BUYERS & SELLERS

• The 30-year fixed averaged 7.03% this week per Freddie Mac, up from 6.95% last week and 6.30% a year ago. On a $390,000 Grants Pass home with 20% down, principal and interest now runs about $2,082 a month, roughly $151 more than a year ago.
• Grants Pass sold 148 homes in August per Redfin, up from 139 a year earlier. Homes sold in about 38 days on average, with two offers apiece.
• The median sale price rose 3.9% to $390,000 while the price per square foot fell 5.4% to $245. Buyers are paying more overall and less per foot.

INVESTORS & DEVELOPERS

• Josephine County commissioners approved Rose Butte LLC’s rezoning from Farm Resource to Rural Residential (RR5). That farm ground can now be divided into rural homesites of five acres or more.
• A judge added $600,000 in attorney fees to the $7 million a jury awarded Talent View Investments against the City of Talent. The city never applied for the Belmont Road rail crossing upgrade the developer’s 49-home, 26-acre subdivision needed, and the appeal could run five years.
• In Ashland, a half-acre former SOU parking lot on South Mountain Avenue is slated for up to four ADUs and 10 garage spaces. Neighbors have appealed the driveway variance, so construction waits on that ruling.

TALK OF THE TOWN

• Oregon DEQ is drafting rules to make 46.6 miles of the Wild and Scenic Illinois River and all of Rough and Ready Creek Outstanding Resource Waters, the state’s top water-quality protection. New permits there, including a proposed nickel strip mine, would have to hold water quality at today’s level.
• Josephine County tax statements, which show each property’s assessed market value, arrive by October 25. An owner who disputes that value can appeal to the Property Value Appeals Board through December 31.
• A couple who paid $290,000 for a 2.5-acre cabin near Wimer found meth and fentanyl residue hundreds of times over the safety threshold, and their lawsuit puts damages above $435,000. Oregon law bars selling a known drug manufacturing site without notice, and a residue test before closing catches what a standard inspection misses.

Questions about what any of this means for your situation? Get in touch.