Redmond Rental Market: September 2026

Redmond Oregon Rental Market Report · September 2026

Monthly market report from Legacy Property Management

The Bottom Line: The Redmond rental market September 2026 picture is better than its headline. The average house asking rent slipped to $2,398, 4.1% below August and 7.6% below a year ago, but that is not a 7% pay cut for landlords: Zillow’s same-home rent index for Redmond is still up about 4% from last year, which tells us the drop is mostly about which homes happen to be listed. The real pressure is time. Current listings have been on the market an average of 61 days, and with mortgage rates at 7.40%, renters are staying put but their budgets are stretched. Renew good tenants now at modest increases, and price vacancies to today’s competition, not to last summer.

September handed Redmond landlords a headline that looks worse than the reality underneath it. House asking rents fell for the month and sit well below last year, yet the same homes are still renting for a little more than they did a year ago. Listings shrank, but the homes that remain are taking longer to lease. And with mortgage rates at their highest level in nearly three years, Redmond renters have every reason to stay where they are. Here is what the numbers say, and what they mean for small landlords and investors heading into winter.

Redmond Rental Market September 2026

Zillow’s average asking rent for Redmond houses came in at $2,398 for September, down $102 (4.1%) from August’s $2,500 and $197 (7.6%) below September 2025. That puts the average right back where it started the year. Since January, Redmond house rents have bounced between roughly $2,350 and $2,500, rising each time the spring and summer leasing pushes arrived and falling back once they passed.

Early October numbers jumped to $2,590. Before reading that as a rebound, look at what changed underneath it. The number of listed houses fell from 52 to 44, and the price band that thinned out most was $2,000 to $2,499. When cheaper homes leave the pool, the average of what remains goes up even if no landlord raised a price. We will treat October as a real move only if it holds once the full month posts. For comparison, Bend house rents also eased in September but remain up about 3% from a year ago.

The 7% drop is mostly about which homes are listed

Zillow publishes a second measure that follows rent changes on comparable homes over time, across all rental types. For Redmond, that same-home index was up 4.1% year over year in August and has run between 3% and 6% above last year in every month of 2026. Over the same stretch, the listing average for houses has been below last year in eight of nine months.

Both can be true at once. The listing average reflects whatever mix of homes happens to be for rent that month, so a handful of extra modest homes, or a few fewer large ones, can move it more than real rent changes do. Zillow’s single-family index for the wider Bend metro area, which includes Redmond, is up 3.1%. Our read: like-for-like house rents in Redmond are flat to modestly higher than a year ago, not 7% lower. What has slipped is the top of the asking ladder.

Lease data point the same way. Existing leases on Redmond houses average about $2,250 a month, roughly $150 (6%) below September’s asking average. For a typical home, asking rents still sit above what current tenants pay, so turnover still resets rent upward. That is not what a falling market looks like.

Fewer houses, sitting longer

Zillow showed 44 houses for rent on October 5, down from 52 on September 1 but still above the 37 we counted at the end of June. Current listings have been on the market an average of 61 days, up from 51 a month earlier. Multiply the two and you get inventory-days, our measure of total marketing time across the market: 2,684, essentially flat (up 1.2%). In other words, Redmond did not add supply in September. It simply took longer to clear what was already there.

Against roughly 2,300 detached rental homes in Redmond, those 44 listings work out to listed availability of 1.9%, down from 2.3% on September 1. That is the share of the stock actively listed, not a vacancy rate, but it does tell you Redmond is not oversupplied. The issue is not too many houses. It is houses priced above where renters will commit.

Where the prices sit

Zillow’s price range for Redmond houses ran from $1,000 to $4,500 on October 5, a narrower spread than September’s $900 to $6,500. The shape inside that range matters more than the edges. Listings priced $2,000 to $2,499 shrank from about 31% of the pool to 19%, a sign that band is leasing. The $2,500 to $2,999 band grew from 25% to 36% and is now the most crowded part of the market. If your house competes there, you face the most competition in town.

How long Redmond tenants stay

Redmond renters move less often than the turnover headlines suggest. Census survey data show that about half of Redmond renter households moved into their current home before 2020, and market data on apartment renewals show roughly 68% of residents staying on, which implies an average stay of a little over three years. Single-family tenants typically stay longer than apartment tenants, so three to four years is a fair planning assumption for a Redmond house. That matters because every turnover now costs real money. At 61 days on market, an average house gives up about $4,800 in rent before cleaning, repairs, and leasing costs.

Apartments

Large Redmond apartment communities averaged $1,926 a month as of September 1, up 2.45% from a year earlier, according to Yardi Matrix data published by RentCafe. Broader market data point the same direction on rent, with in-place apartment rents up about 3% from last year, but they show occupancy softening, averaging under 95% in the third quarter versus about 98% a year ago. Redmond apartments are holding rent by giving up a little occupancy, which is usually the step before concessions spread.

The longer-term picture is friendlier. Multifamily permits across the Bend metro area, which covers all of Deschutes County, totaled 101 units in July and August combined, compared with 554 in the same two months of 2025. Monthly apartment permits are lumpy, but the direction is clear: fewer new apartments will be competing for renters in 2027 and 2028.

The Segment Premium

A Redmond house now asks about $472 more than a large-complex apartment, a 25% premium. A year ago the gap was about $715, or 38%. The premium shrank from both sides, with house asking rents falling while apartment rents rose. For a family weighing a three-bedroom apartment against a house with a yard, the house looks like a better deal than it has in some time. That should help well-priced houses lease even as the market slows into winter.

Who Rents What

Redmond is the most accessible of Central Oregon’s three main markets, and its renters reflect that. Census data put Redmond’s median household income near $84,000 and the median for renter households near $59,000. A house at $2,398 takes about $86,000 in household income under the common three-times-rent screening rule, or about $96,000 if rent is held to 30% of income. That is well above the typical Redmond renter and close to the citywide median for all households. Single-family tenants are a smaller, higher-earning slice of the renter pool, and that slice does not have much room left to absorb increases.

The local economy is steady rather than booming. Redmond had 18,914 employed residents in August, up 0.6% from a year earlier, and the city’s unemployment rate was 4.9%, compared with 4.5% for Deschutes County. Portland State University estimates Redmond’s population grew about 1.6% in the year to July 2025, a touch faster than Bend. Demand is growing, just not fast enough to carry rents higher on its own.

The For-Sale Market

Redmond’s for-sale market loosened further. The median sale price for single-family homes was $499,000 in September, down 5.8% from a year earlier, on 59 sales, according to the Beacon Report compiled from Central Oregon MLS data. Homes that sold spent a median of 33 days on the market, and inventory reached about four months of supply, up from roughly 2.3 months in the third quarter of 2025. That is balanced territory and a real shift from the tight market of recent years. Some sellers who cannot get their price will rent their homes instead, which is part of why Redmond’s rental listings doubled in August.

Softer prices sound like they should pull renters into buying. They have not, and the reason is this month’s bonus metric.

The Bonus Metric: 7.40% Mortgage Rates

The number driving Redmond’s rental story this month is not a rent at all. Freddie Mac’s average 30-year fixed rate reached 7.40% on October 8, its highest level since November 2023, after seven straight weekly increases. A year ago it was 6.30%.

Run the numbers on a median Redmond house. With 20% down, a $499,000 home at 7.40% costs about $3,260 a month once property tax and insurance are added. Renting the average house costs $2,398. That is a gap of roughly $865 a month. At the 6.43% rate that opened the quarter on July 2, the same house would cost about $3,000 a month, a gap of about $605. In other words, the rate move alone added roughly $260 a month to the cost of owning in a single quarter, more than wiping out the 6% drop in home prices over the past year. Redmond’s gap is still the narrowest in Central Oregon: on the same math, owning costs about $1,600 a month more than renting in Bend and about $1,900 more in Sisters. That makes Redmond the market where a drop in rates would pull tenants into ownership first.

For landlords, this cuts both ways. Fewer tenants will leave to buy, which supports retention and longer tenancies. But higher rates do not give renters any more income, so they keep tenants in place without making them able to pay more. The same rates also squeeze your own refinancing and purchase math.

The Backdrop

New homes are mostly for sale, not for rent. Single-family permits across the Bend metro area rose 17% in the 12 months through August, to 1,600, and much of that growth is happening in Redmond. Permits inside the Bend area itself fell about 13% over the same period, while the Beacon Report counted 85 new single-family permits in Redmond in the third quarter, compared with 31 a year earlier. Most of those homes are headed to buyers. The 445-unit Northpoint Vista neighborhood in northeast Redmond broke ground this summer on its first 30 affordable for-sale homes, with completion expected in 2027 and market-rate builders to follow. Projects like this give some renters a path to ownership over the next few years rather than adding rental supply today. Any rental house built from here on is exempt from Oregon’s rent cap for its first 15 years.

The rent cap is not the constraint. Oregon’s cap on annual increases for 2027 is 10%, up from 9.5% this year. With asking rents below last year’s level, the cap is not what limits Redmond renewals. Tenant budgets are.

Insurance protection does not cover Redmond. Oregon’s emergency pause on insurance cancellations and non-renewals was extended a second time, to October 29, but Redmond’s 97756 ZIP code has not been on the state’s list of covered areas. Parts of Bend and Sisters were covered; Redmond owners face normal renewal underwriting, so shop your policy well before it renews.

Redmond Rental Market Q3 2026 in Review

Across the third quarter, Redmond house asking rents averaged $2,429 (July $2,390, August $2,499, September $2,398). That is flat against the second quarter’s $2,432 and 7.0% below the third quarter of 2025, when the average ran $2,612. The usual summer lift never really showed up this year. Rents stayed inside a roughly $110 range all quarter, while last year’s summer pushed more than $200 higher.

Supply moved more than price. Houses listed rose from 37 at the end of June to 44 in early October, while average days on market for current listings eased from 73 to 61, leaving total marketing time essentially unchanged. Mortgage rates climbed nearly a full point, apartment permits fell sharply, and unemployment edged down. The quarter ended with a market that is balanced on supply but short on pricing power.

Why This Matters

Put it together and Redmond looks like a market that is soft at the top of the asking ladder but steady underneath. The same homes are still renting for a little more than last year, tenants are staying longer because buying costs roughly $860 a month more than renting, and the number of listed houses is small relative to the rental stock. What has changed is pricing power. Renters can absorb modest increases, not big ones, and houses priced above $2,500 face the most competition heading into the slowest leasing months of the year. Last year, the house average fell 7.5% between September and November.

For small landlords and investors, that makes retention the winning move this fall. A tenant who renews at a 3% increase is worth far more than a vacancy you hope to fill at a higher number in December. If you are weighing a purchase, underwrite it at today’s rents and today’s rates, not at last summer’s peak. You can see how the trend has developed in our August Redmond rental market report.

One empty month costs more than a year of raises. At 61 days on market, an average Redmond house gives up about $4,800 in rent before cleaning, repairs, and leasing costs. A 3% renewal increase on the same house adds about $860 a year. The math favors keeping good tenants, every time.