Median home price gets all the headlines, but price per square foot (PPSF) is often the more useful metric for comparing home values across different communities, neighborhoods, and property types. It normalizes for size, which removes the distortion that occurs when you compare the median price of a city full of 1,400-square-foot homes to one dominated by 2,500-square-foot properties. Here’s what PPSF data reveals about Central Oregon’s market.
Current PPSF by Community
Based on closed sales data from the past six months, here are the median price-per-square-foot figures for major Central Oregon communities:
- Bend: $350/sqft (up 3.2% year over year)
- Sisters: $375/sqft (up 1.8% year over year)
- Sunriver: $320/sqft (down 1.5% year over year)
- Redmond: $280/sqft (up 4.1% year over year)
- Prineville: $235/sqft (up 3.8% year over year)
- Madras: $215/sqft (up 2.9% year over year)
- La Pine: $255/sqft (up 5.2% year over year)
- Terrebonne/Crooked River Ranch: $245/sqft (up 3.5% year over year)
Several things jump out from this data. Sisters commands the highest PPSF in the region, reflecting its limited supply and strong demand from buyers willing to pay a premium for the town’s character and proximity to outdoor recreation. Bend is close behind, with significant variation by neighborhood (more on that below). La Pine is showing the fastest PPSF growth, which tracks with its increasing popularity among buyers priced out of the Bend and Redmond markets.
Three-Year PPSF Trends
Looking at how PPSF has moved since late 2022 gives important context:
Bend: $338 (late 2022) → $339 (late 2023) → $345 (late 2024) → $350 (late 2025). Appreciation has been modest and steady, nothing like the explosive growth of 2020-2021 when PPSF jumped from $260 to $338 in about 18 months.
Redmond: $252 (late 2022) → $261 (late 2023) → $269 (late 2024) → $280 (late 2025). Redmond has actually appreciated faster than Bend in percentage terms over this period, narrowing the gap from $86/sqft to $70/sqft. Buyers are increasingly recognizing Redmond’s value proposition.
Sunriver: $335 (late 2022) → $330 (late 2023) → $325 (late 2024) → $320 (late 2025). Sunriver is the one major Central Oregon community where PPSF has declined over the past three years. The vacation/second-home market has faced headwinds from higher rates and changing short-term rental economics.
Within Bend: Neighborhood PPSF Variation
Bend’s city-wide average of $350/sqft masks significant neighborhood variation:
- NorthWest Crossing: $420-$450/sqft
- Old Bend/Drake Park area: $400-$440/sqft
- West side (Shevlin, Awbrey): $380-$430/sqft
- Summit West/Century West: $340-$370/sqft
- Southeast Bend (newer subdivisions): $300-$330/sqft
- Northeast Bend: $290-$320/sqft
The spread between Bend’s most and least expensive neighborhoods on a per-square-foot basis is roughly $150/sqft. On a 2,000-square-foot home, that’s a $300,000 difference in price, driven primarily by location, lot size, views, walkability, and school district.
Why PPSF Matters
PPSF is valuable because it helps you make apples-to-apples comparisons. When you’re looking at a 1,600-square-foot home in Redmond for $448,000 and a 2,200-square-foot home in Bend for $770,000, the sticker prices are very different. But the PPSF tells you the Redmond home is $280/sqft and the Bend home is $350/sqft, a 25% premium for the Bend location. You can then decide whether the Bend location is worth 25% more to you.
It’s also useful for evaluating individual listings. If a home is listed at $400/sqft in a neighborhood where recent sales have averaged $340/sqft, you either need a very good reason for the premium (major renovation, exceptional lot, unique features) or the home is overpriced. Conversely, a listing below the neighborhood average on a PPSF basis may represent a genuine value opportunity.
Limitations of the Metric
PPSF is a useful tool, but it has real limitations that you should understand:
- Lot size isn’t captured. A 1,500-square-foot home on a half-acre lot and the same home on a 5,000-square-foot lot will have different prices but the same PPSF denominator. In areas like Sisters or rural Deschutes County, where lot sizes vary dramatically, PPSF alone can be misleading.
- Quality and condition vary. A renovated home with high-end finishes and an unrenovated home with original 1990s fixtures might have the same square footage but very different values. PPSF doesn’t distinguish between a builder-grade kitchen and a custom one.
- Smaller homes naturally have higher PPSF. Fixed costs like land, garage, kitchen, and bathrooms get spread over fewer square feet in smaller homes, inflating their PPSF. A well-built 1,200-square-foot home will almost always have a higher PPSF than a comparable 2,500-square-foot home, even if the latter is worth more overall.
- Attached vs detached. Comparing PPSF between a condo and a single-family home isn’t particularly meaningful, since the condo price includes shared common areas and amenities that aren’t reflected in the unit’s square footage.
Using PPSF Wisely
The best way to use PPSF is as one data point among many. Compare PPSF within the same neighborhood, among similar property types, and with homes in similar condition. Use it to identify outliers (homes priced well above or below their neighbors on a per-foot basis) and then investigate why.
Our market reports include PPSF data for every tracked community, updated monthly. If you’re trying to compare values across Central Oregon neighborhoods, it’s one of the best tools available. Browse current listings and calculate the PPSF on properties that interest you, and it will quickly give you a sense of relative value.