Bend · Redmond · Sisters · Sunriver · La Pine · The Acreage In Between
Move Me To Bend
For the people watching Bend from three states away, the ones looking for a few acres and a pond outside of town, the ones running the numbers on a Sunriver rental, and the ones who already live here and are ready for the next place. In town or out of it, I know this ground.
The agent who actually lives it
You're not buying a house.
You're buying a commute, a Saturday morning, and everything past the fence line.
Two properties can look identical on paper and live completely differently. In town, one is a four-minute walk to the Deschutes River Trail and the other is a left turn onto Reed Market at 5pm. Out of town, one has irrigation water and a county-maintained road, and the other has neither. That gap is the whole job — and it's a different gap depending on which side of the city limits you're shopping.
What I'm known for
Five Kinds of Moves
Most of my clients arrive with one of these five questions. Each one has its own playbook.
Relocating Here
Buying a home in a town you've visited twice. Neighborhood matchmaking, video tours, and an honest read on what Bend is like in February.
Buyer PlaybookRental & Investment
Where short-term rentals are actually permitted, what the separation rule does to a given block, and which properties pencil out once you subtract management.
Where STRs WorkNew Construction
Builder contracts read nothing like a resale offer. I sit on your side of the table for lot selection, upgrade decisions, and walkthroughs.
New Build AreasSmall Acreage
Hobby farms, a pond, pasture for two horses, views you don't have to share. Water rights, well and septic, zoning and what you can actually build — the questions that decide whether the place works.
Buying AcreageTrail-Door Living
Walkable, bikeable, trail-adjacent. If you want to leave the car parked all weekend, there are specific streets for that — and I know which ones.
Neighborhood GuidesMeet your agent
Allison Rayburn
I run Allison Rayburn Real Estate LLC under eXp Realty, and I work the whole Central Oregon map — Bend, Redmond, Sisters, Sunriver, La Pine, and the acreage in between.
My clients tend to be people making a big geographic bet: leaving a city for a smaller one, turning a vacation habit into an address, or finally buying the place with room for the dog and the skis. That kind of move deserves more than a lockbox code and a thumbs up. It deserves someone who will tell you the back yard is too small before the inspector does.
A good share of my work is small acreage just outside of town — hobby farms, a pond, real space between you and the neighbors, and views you don't have to share. Those properties come with their own set of questions: water and irrigation rights, well and septic, zoning and what you're actually allowed to build or keep, road maintenance, and how far out is too far out for the life you want. I know what to ask before you fall in love with a fence line.
I write my own listing copy, shoot my own neighborhood content, and answer my own phone. If you've seen a reel of someone biking from a listing down to the river trail to prove how close it really is — that was me.
More About MeStart Your Property Search
Browse HomesCurrently on market
Featured Listing
19976 Heron Loop, Bend
A front yard built for actual use — big, grassed, with a covered porch and patio that turn into the neighborhood's gathering spot by June. This is a street where kids ride out front and the adults end up in camp chairs at the curb.
Deschutes River Trail access is close enough to bike to, which I'd rather show you than describe.
In their words
Client Stories
Allison truly went above and beyond in the selling of my home. She was able to negotiate a deal over asking with my home being on the market for only 6 hours!
Carson · SellerAllison had our paperwork prepared within hours to help ensure we didn't miss our chances in this competitive market.
Stephanie · BuyerShe was patient, kind, and clearly cared about finding me the right home. She was also extremely fast to respond to all the questions I had.
The Hohmans · BuyersFree, no obligation
What's Your Property Worth?
Not an automated guess pulled from a national database that has never seen your kitchen. A real read on your home using Central Oregon comps, current absorption rate, and what's actually moving on your street.
Get My Home ValueMy Local Favorites List
Where I Send PeopleAllison Rayburn
Your Move. Your Central Oregon.
In a neighborhood or on ten acres — expert guidance at every stage. Reading comps, writing an offer that competes without overpaying, and getting through contracts, inspections and negotiations with someone in your corner who says the hard part out loud.
Let's ConnectAbout Allison
Bend local since 1998
I'd Rather Tell You The Truth Than Tell You Yes
I'm Allison Rayburn — a licensed real estate broker in Oregon, a local here since 1998, and your guide to all things community and life in Bend.
I own Allison Rayburn Real Estate LLC and work the whole Central Oregon map: Bend, Redmond, Sisters, Sunriver, La Pine and the high desert in between. A little about the rest of it — I'm mom to a spunky daughter and bonus mom to twin boys, and you can usually find us hiking with the dog, rafting, biking, or camping at the lakes.
Helping newcomers find the right fit here is my bread and butter. The version of this job I'm interested in isn't the one where an agent unlocks doors and waits for you to feel something. It's the one where somebody has read the CC&Rs, knows which HOA has an issue with RV parking, has already checked whether a short-term rental permit is even possible at that address, and will say out loud that the back yard is too small before your inspector puts it in writing.
You also get my local, trusted vendor list — movers, electricians, landscapers, the works. Consider it handled.
How I work
Three Things You Can Count On
Numbers, Explained
I pull market data straight from the MLS — absorption rate, median price, days on market — and then translate it into plain English. You should be able to repeat back why we're pricing where we're pricing.
Street-Level Detail
Trail access, school boundaries, which streets get the smoke in August, where the new subdivision is about to go in behind the tree line. This is what a local agent is for.
You Reach Me
One agent, one phone number, no call center. If you text me about a listing at 8pm on a Thursday, it's me reading it.
Off the clock
Why Here
I sell Central Oregon because I chose it on purpose, and I'd make the same call again.
The version of this place I'd sell you on isn't the brochure. It's Cascade Lakes Highway opening in the spring, the smell of juniper after rain, the fact that you can leave work and be on a trailhead in fifteen minutes. It's also — and I'll say this part too — wildfire smoke some Augusts, a housing market that has priced out people who grew up here, and February being long. You should hear both halves from your agent.
See The Neighborhoods
Explore GuidesNeighborhoods
Areas of expertise
From Charming And Established To Brand New
There's something here for everyone — walkable in-town blocks, brand new subdivisions, and small acreage ten minutes past the last stoplight. They're genuinely different from one another in price, in pace, and in what you're signing up to maintain. A local since 1998, I can tell you which ones fit how you actually want to live.
Neighborhood finder
If You're Looking For Something Specific
Pick what matters most to you and I'll tell you where to look first.
Your guide to local neighborhoods
Bend At A Glance
Median prices from my 2026 relocation guide — a starting point, not a quote. The market moves, so ask me for today's number on any of these.
Beyond the city limits
The Rest Of Central Oregon
Five towns that behave like five markets. A $700k house in Sisters and a $700k house in southeast Bend are not the same purchase.
Room to spread out
Where The Acreage Is
If the plan involves a barn, a pond, a garden that feeds you, or just not seeing your neighbors, these are the areas I'd point you at first — most of them ten to twenty-five minutes from town.
Closest To Bend
- Tumalo — small farms, irrigated pasture, horses, dark skies
- Northeast Bend edges — larger parcels just past the city limit
- East Bend — space and big views, drier ground
South & Riverside
- Deschutes River Woods — trees, lakes and mountains close by
- Three Rivers & Sunriver area — mature forest, river access
- La Pine — where acreage gets genuinely affordable
North County
- Northeast & northwest Redmond — more land per dollar
- Sisters area — pasture with the Three Sisters over it
- Ask me about a specific parcel anywhere in the county
Bend, by the numbers
Get To Know Bend
Nicknamed the Outdoor Playground of the West, and it earns it — you can ski, bike, hike and paddle in the same day. Oregon's first urban whitewater park is in the middle of town. Dozens of parks, playgrounds and weekly farmers markets. Top-rated public and private schools, a local airport, a craft beer scene that got famous and a food scene catching up to it. The last Blockbuster on earth is here, and locals genuinely still rent from it.
Also worth knowing: the whole city sits on ancient lava flows you can walk through.
Read this before you make an offer
Short-Term Rentals, Honestly
The most expensive assumption I see buyers make is that a house can be a vacation rental because it would be a great vacation rental.
Permitted Is Not The Same As Possible
Within Bend city limits, a short-term rental in most residential zones needs a land use permit, and permitted rentals have to keep a minimum separation from each other. One approved permit on a block can close the door for the house next door. This gets checked before you write an offer, not after.
Some Areas Are Built For It
Resort and destination-resort areas — Sunriver and Three Rivers among them — were designed with nightly rental in mind, which is a very different starting point from a Bend residential street. HOA rules still govern on top of city and county rules.
Run The Real Numbers
Gross nightly revenue is not income. Management, cleaning, linens, lodging taxes, higher insurance, furnishing, and the weeks you actually want to use it yourself all come out first. I'll build the version of the spreadsheet with the uncomfortable rows in it.
Rules change, and they change by jurisdiction. Nothing here is a guarantee of permit eligibility — always verify current requirements with the City of Bend, Deschutes County, or the applicable HOA for a specific address.
For families
Schools In Bend
Bend is lucky to have some genuinely good schools. If you want to talk to a parent with first-hand experience at one of them, ask me — I can usually connect you to someone with kids there.
Not Sure Which One Is You?
Ask MeFor Buyers
In town or out of it
Buying A Home In A Town You've Visited Twice
Roughly half my buyers are somewhere else when we start, and plenty of them are looking past the city limits for room to spread out. Both are solvable — they just take a different process than driving around on a Saturday until something feels right.
Schedule A Call
We start on the phone, not in a car. I'll answer whatever you want to know about Bend — neighborhoods, schools, what February is actually like — and we'll talk through your goals, your budget and your timeline. This is the conversation that eliminates entire neighborhoods and saves you a wasted trip.
Take A Tour
The fun part. We see homes that match your criteria on neighborhood, price and timing, and if we find a winner we write an offer. Not local yet? I do this virtually too — I walk the house on video and narrate what the listing photos hide: the road noise, the slope of the lot, how dark the north-facing rooms get at four in the afternoon in November.
Prepare To Move
Gather quotes for storage, movers and flights. If the move is work-related, ask your employer about reimbursement before you book anything — people leave real money on the table here. My vendor list is yours.
Under Contract
About a thirty-day window where inspection, appraisal and repair negotiation all happen. We can coordinate closing remotely or in person. You'll know what's due, who owes it, and what happens if something slips.
Close And Make The Move
Plan any renovations for after closing and before your things arrive from the movers — that gap is the easiest transition you'll get. Then you live here.
Working as your trusted advisor, I'll do everything I can to make this smooth — and you'll have easy access to my local, trusted vendors for anything you need. Movers, electricians, landscapers and more. Consider it handled.
Out of town a little
Buying Small Acreage
A hobby farm is not a house with a bigger yard. The land carries its own paperwork, and most of what decides whether a property works has nothing to do with the house.
Water & Irrigation
Whether the property carries irrigation water rights, how many acres they cover, which district serves it, and whether they've been kept in use. Water is the difference between green pasture and a very expensive hayfield you have to buy hay for.
Well & Septic
Well log, depth, flow rate and what the water tests like. Septic permit records and the bedroom count the system is actually approved for. New groundwater is limited in parts of the Deschutes Basin, so an existing well matters more than people expect.
Zoning & What You Can Build
EFU, MUA-10 and RR-10 are not interchangeable. They govern a second dwelling, a shop, an ADU, livestock, and whether you can run a business from the property. Farm tax deferral also has consequences if you stop farming it.
Access & Easements
County-maintained or private? If it's private, who plows it, who grades it, and is there a written maintenance agreement or just a handshake? Shared driveways and utility easements are worth reading before closing, not after.
Fire & Insurance
Rural addresses are getting harder and pricier to insure. Get a quote early, not during your inspection period — defensible space, roof type and response distance all move the number, and occasionally they decide the deal.
Living The Plan
Fencing and cross-fencing for the animals you actually intend to keep, winter water, where the hay goes, power to the outbuildings, internet service if you work from home, and an honest conversation about how far out is too far out come February.
Rural rules are property-specific and they change. Nothing here is a determination about a given parcel — water rights, zoning, septic capacity and buildability all need to be verified with Deschutes County, the applicable irrigation district and the Oregon Water Resources Department before you rely on them.
A different animal
Buying New Construction
A builder's purchase agreement is written by the builder's attorney, and the friendly person in the design center works for the builder. Having your own broker costs you nothing in most cases and changes the shape of the deal.
Where it matters most: lot selection before it's a lottery, which upgrades hold value versus which ones you'll regret at resale, what the completion timeline realistically means, how the earnest money and change orders are handled, and a walkthrough punch list that's actually enforced.
Talk New BuildsGet started
Tell Me What You're Looking For
The more specific you are, the more useful my first reply is.
For Sellers
Listing with me
Priced Right, Shot Well, Marketed Like Someone Cares
A listing gets one real launch. The first ten days set the tone for everything after, so the work happens before the sign goes in the yard — not in a price reduction six weeks later. In town or on acreage, the prep is the same idea with different homework.
The Pricing Conversation
I bring real comps, current absorption rate and days-on-market for your specific area, and a recommended range with the reasoning attached. If your number and my number are different, I'd rather have that conversation in your kitchen than discover it in the market's silence.
Find The Angle
Every property has a lead. Sometimes it's the kitchen. Sometimes the yard is small and the front porch is the real story, and the honest move is to lead with the porch and the street full of kids. On acreage the lead is usually the land — the water rights, the outbuildings, the views, what you can actually run on it — and that has to be spelled out for buyers who don't know to ask. Buyer feedback gets folded back into the marketing while the listing is still live.
Prep, Then Photograph
A punch list with a timeline: what's worth fixing, what to pack away, what to skip because it won't return the money. Then professional photography, and video that shows what still photos can't — the walk to the trail, the view from the porch, the actual light.
Copy Written For Search And For Humans
I write the MLS description myself, with the terms buyers actually type and the details that make someone book a showing. It syndicates everywhere, so it's worth getting right the first time.
Launch Week
Coming Soon used deliberately and within MLS rules, then a coordinated launch: portals, social, my local network, and agent-to-agent outreach to the people actively working buyers in your price band.
Weekly Reporting, Not Radio Silence
Views, showings, and verbatim feedback every week, with a recommendation attached. You'll always know whether we're waiting on the market or making a change.
Before you call anyone
Three Questions Worth Answering First
Where are you going?
Selling and buying in the same market means the timing strategy matters more than the list price. We plan both sides at once.
What's your real deadline?
A job start date, a school year, a construction completion — the deadline shapes the pricing strategy, not the other way around.
What won't you do?
If you're not painting the cabinets or moving out for staging, tell me now. I'd rather build the plan around the truth.
Thinking About Listing?
Book A Listing ConsultHome Valuation
No cost, no obligation
What's Your Home Actually Worth?
The big portals estimate your home with an algorithm that has never been inside it. It doesn't know you redid the kitchen, and it doesn't know the comp down the street had a highway behind it.
Send me the address and I'll put together a real valuation: recent comparable sales in your immediate area, current absorption rate and days on market, what's active against you right now, and a recommended price range with the reasoning written out in plain English. If the honest answer is "wait six months," I'll tell you that too.
Usually back to you within one business day.
What goes into it
How I Price A Home
Closed Comps
Recent sales that a buyer would genuinely weigh against yours — same area, similar age, similar lot — not just anything nearby with the same square footage.
Market Conditions
Absorption rate, median price movement and days on market for your specific submarket, because Bend, Redmond and Sisters are not on the same clock.
What's Specific To You
Views, trail access, HOA, permitted short-term rental status, acreage, water rights, the remodel no algorithm knows about.
Let's Connect
Real questions get real answers
Start Here
Whether you're twelve months out or you saw something this morning that you want to see tomorrow — tell me where you are and I'll tell you what I'd do next.
Prefer To Just Call?
541.815.3681Local Favorites
A local since 1998
Where I Actually Send People
Not a sponsored list. These are the places I take clients, out-of-town family, and my own kids — the short version of the guide I send everyone who is thinking about moving here.
Why people love it here
A Few Things I Love About It Here
Parks and greenspaces galore. A small-town feel that has somehow survived. Family and dog friendly everything. Die-hard outdoor enthusiasts in every direction. A thriving music and arts community, and local business owners in every niche you can think of.
Ask Me Anything About BendSetup Notes
For you, not for clients. Everything left to do before this goes live.
Swap The Photos
Every image slot is a labeled placeholder that says what belongs there — look for the small tag in the top-left corner of each one. In the HTML, each is a div with class="ph". Replace it with <img src="your-photo.jpg" alt="..."> and delete the ph-tag span. Hero images want wide landscape; portrait and neighborhood tiles want vertical or square.
Replace The Placeholder Content
Two places have dashed orange markers: the featured listing facts (beds, baths, sq ft, price) and the three testimonial slots. Real reviews from Google or Zillow only — invented client quotes are both a fair-housing and an advertising problem.
Wire Up The Forms
All four forms currently confirm on screen and go nowhere. To make them live, point them at your host's form handler or straight into BoldTrail / Funnel Pilot so leads land in your follow-up sequence instead of an inbox. Until then, the phone and email links on the contact page do work.
Add IDX / Home Search
A real "Browse Homes" experience needs an IDX feed approved through MLSCO/COAR. Those buttons currently route to the contact page — repoint them once your IDX provider gives you an embed or a hosted search URL.
Fill In The Brokerage Disclosures
The footer has the Equal Housing Opportunity and licensing lines in place, but confirm the exact brokerage identification wording eXp requires for Oregon advertising, plus your license number, before publishing.
Point A Domain At It
The nav uses hash routing (#/about), so the whole site is one file that can be hosted anywhere — including a plain static host. movemetobend.com would match the Instagram handle nicely if it's available.