Why the price figures you’ll see disagree
Three numbers circulate for this market and they measure three different things. The median sold price tracks what actually closed, so it lags the current market by weeks. The Zillow Home Value Index estimates typical value across the entire housing stock, sold or not, so it smooths out swings that a small sample of monthly closings can’t avoid. The asking price on active and pending listings reflects what sellers want today, before any negotiation, and in a market this size a handful of higher-end listings can pull that median well above the sold figure.
None of the three is wrong. They answer different questions: what did this market close at, what is a typical home here worth, and what are sellers asking right now.
| Metric | Value | Date | What it measures |
|---|---|---|---|
| Median sold price (North Bend city) | $339,000 | January 2026 | Closed sales, backward-looking |
| Zillow Home Value Index | $369,443 | current, +0.7% year over year | Modeled typical value across all homes |
| Median asking price, pending listings (97459 zip) | $467,000 | current, 38 pending | Unclosed seller asks |
| Coos County median sold price | $341,000 | March 2026 | County-wide comparison baseline |
The county figure sits close to the city’s sold median, which tells you North Bend isn’t pricing at a premium or a discount to its county. The premium shows up only once you separate the city into its individual pockets, which the next section does.
Neighborhoods and what they actually cost
North Bend’s price spread is wider than a single median suggests, and it splits along real geography rather than marketing labels. The table below uses dated, address-level sales and listings rather than adjectives.
| Area | Character | Observed price band | Best-fit buyer |
|---|---|---|---|
| Historic core (Broadway/downtown) | Oldest housing stock, much pre-1940s; walkable to the bay | $100,000 to $260,000 for small or fixer homes (609 Vermont St sold $100,000, Sept. 2025, 476 sq ft) | First-time buyers, renovation-focused investors |
| Established mid-town (Simpson Heights, Edgewood) | 1970s-2000s ranch and split-level tracts, remodeled kitchens common | Roughly $300,000 to $470,000 for updated 3-bed homes, tracking the zip’s pending-listing median | Move-up family buyers wanting turnkey homes |
| Bay-view corridor (E Bay Rd and similar) | Elevated lots overlooking the bay, bridge, and airport | $329,000 to $1,550,000 (67443 E Bay Rd estimate $329,000-398,000; 94540 Willanch Ln listed $1,550,000) | View-focused buyers at the top, downsizers at the low end |
| Rural dunes-adjacent acreage (Hauser Rd, Kirkendall Ln) | Larger lots, closer to Horsfall Beach dunes access, some without full municipal services | $125,000 for a buildable lot to $465,000 for an acreage home (93924 Kirkendall Ln sold $259,000, Feb. 2026) | Buyers wanting land, dunes access, or new construction |
| New-construction and luxury outliers, citywide | Recent builds scattered across several neighborhoods rather than one district | $598,900 to $850,000-plus (2220 Maine Ct $598,900; 2270 Hayes St $850,000) | Buyers prioritizing new systems and finishes over location |
The spread inside a single city, from a $100,000 fixer to a $1.55 million view lot, is wider than the county-to-city gap discussed above. Treat these bands as directional: North Bend’s monthly sold volume runs in the low double digits, so any one band can shift with a handful of closings.
Is North Bend cheaper than Coos Bay?Not by much at the city level. North Bend’s sold median was $339,000 in January 2026; Coos Bay’s was $337,000 in March 2026. Both sit close to the shared Coos County median of $341,000. The real cost differences in this market are neighborhood-to-neighborhood within each city, not city-to-city.
Is this a buyer’s or seller’s market right now
The two most-cited indicators point in different directions, and both are real. Redfin’s Compete Score rates North Bend “very competitive,” based on a shorter modeled figure of homes selling in 35 days. The actual average days-on-market for closed January 2026 sales was 67, itself down from 138 a year prior. At the county level, 58.2% of homes sold below asking price as of April 2025.
Read together: the market has tightened meaningfully year over year, but it isn’t uniformly hot. A well-priced, move-in-ready home in an established neighborhood can draw competing offers within a few weeks. A dated or oddly priced listing, especially outside the mid-town price band, can sit for two months or more and still close under asking. For sellers, that means pricing to the neighborhood’s actual comps, not to the zip code’s pending-listing median. For buyers, it means an opening offer below asking is a reasonable starting position outside the tightest micro-markets.
How fast are homes selling in North Bend right now?Speed varies more by pricing discipline than by calendar month. Roughly 58% of Coos County sales closed below the original asking price as of April 2025, and the average North Bend sale took 67 days in January 2026. A listing priced tight to its neighborhood’s comps is the biggest lever a seller controls over that timeline.
Buying as an investor in North Bend
Two threads matter here: the tourism draw and the permitting reality. The airport, the Oregon Dunes, and Bandon Dunes Golf Resort’s golfer traffic all bring visitors through the area, and Southwest Oregon Regional Airport (OTH) is the only commercial airport on the Oregon Coast, with daily United Express service to San Francisco and a seasonal Denver route confirmed through SkyWest Airlines.
That tourism draw doesn’t translate into an easy short-term-rental path. A property in unincorporated Coos County needs a compatibility finding under the county’s zoning ordinance before it can operate as a vacation rental, plus a separate Travelers’ Accommodation license from Coos Health & Wellness, tied to water, sewer, and zoning documentation. Across the bay, the City of Coos Bay runs its own vacation-rental ordinance, with a business license, transient lodging tax registration, and automatic permit revocation if a unit rents fewer than 10 nights a year. This research did not turn up a published North Bend city-specific short-term-rental ordinance or a rental-yield figure for the local market; an investor should confirm the current city rule directly with North Bend’s planning department, and should budget time for that confirmation rather than skip it.
Is North Bend a good place to buy a rental property?The entry price is low relative to most Oregon coastal markets and there’s real tourist traffic from the dunes and Bandon Dunes golf visitors. But short-term rental permitting runs through Coos County zoning and health licensing outside city limits, and North Bend’s own city-level short-term-rental rule wasn’t confirmed in this research, so verify with the city before modeling a rental return.
Flood, fire, and air risk buyers should factor in
Coos County as a whole carries meaningful flood exposure: 13% of properties face severe flood risk over the next 30 years, against a 10% wildfire risk, minimal wind risk, and 89% of properties rated minimal for extreme heat, per Redfin’s Coos County climate data, sourced to First Street. Inside North Bend itself, risk varies sharply by parcel rather than sitting at one city-wide level. A vacant lot on Fir St carries a 0% wildfire chance and a “minimal” flood rating, while a property on Wildwood Drive carries an estimated 74 to 82% chance of a flood reaching the building over the next 30 years, per the same First Street data feed shown on its listing page.
| Hazard | County-wide exposure | Individual North Bend parcels sampled | Implication |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flood | 13% of properties severely exposed over 30 years | Minimal at elevated interior lots (Fir St, Roosevelt St); 74 to 82% at a low-lying Wildwood Dr parcel | Confirm per-address flood status before writing an offer; lenders may require flood insurance on specific parcels regardless of city-wide averages |
| Wildfire | 10% of properties at some risk | Sampled city parcels rated Minimal to Minor, 0% to 0.31% 30-year chance | Comparatively low fire exposure versus interior Oregon markets |
| Wind | Minimal county-wide | Minimal on sampled parcels | Limited effect on insurance premiums |
| Extreme heat | 89% of properties rated minimal | 6 to 9 hot days a year on sampled parcels | Low near-term relevance |
| Air quality | Not broken out at county level | Sampled parcels rated Major, roughly 9 unhealthy air days expected this year | Likely tied to seasonal wildfire-smoke drift from inland fires |
The flood and air-quality lines are the two figures worth asking your agent about by address, roughly 9 unhealthy air days expected this year on the sampled parcels alone.
What’s the flood and wildfire risk for North Bend properties?County-wide, 13% of properties face severe flood risk and 10% face wildfire risk over 30 years. Ask for the specific parcel’s First Street rating before writing an offer: sampled North Bend addresses ranged from a 0% wildfire chance on one lot to an 82% flood chance on another a short distance away.
Common costly mistakes in this market
- Treating the county or zip median as an offer benchmark. A buyer anchoring to the $467,000 pending-listing median for 97459 will overpay for a historic-core fixer and underbid on a bay-view lot; use the neighborhood table, not the zip average.
- Assuming a low list price means a bargain. On 3863 Vista Dr, a home listed at $300,000 sold for $230,000, 23% under list, after 24 days on market in February 2026; a low list price can signal a seller testing the water as easily as it can signal a deal.
- Skipping a per-address hazard check. With flood risk swinging from minimal to over 74% between two North Bend parcels a short distance apart, a buyer relying on the county-wide 13% figure alone can be caught off guard at insurance-quote time.
- Assuming short-term-rental rules match a neighboring city. Coos Bay’s vacation-rental ordinance and Coos County’s zoning-plus-health-license path for unincorporated parcels are two different processes; neither one is confirmed to be North Bend’s own city rule.
Schools, employers, and commute basics
North Bend School District 13 serves about 3,452 students across five schools (four elementary, two middle, two high), and GreatSchools rates the district’s overall school quality as average. The city’s median household income was $81,320 in the 2024 American Community Survey, running well above the $62,143 median for the broader Coos Bay-North Bend micro area, per Census Reporter’s ACS profile. Southwest Oregon Regional Airport sits inside city limits with daily United Express service to San Francisco.
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