First-time homebuyers find a tough housing market in Springfield and Eugene

Dakota Haugen, 30, has a lot going on under her roof.  

She and her partner, also 30, rent a two-bedroom house in Eugene that they live in with their son, 4, and daughter, 9 months. Haugen works from home as an administrator for a telehealth platform. During the day, she uses her son’s bedroom as an office while he goes to preschool.

The family recently looked at a bigger house to buy in Eugene — listed at $429,000. It was near her partner’s parents in South Eugene; it had three bedrooms and a separate office space in the garage.   

But when they started crunching the numbers on the monthly payment, it came out to be “substantially higher,” Haugen said, than what they’re paying in rent. 

So they put their house search on hold. 

“We’ve sort of given up for the time being, just because financially it’s not really feasible,” Haugen said. “Considering the mortgage rates and how much we need to have down and all of those things, it’s not really a possibility with a family and the rising cost of everything else.” 

High cost of entry

Haugen’s tale is a common one. Renters who are trying to buy a home face high prices, high interest rates, and high insurance costs. Those factors make it really difficult for first-time homebuyers — defined as those who haven’t owned in the past three years — to get in. 

While mortgage rates have ticked slightly lower from highs at the beginning of the year — from 7.04% in January to 6.62% in April, according to Freddie Mac data — house prices remain the biggest barrier to entry. 

For a $429,000 house, a buyer would have to have $85,800 in order to put 20 percent down. The monthly payment — including $400 for taxes, $100 for homeowners insurance, and using 6.625% for a 30-year mortgage — would total about $2,700.

For buyers who put only 5% down, the monthly payment would be roughly $3,200. 

According to Regional Multiple Listing Service (RMLS) data, through the first three months of 2025, the average sale price for homes in Lane County was $470,500. 

“There’s a whole generation of first-time home buyers priced out of the market,” said Tony Losco, principal managing broker for the Re/Max real estate office in Eugene. “We need a way to get them back to buying.” 

The next stage of life

Homes ranging from $300,000 to $500,000 were the most active segment of the market in March, with 156 residential properties sold in Lane County, according to the RMLS. 

Move-up buyers, those who sell their houses and buy the next one, are benefiting from high home prices, because they discover they’ve built a lot of equity. 

“If you currently own a home, you’re going to get probably the most money for that home that it’s ever been worth,” said Dick Martin, a loan officer with Mortgage Express in Eugene. “In some cases, that kind of helps you move to the next home, right?”

That doesn’t help people like Haugen. 

In her peer group, many are facing similar circumstances. Of her 10 closest friends, she said, only one owns a home. Three are actively looking (and two of those are a couple). The other six continue to rent. 

“It’s on everyone’s mind,” she said. “We want to own our home, move onto the next stage [of life].” 

Joe Liebersbach, 28, and his wife, Caitlin, are in a similar situation. They have a daughter, who is two and a half, and they rent a two-bed, two-bathroom house in Springfield. 

They’ve been looking for houses for the past three years, and so far, they haven’t been able to find anything that wouldn’t result in a “scary financial arrangement” with a monthly mortgage payment, Liebersbach said. 

He is keeping an eye out for a multiunit dwelling.

“Maybe another couple friend of ours would be willing to buy half a duplex,” he said. Liebersbach has a Zillow alert set up to notify him when a multiunit homes hit the market in his price range. 

The busy season awaits

Even as interest rates fall slightly, it’s not enough to make a significant dent in projected high monthly payments for first-time buyers. 

“I don’t think interest rates alone are what drive people to shop,” Martin said. “[People] might hear that interest rates are dropping and that might spark interest, but what needs to happen is house prices need to drop. That’s the big issue right now.”

Traditionally, April through August are peak months for home listings and sales. As flowers start to come out of the ground, “for sale” signs bloom alongside them, Losco said. 

Lane County home sales were strong in 2021 and 2022, before activity dropped in 2023 and 2024. Recent economic uncertainty hasn’t helped. 

Losco doesn’t anticipate much improvement in 2025, in part because of the disappearance of entry-level buyers, people on the first rung of the real estate ladder in Eugene and Springfield. 

“It’s so expensive to enter the market,” Losco said. “The whole renter to first-time home buyer market is almost completely gone.”