FEBRUARY 2007: AROUND THE STATE
Luxury townhomes at The Colony at Bandon Cove will sell
for as much
as $2 million.
|
REAL ESTATE
A hot home market causes new headaches in small coastal cities
BANDON — Home sales typically suffer the winter blahs,
but not in Bandon. It’s as if the world-famous Bandon
Dunes golf course turned this sleepy town into real-estate gold
— especially when you can see the Pacific Ocean from the
living room couch.
Getting the big view will cost between
$1 million and $2 million this year. That’s the going
rate now for reservations at The Colony at Bandon Cove, 18
luxury townhouses going up nine miles from the links. Six
buyers have already made down payments and David L. Davis Real
Estate broker Penny Allen expects to be sold out before the
2,200-square-foot units are completed in June.
“People are tired of the rat race,” she says.
“The oceanfront has gone really wild.”
Drive north to Cannon Beach and Gearhart, and buyers will see
the same wild scenario: $1 million-plus prices for increasingly
scarce coveted beachfront properties. Eleven parcels in those
two cities are priced close to $1.5 million — that
included Arcadia Sands property in Cannon Beach, which sold for
$1.4 million (land only) in late December, a typically slow
time of year for real estate sales.
At least five new high-end developments in Seaside and
Gearhart will go on the market in early spring, testing the
region’s ongoing demand. “There’s definitely
been a need perceived for new construction,” says Pam
Vitas, a real estate agent at North Coast Realty in
Gearhart.
The hot market is good for brokers but bad news for city and
school leaders on the coast. They say the high cost of real
estate is pricing their employees — including
firefighters and police officers — right out of the
area.
Late last year, Cannon Beach officials joined with the
nonprofit group Community Action Team to look at ways they can
build affordable housing on city-owned property, says city
manager Rich May. To the city, affordable means homes between
$250,000 and $350,000 — cheap by Cannon Beach
standards.
Starter homes for young families are a huge concern for May,
who says the affordability issue has been looked at for many
years. “But nothing’s been done yet,” he
says.
Already land constrained, Cannon Beach also changed its zoning
laws and expanded its urban growth boundary by five acres to
make way for new homes.
Meanwhile, the lack of affordable property is hurting Seaside
School District, which sorely needs sites to construct four new
schools in Gearhart, Cannon Beach and Seaside.
The current schools are located in tsunami zones. “Not
only is property expensive,” says school superintendent
Doug Dougherty, “but it’s full of sand and
fill.”
The regional district gets no state funding because of its
higher-than-average property values and is looking at all
options, including land held by private developers, Dougherty
says. A study due in March will tell the district where in
Cannon Beach it can build a new elementary school, outside the
risky tsunami zone.
Meanwhile, real estate professionals predict sales will remain
stable in 2007, with some adjustment in appreciation after what
Chris Childress, a real estate broker at Duane Johnson Real
Estate in Cannon Beach, calls the “frenzy of the last two
to three years.”
“Everything in town is holding its value,”
Childress says. “It’s not slowing down, but
we’re going to see appreciation slow a bit.”
According to RLMS figures, Bandon and Florence on the south
coast and Cannon Beach, Gearhart and Seaside on the north coast
saw the largest increase in land and residential sales over the
past five years.
Home sales in Bandon jumped from
$14 million a year in 2000 to $59 million in 2005, with
average prices increasing 70% to $333,717. Meanwhile,
appreciation of Cannon Beach homes increased at least 25%
annually since 2003. The average price of a home there jumped
35% from $587,497 in 2005 to $798,330 in 2006.
Years of intense growth and new arrivals have created
additional stress on the small coastal communities. Seaside is
seeking a bond levy to pay for a new sewage system.
And, in Cannon Beach, out-of-town buyers upset local residents
by tearing down older, funky beach houses to build taller,
wider, more modern homes they say are out of character with the
city.
“The people moving here are looking to buy lots and
build ever bigger houses, which is what we saw in Lake Oswego
when people discovered the lake,” says Dan Fost, who
bought a second home in Cannon Beach six years ago with his
wife. “Everything has to be big and
gray-shingle.”
Those design features can be seen in several anticipated
projects this spring. In Gearhart, where growth is limited by
lack of land, lots at the 130-unit development east of the
Highlands Golf Course go on the market this month. Prices are
expected to range from $275,000 to $400,000. Windermere’s
Barbara Maltman says three to four years ago the no-ocean-view
lots would have sold for $125,000 to $150,000.
Down in Bandon there are plans to expand the city’s
urban growth boundary in some areas and shrink it in others
— a way to accommodate the ever-growing demand for land.
City manager Matt Winkel says the city is also working on a
workforce housing initiative and examining options such as
selling city-owned property and buying new lots to build
affordable housing.
In the meantime, Bandon’s reputation as a golf mecca and
its drop-dead gorgeous beach continue to price out city
employees.
— Kristina
Brenneman
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