Is Mt Bachelor Opening This Weekend?

Bend, Ore) – Though natural snowfall and cold temperatures have been in short supply in the Oregon Cascades, Mt. Bachelor is determined to offer a “snow play” experience to guests during the upcoming holiday weekend. Snow is being trucked into place in both the tubing area and a rail park adjacent to the West Village Base lodge. On Friday and Saturday, Mt. Bachelor will offer a rail park and two tubing lanes to the public from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. Use of the tubing area and rail park will be free for season pass holders, or $5 for those without a season pass. Mt. Bachelor continues to make snow at all opportunities and monitor forecasts in hopes of opening for the season as soon as possible.

In addition to the rail park and tubing lanes, the Mt. Bachelor Ski and Sport Shop will be open offering the latest gear and apparel, a BBQ will be fired up on snow, and the Clearing Rock bar will be open for patrons. The Season Pass Office will be open selling passes and fulfilling passes for guests that have already purchased their passes. Details on services offered this Friday and Saturday, Nov 28 and 29 are available at www.mtbachelor.com.

It’s clear that we’re not going to be able to offer lift serviced skiing and riding this weekend. Rather than simply waiting for more snow, we have been at work moving what snow we have in areas like our parking lots into places where guests can enjoy it. The Ski and Sport shop will be open, we’ll be grilling food, playing music, and enjoying the snow the best we can. It’s not the early season conditions we all hope for, but it’s making lemonade out of lemons, and it should be fun,” said Dave Rathbun, president and general manager.

A number of early season ticket deals are also available at www.mtbachelor.com including specials for college students and a “two day for the price of one” that goes on sale Nov 28.

Bennington partners with Wanderlust

This year, Bennington Properties is partnering with Wanderlust Tours to offer our guests 2 unique outdoor experiences. When staying with us, Bennington guests receive 10% off on a ½ day snowshoeing or caving adventure. Both allow visitors to Central Oregon to experience our beautiful land in new and unique ways and offer an alternative to the traditional winter activities. Our reservation team has already begun promoting these trips to our callers. It’s just one more way to provide our guests a special, memorable vacation – one that inspires them to return again and again.

Recently Wanderlust took our reservation team on a tour of Boyd Cave. Located east of Bend, Boyd measures over 1,800 feet in length and maintains a constant underground temperature of 45 degrees. While in the cave, we were able to see a sleeping bat and an insect that is found no other place on earth. It was a wonderful trip and as a result of this excursion, we are eager to share with our guests the wonders of this fascinating and unique experience.

www.wanderlusttours.com

From left (top to bottom) Jennifer, Chatta, Qwade, Pam, and Rick.

Down into the cave we go.

Chatta peaking out from a short tunnel in the cave.

Article was written by Rick O'Bill (Reservations Manager)
rick@benningtonproperties.com

Mt Bachelor's Snow Report

Monday, November 24th. There are currently 8" of snow on Mt Bachelor and they are reporting favorable snow making conditions. They need at least 1o more inches to open.

For the latest mountain conditions, visit: www.mtbachelor.com/winter/services/dor/conditions.html

Sunriver Real Estate Mid 4th quarter update 2008

The fourth quarter data looks like it will be very close to the 3rd quarter numbers. The average price paid did drop 2% which is not surprising as the buyers continue to get more aggressive in the prices they offer. Hope all of you have a great Thanksgiving. We are all hoping for snow so we can really begin the Ski season and maybe bring in some buyers.

Sunriver Data only
Q4 2008 Sales Data – through 11/21/08

Total transactions: 20
Total $ volume of transactions: $ 10,300,000
Bare Land: 0
Shared ownership: 2
Condos: 3
Homes: 15 Over $1 million: 2
Average percentage of list price: 92.43%


Feel free to you’re your questions to jdw48@mac.com.

John Watkins, broker
Bennington Properties.

Thank you for attending our Owner's BBQ!

For those of you that attended our very first Owners Appreciation BBQ, thank you. We had a lot of fun and it was great to connect with each of you. We definitely felt very fortunate that so many of you attended. Thank you very much for your support. We look forward to making these appreciation BBQ's a regular part of Bennington Properties.

For those of you unable to attend, we missed you and hope that you can make our next BBQ (possibly next September - we will keep you posted). It turned out to be a cold, blustery day but we built a campfire and in spite of the cold it appeared that everyone who came had a lot of fun (the great music, food, beer and wine helped a lot too). Here are some photos from the event.

Our BBQ took place at the Sunriver Owner's Park. This is a fun venue available by reservations for all property owners in Sunriver. If you ever have a wedding, reunion, or BBQ to plan, this is a beautiful location along the Deschutes River (next to the Sunriver Marina).

Our Vacation Planner, Jennifer Stites, turned up the sophistication at our event by playing bartender for all of our wines. If you look closely, she even has a white towel draped over her arm. Great job Jen!

Breck Morgan Catering brought in a big trailer and cooked all of the delicious BBQ meats and veggies right on the spot. Thanks for the great food Breck.

Leon and Diane (8 Coyote) camped so they could come to our BBQ because their home was occupied by renters. Thank you both, we so appreciate your support.

A big thank you to Michael Johns for performing. If you ever get a chance to watch him perform in the Sunriver Village Mall, he is a lot of fun for the whole family.

10 Year Anniversary Party

On Tuesday, November 18th, we celebrated our 10 year anniversary with the Sunriver Community. Hosted by Bennington Properties and the Sunriver Chamber of Commerce, we had a great mix of members of the Sunriver community in attendence. Here is an email we received the day after the event from Dennis Smeage the president and CEO of the Sunriver Chamber of Commerce:

On behalf of the Chamber, I want to thank all of you at Bennington Properties for hosting such a wonderful Chamber After Hours yesterday. The fact that we could help you celebrate your 10th anniversary made it all the more special! I’ve attached a list of attendees, 76 in all. I probably missed a few who didn’t sign in or leave business cards or whose faces I didn’t notice in the crowd.

It was an outstanding get together! Great food and drink, very comfortable atmosphere for networking and socializing, and superb hospitality! I also want you to know how much I appreciated all the work Deb did to make this event a success! (Thanks Deb!)

Here’s to at least another 10 years of Bennington in Sunriver!

Dennis E. Smeage
President & CEO
Sunriver Area Chamber of Commerce
541-593-8149
541-410-0449 cell
dsmeage@sunriverchamber.com
www.sunriverchamber.com

The food was catered by Village Bar and Grill and was an absolute hit with everyone. Thanks Village!!

Bennington Launches Property Reviews

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Earlier this month we launched a Property Review section on our website through a company called "Flipkey." Five days after a guest stays in your property, they will receive a personalized email from our server asking them to review your property on a scale of 1 to 5 stars and to leave comments about their stay. These ratings are then posted on our website by Flipkey. If your property gets a review of 2 stars or less, Flipkey will send us an automatic email notifying us of the poor score. We do not have the option to remove or change a review, but we can put comments directly underneath the review explaining or contesting the comments left by the guest.

This is an exciting new part of our website that we have been dreaming of doing for several years now. As most of you know, uncensored customer reviews have become an important part of online business. Websites like Amazon.com, Hotels.com, and others have been using reviews for years to help customers select the right product or service for their needs. In just 24 hours after we launched this website we had over 350 reviews, an incredible response, demonstrating the importance this feature is to the vacationing public.

The link to access your reviews is located on the calendar page for your property. Please check your reviews often. If you would like us to post any comments in regards to a particular review you have received, please email Robert Bennington at robert@benningtonproperties.com.

- Robert W. Bennington

Click here to view the guest reviews for your property.

Sunriver Real Estate Update for October 2008

I am going to provide monthly sales updates for Sunriver real estate on this blog. This data is for Sunriver only and does not include Caldera Springs or Crosswater. This is an effort to give you more frequent and up-to-date information about what is happening in our marketplace.

Current Month Data

October 2008 Sales Data
Total transactions: 12
Total $ volume of transactions: $6,945,000
Bare Land: 0
Shared ownership: 2
Condos: 1
Homes: 9 Over $1 million 2
Average percentage of list price: 92.49%

October 2007 Sales Data
Total transactions: 19
Total $ volume of transactions: $12,662,000
Bare Land: 1
Shared ownership: 2
Condos: 3
Homes: 13 Over $ 1 million: 5
Average percentage of list price: 96.03%

Previous Quarter Sales Data

Q3 2008 Sales Data
Total transactions: 25
Total $ volume of transactions: $ 12,818,500
Bare Land: 1
Shared ownership: 3
Condos: 4
Homes: 17 Over $1 million: 2
Average percentage of list price: 94.3%

Q3 2007 Sales Data
Total transactions: 61
Total $ volume of transactions: $ 33,948,452
Bare Land: 2
Shared ownership: 4
Condos: 7
Homes: 48 Over $ 1 million: 4
Average percentage of list price: 94.8%

I am sure it is no surprise that Sunriver”s sales numbers are down on a year over year basis, but what is important is that people are still buying and selling homes. The buyer traffic is off about 70% from normal. Many people are still not sure if the market in Sunriver has bottomed or if it could still go lower. Most brokers here feel that prices are not going to go much lower, but are counseling clients that if they want to sell their home in this market it is going to have to be priced aggressively or it will have to be something very special to get the buyer's attention. Sunriver's inventory of homes on the market is down 30% from the summer highs of almost 230 home. We currently have 162 homes on the market, 15 lots and 45 condominiums. We are all hopeful that the government intervention into the housing and banking market will start to have a positive effect by early next year.

I will also be doing updates on real estate issues that effect our local area as they happen, so tune in often. I will also do a number of updates on Caldera Springs. Feel free to send your questions to jdw48@mac.com.

John Watkins, broker
Bennington Properties, LLC.

How are bookings doing?

The homes on our program averaged 35% more booked nights in 2007 than all the other property managed homes in Sunriver. We expect to maintain that margin in 2008. We are estimating that by the end of 2008 homes with Bennington Properties will average about 108 nights per year whereas all other property managed homes in Sunriver will average approximately 79 nights per year.

• Our bookings for December are up by 8% compared to last year and advanced bookings for 2009 are up by 27%.

It is evident that Sunriver has not escaped the results of our nation's poor economy. Bookings are down overall for Thanksgiving this year. Currently 77% of our homes are booked for Thanksgiving.

Compared to our competitors, we are faring quite well. Here are the statisitics (as of November 12th) for Thanksgiving bookings at the five competing vacation rental firms in Sunriver:

Discover Sunriver 47% booked
Mountain Resort 52% booked
Sunray 53% booked
Village Properties 58% booked
Sunset 48% booked

We are hopeful that bookings will continue to roll in. After the election last Tuesday, the number of reservations we are receiving has increased.

What will 2009 bring for bookings?

With the economy in somewhat of a turmoil, it is difficult to predict what 2009 might bring us in bookings. We are optimistic that Sunriver will continue to be perceived as a destination of choice for the vacationing public, that people will continue to vacation during these difficult times, and that Sunriver will fair better than other resort destinations because of our affordability.

- Penny Bennington
penny@benningtonproperties.com