, 2026). With new builds on standard 97703 infill lots selling from $900,000 to $1.5 million (Redfin, 2026), that ratio places the typical sampled older home in the broad region of the low to mid hundreds of thousands, priced far more by its lot and its position than by the age worn structure on it.
Builders are a major part of that market without dominating it the way they do across the river. Of the 16 pre-1980 homes sampled in 97703, builders acquired 7, a rate of 43.8 percent (Frontier Capitals, 2026). The other side of that figure matters just as much: more than half of sampled older east side homes went to buyers other than builders, which means the east side sustains a genuine household market for older stock alongside the replacement market. An east side seller therefore faces a real choice between two kinds of buyer, and this report sets out how each kind arrives at its number.
Key Findings
- Older homes in 97703 averaged 21.4 percent of new build prices on comparable lots, against 15.7 percent in 97707 and 18.6 percent blended (Frontier Capitals, 2026).
- New builds on standard 97703 infill lots have sold from $900,000 to $1.5 million (Redfin, 2026).
- Builders acquired 43.8 percent of sampled pre-1980 homes in 97703, 7 of 16 (Frontier Capitals, 2026).
- East side lots run smaller, with a sample minimum of 4,356 square feet, so slope, shape and setbacks govern the buildable envelope (Frontier Capitals, 2026).
- The research file's infill illustration leaves a land residual near $390,000 to $450,000 beneath an $1,150,000 finished sale, before site preparation (Frontier Capitals, 2026).
How does the 21.4 percent figure translate into actual prices?
Ratios become useful when they are turned back into dollars against the finished prices a street can support. The 97703 new build range runs from $900,000 to $1.5 million for standard infill product (Redfin, 2026). An older home trading at the sample average of 21.4 percent of a comparable new build therefore sits in a band that starts under $200,000 against the lowest finished outcomes and rises toward the low $300,000s against mid range ones, with individual homes falling on both sides of the average according to condition, lot and position. That is a derived reading of the documented ratio and range, offered as orientation rather than as a price list, because the sample reports the ratio itself rather than a table of east side closing prices.
The research file's worked infill illustration approaches the same street from the buyer's direction. From an $1,150,000 finished sale, deduct roughly $520,000 of construction costs and a builder margin near 20 percent, and the land residual lands near $390,000 to $450,000 before site preparation of $20,000 to $35,000 (Frontier Capitals, 2026). Notice that the residual can exceed what an existing older home on such a lot might fetch from a household. That gap is precisely why 7 of the 16 sampled homes went to builders: where the ground under a tired house is worth more than the house as a home, a builder's methodical bid beats a family's emotional one, and the recorded price follows the ground.
Context from the wider city keeps the east side figures in proportion. The Bend median sale price stood at $698,538 in August 2026 (Redfin, 2026), a figure pulled upward by west side outcomes and by new construction everywhere. An older east side home trading at a fraction of the new build range is not underperforming the city; it is participating in a different segment of it, one where the national picture of ageing housing stock and ageing systems, documented in federal housing survey data, shapes what buyers will pay for structures built before 1980 (U.S. Census Bureau, 2025). Sellers comparing across the city can set this segment against which Bend ZIP codes carry the highest resale values.
What is different about east side lots?
Size, first of all, and everything that follows from size. The sample minimum lot in 97703 was 4,356 square feet, against 15,681 square feet in 97707 (Frontier Capitals, 2026). On a large west side parcel, a replacement home has room to arrange itself; on a small east side lot, the buildable envelope is a negotiation with the parcel's own geometry. The research file names the governing factors directly: slope, shape and setbacks (Frontier Capitals, 2026). County records on lot dimensions, setbacks and zoning classifications are where those factors live in documented form (Deschutes County Community Development, 2026), and the assessor's parcel records establish the starting dimensions and assessed land value for any given address (Deschutes County Assessor, 2026).
That geometry cuts both ways for a seller. A small, flat, rectangular lot with comfortable setbacks can be an unusually clean infill proposition, cheap to clear and straightforward to build on, and builders value certainty. A small lot pinched by slope or an awkward shape can see its residual trimmed hard, because the finished home it can carry shrinks while the fixed costs of building do not. Two neighbouring east side homes with identical floor plans can therefore achieve noticeably different prices on land logic alone, and an owner who understands their parcel's envelope, from the county record rather than from a guess, negotiates from knowledge.
The corridor effect operates here too, in a quieter register. Builders pay more where they have built before, and east side infill clusters where earlier replacements have proven the finished price (Frontier Capitals, 2026). Deed records held by the county clerk show those clusters forming, purchase by purchase, in builder entity names (Deschutes County Clerk, 2026). An east side street with two recent builder closings is a different selling environment from a street with none, even inside the same ZIP code, and the difference will show up in offers before it shows up in any published statistic.
Who buys the other half of east side older homes?
The 56.2 percent of sampled homes not taken by builders went somewhere, and understanding those buyers completes the picture for a seller choosing a route. They are households and small investors for whom an east side older home, at roughly a fifth of the price of new construction nearby, is the accessible rung of Bend ownership. For those buyers the house itself is the product: they will live in its layout, maintain its systems and judge its condition room by room. Regional market statistics describe the demand climate those buyers operate in (Central Oregon Association of Realtors, 2025), and within it, Bend's average days on market of 61 in August 2026 and the pattern of nearly half of closings carrying a concession tell a seller how carefully that climate now examines older stock (Redfin, 2026).
Household buyers price the house, and they price its problems. Inspection concessions of $5,000 to $15,000 are routine on older Bend inventory in the research file's ledger, and the carrying cost of a three to six month sale runs $7,000 to $18,000 while the home waits for its buyer (Frontier Capitals, 2026). An east side home in honest, maintained condition can do well in this channel precisely because the builder alternative sets a floor beneath it: a family that wants the street must bid against the knowledge that a builder will pay land value for the same address. That competitive floor is a genuine asset, and it is stronger in 97703 than a casual reading of the 43.8 percent figure might suggest.
City planning records shape both channels quietly in the background. Permit and zoning records determine what a household may add, what a builder may replace and how a small lot may be used (City of Bend, 2026). Nationally, single family starts at a 918,000 seasonally adjusted annual rate in September 2026 frame the cost environment every infill builder is working inside (National Association of Home Builders, 2026). An east side seller does not need to master any of this, but recognising that both of their buyer types are reading the same records helps explain why offers converge where they do. The wider pattern of replacement across the city is mapped in the report on which Bend neighbourhoods have the most new construction replacing older homes.
What does the route do to an east side seller's net?
Take the research file's $335,000 worked example as the scale model, since it sits close to the east side band derived earlier. Listed and sold through the normal cycle, that home pays commission at the typical 5 to 6 percent, roughly $17,000 to $20,000 (National Association of Realtors, 2025), plus seller side closing costs of 1 to 2 percent, plus the likely inspection concession, plus carrying costs across a market period that averages 61 days before an offer even arrives (Redfin, 2026). The research file's conclusion for that example is a net in the high $270,000s (Frontier Capitals, 2026). The gross price and the kept price are different numbers by a margin wide enough to matter.
A direct sale to a builder sourced buyer rewrites each line. The sale is private, with no showings rotating strangers through the home and no public marketing period announcing the move to the street. The closing date belongs to the seller's calendar, as short as 7 to 21 days or months away with a leaseback if the household needs the bridge. No commission is charged and no seller closing costs are charged, together preserving the $25,000 to $35,000 or more that the listing ledger erases on a sale at this level before concessions and carrying costs are even counted. The home sells as is, so the dated kitchen and the ageing systems are priced once, in the offer, rather than re priced after inspection. Frontier Capitals works in this channel as a wholesaler sourcing off market deals to builders; it does not build, and it says so. East side owners can explore that route through the contact page or by calling 401-219-4207, and can check the ground rules of the comparison in the methodology page.
Neither route is automatically correct for every east side address. A well kept home on a clean lot may beat its land value in the household market, and the 21.4 percent average explicitly leaves room for homes above it. The point of the figures is not to push a seller toward one buyer, but to let the seller see both prices clearly: the household price for the house, and the builder price for the ground, each documented in its own way.
How can an east side seller test both prices before choosing?
Because the east side sustains two real markets, a seller here can do something a west side seller mostly cannot: obtain both prices as evidence rather than as theory. The land price can be tested by working the residual for the specific parcel, starting from the finished infill range of $900,000 to $1.5 million, deducting the cost stack the research file documents, and checking the parcel's own dimensions and setbacks against county records before treating the result as real (Frontier Capitals, 2026; Deschutes County Community Development, 2026). The household price can be tested by reading recorded sales of maintained older homes on comparable east side streets, where the buyers were purchasing the house itself (Deschutes County Clerk, 2026).
The comparison that emerges from that exercise is usually clarifying in a way citywide averages are not. Where the two tested prices land close together, the seller is free to choose on secondary grounds: speed, privacy, tolerance for showings and inspection rounds. Where the land price stands clearly above the household price, the house has already told its owner which asset it is. And where the household price leads, as it will for the genuinely kept home on a kind lot, the seller can list with the confidence that the builder floor still sits underneath the campaign, a form of insurance most sellers in most markets do not have. Testing both prices costs a seller some evenings with the public record. Skipping the test and guessing can cost a season.
Methodology and limitations
The east side figures come from the 97703 half of the Bend sample: 16 pre-1980 homes, 7 acquired by builders, with older homes averaging 21.4 percent of new build prices on comparable lots (Frontier Capitals, 2026). Finished prices are the recorded $900,000 to $1.5 million range for new builds on standard infill lots in the ZIP (Redfin, 2026). Parcel, setback and zoning facts are drawn from county records (Deschutes County Assessor, 2026; Deschutes County Community Development, 2026).
The limits deserve the same clarity as the figures. The sample is 16 homes selected for older home characteristics, not a census of the east side, so the 43.8 percent acquisition rate describes the sampled stock and the true share across all 97703 homes will be lower. The dollar band for older homes in this report is derived by applying the documented ratio to the documented finished range; the sample does not publish an east side table of individual closing prices, and no specific property was appraised or inspected. In the research file, the residual example is presented in simplified form and marked accordingly.
Conclusion
Older homes on Bend's east side are selling at an average of 21.4 percent of the price of the new construction that shares their streets, with builders taking 43.8 percent of the sampled stock and households taking the rest (Frontier Capitals, 2026). In dollars, against finished infill prices of $900,000 to $1.5 million, that places the typical sampled older home in the low to mid hundreds of thousands, its value carried by a compact lot whose buildable envelope is set by slope, shape and setbacks (Redfin, 2026).
For a seller, the east side offers something the west side offers less often: two live markets for the same house. The household market will pay for the home as a home, minus the costs and concessions of a public sale. The builder market will pay for the ground, quickly and without those deductions. Knowing both numbers, from the record, is what turns a sale from a hope into a decision.
If your home's ground is worth nearly as much as the home itself, which buyer have you been preparing it for, and what has that preparation been costing you?
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the average older home price on the east side?
The sample expresses it as a ratio: older homes in 97703 averaged 21.4 percent of new build prices on comparable lots (Frontier Capitals, 2026). Against the documented infill finished range of $900,000 to $1.5 million (Redfin, 2026), that implies a broad band in the low to mid hundreds of thousands, varying with condition and lot.
Are east side builders as active as west side builders?
Less so, on the sample. Builders acquired 43.8 percent of sampled pre-1980 homes in 97703 against 62.5 percent in 97707 (Frontier Capitals, 2026). The east side consequently keeps a stronger parallel household market for older homes.
Why do lot details matter more on the east side?
Because the lots are smaller. The 97703 sample minimum was 4,356 square feet, and at that scale slope, shape and setbacks decide how much home the lot can carry (Frontier Capitals, 2026). County records on dimensions and setbacks are the authoritative source for a specific parcel (Deschutes County Community Development, 2026).
What would a listed east side sale cost the seller?
On the research file's $335,000 example, commission at 5 to 6 percent runs $17,000 to $20,000 (National Association of Realtors, 2025), with a further 1 to 2 percent in seller closing costs, routine inspection concessions of $5,000 to $15,000, and carrying costs over a market period averaging 61 days (Redfin, 2026). The file's net for that example lands in the high $270,000s.
Can an east side home sell above the 21.4 percent average?
Yes. The figure is an average across 16 sampled homes in mixed condition (Frontier Capitals, 2026). A maintained home on a clean, buildable lot can exceed it in the household market, just as a compromised lot can pull a builder's residual below it.
Sellers in Bend also ask Are Luxury Homes on Bend’s West Side Still Selling at Premium Prices? and What Types of Homes Are Buyers Looking for in Bend in 2026?
Sources
- Frontier Capitals, 2026. 189 neighborhood builder acquisition sample: 32 homes sampled across 97707 and 97703, 17 acquired by builders, average older home price 18.6 percent of new build. Market data.
- Deschutes County Assessor, 2026. Parcel dimensions, zoning, and assessed land value records for 97707 and 97703. Official record.
- Deschutes County Clerk, 2026. Deed recording records for Bend area transactions. Official record.
- Deschutes County Community Development, 2026. Lot dimensions, setbacks, and zoning classifications. Official record.
- City of Bend, Oregon, 2026. Planning division permit and zoning records. Official record.
- Central Oregon Association of Realtors, 2025. Market statistics. Industry report.
- National Association of Home Builders, 2026. Housing starts, September 2026: single-family starts at 918,000 seasonally adjusted annual rate. Industry report.
- National Association of Realtors, 2025. Typical seller commission structures, Bend market. Industry report.
- Redfin, 2026. Recently sold homes and new construction, ZIP codes 97707 and 97703, Bend OR. Market data.
- U.S. Census Bureau, 2025. American Housing Survey: age of housing stock and system characteristics. Government data.