Side-by-side metrics and state or size-class ranks use the same Census and FBI fields shown on this profile. Results stay in the URL so you can bookmark or share them.
Place dossier plate
SheetOR-BEND-OR · Bend, OR 101,472 pop · income 70th pct · 45 tracts
Instrument codes from this place’s ACS population and household income, BEA state COL, FBI safety, national income percentile, photo-finish peer city, home-value band, and matched Census-tract book - not a moving recommendation.
Income neighbourhood around Bend
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Bend on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Corvallis · lowest
63,807
Corvallis · lowest
63,807 median HH income
40.9% of the leader · rank #1
Herculaneum · near
88,778
Herculaneum · near
88,778 median HH income
57.0% of the leader · rank #2
Manchester Ce… · near
88,786
Manchester Ce… · near
88,786 median HH income
57.0% of the leader · rank #3
Bend · this city
88,792
Bend · this city
88,792 median HH income
57.0% of the leader · rank #4
Oak Hills · near
88,807
Oak Hills · near
88,807 median HH income
57.0% of the leader · rank #5
Kitty Hawk · near
88,811
Kitty Hawk · near
88,811 median HH income
57.0% of the leader · rank #6
Highlands Ran… · highest
155,847
Highlands Ran… · highest
155,847 median HH income
100.0% of the leader · rank #7
What this shows Neighbourhood peers only - not a full nationwide city board. Open a near peer when the gap is small; open the poles when the spread is wide.
Compare beyond this state
Nationwide peers by population, income, and FBI crime rate
Out-of-state nearest neighbors for Bend on ACS population and median household income
, plus FBI UCR reporting rate when the extract covers this place. Link sets are deduped so each column is a distinct comparison path, not a forecast that peers share a labor market or climate.
Similar population
Nearest out-of-state cities by ACS population. This city: 101,472.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Bend - the verdict
Out of every US city with 1,000+ residents, Bend places in the 70th percentile for household income and the 45th percentile for safety. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
70th
percentile, household income
91st
percentile, home value
66th
percentile, median rent
45th
percentile, safety
📝 How we sourced this
Population, income, and housing-cost figures come from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey 5-year estimates (B-series tables). Crime data uses FBI UCR; climate uses NOAA Climate Normals; school counts come from NCES Common Core of Data; permits use the Census Building Permits Survey (BPS). See our methodology page for the full ETL pipeline and OMB / FIPS join keys.
Data Snapshot: Bend, OR
101,472 people live in Bend, Oregon - a mid-sized U.S. city by U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2023 estimates. The typical household in Bend brings in $88,792 a year, above the median for U.S. cities on this measure, with a poverty rate of 5.7%. Home values in Bend run a median of $646,800, and the median resident age is 40.3 years. Educational attainment runs 51.1% of adults with a bachelor's degree or higher. Separately, 65.3% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
The Census Building Permit Survey recorded 645 residential units authorized here in 2024 (Slowing), down 15% from five years earlier. Bend reports a comparatively low crime rate: the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting program logs 1530.5 total incidents per 100,000 residents here, below the national average (agency reporting is voluntary, so this measures reporting activity, not a definitive danger score). NOAA puts Bend's yearly average temperature at 47.6°F with 10.6 inches of precipitation per year and 21.6 inches of snowfall.
Oregon carries a cost-of-living premium: BEA Regional Price Parities 2024 puts Oregon at 103.4 on a 100-equals-national-average scale (Above Average). Statewide, HUD pegs Fair Market Rent for a two-bedroom unit at $1,425 monthly. EIA 2023 residential energy data puts Oregon's average monthly utility costs around $185 (state average). On FEMA's National Risk Index, this area rates 63.4 out of 100 for natural-hazard exposure (Moderate).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Bend's data
How this reading path is ordered
This is not a composite city score. It is a city-specific route through the available public records, ordered for this profile so the page starts with questions the joined data can actually answer. The route here runs from schools and households to population change to housing and income to work and mobility to within-city variation to comparison shortlist to reported crime to climate and hazard context; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Bend, city-specific coverage includes annual population history, within-city Census tract profiles, commute-mode shares, FBI reported-crime rates, matched public-school count, local building permits.
All six city-specific enrichment layers used by this profile are present.
1. Schools and households
What does the education layer cover for Bend?
The city has a broader matched school footprint, but count alone does not describe performance, capacity, program availability, or attendance boundaries. This profile deliberately avoids converting it into an unsupported family-friendliness score.
The NCES join finds 31 public schools within the city match. 51.1% of adults age 25+ hold a bachelor's degree or higher in the ACS estimate. These measures answer different questions: the school count describes local institutions, while adult attainment describes residents and cannot be used as a school-quality rating.
Census PEP estimates show the population grew by +7,652 residents from 2020 to 2025, a +7.7% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 645 housing units authorized in 2024. PEP and ACS are different Census series, so the trend is kept separate from the headline ACS population.
Recent estimates point upward. Growth can increase housing demand and service needs, but the permit record must move in the same direction before calling it a supply response; the two series measure different things.
PlainCities matches 45 Census tracts to this city.
That layer breaks the citywide income, rent, and home-value medians into smaller Census geographies, which can reveal differences that one municipal median necessarily hides. A tract is a statistical area, not a locally defined neighborhood or a promise about conditions on a particular block. Start with the city profile for the broad comparison, then use the tract layer to test whether the same housing and income pattern is consistent across the city. Large within-city spreads are a reason to avoid treating any citywide median as a universal resident experience.
Which cities make useful reference points for Bend?
Use the in-state set to hold state policy and broad price conditions more nearly constant. Use the nationwide size set to ask whether cities with a similar resident count produce different housing, income, or commute outcomes. The income set is a third lens, deliberately separate from population matching. The nationwide peer panel below adds a fourth FBI UCR reporting-rate lens, not personal risk.
Within Oregon, the closest population matches are Beaverton (97,502 residents, $94,279 income); Hillsboro (107,050 residents, $103,207 income); Gresham (112,818 residents, $73,608 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Highlands Ranch, CO (101,437 residents); Quincy, MA (101,361 residents); Davenport, IA (101,083 residents). A third, income-matched reference set of 6 out-of-state cities sits in the income neighbourhood chart near the Place Dossier plate. These are mechanical peer sets, not claims that the places share a labor market, climate, culture, or metro context.
These joined records add useful context, but they do not need another full-size panel. Each remains a separate measure with its own geography and source boundary.
Housing and income
How far does income reach against housing in Bend?
This is a citywide price-to-income reference, not a mortgage-affordability test; it does not include interest rates, taxes, insurance, household size, or an individual buyer's down payment. Housing value is high relative to the citywide income median. That flags a question for comparison, not a verdict: tenure, household composition, financing costs, and the age of the ACS estimate can all change what a resident actually pays.
The home-value-to-income reference is comparatively stretched: the ACS median home value is 7.3 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 5.7%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
Value / income
7.3×
Home value
$646,800
Household income
$88,792
City-level Census ACS 2023 medians. The ratio divides two separate medians and is descriptive only.
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 63.8%. A reliable mean commute time is not available for this row, so the mode shares carry the comparison.
Mode share answers how workers usually travel; it does not measure congestion, reliability, distance to a particular job, or the quality of transit service. Remote work has a visible role in the local pattern. That can reduce commute exposure for some workers, but it says nothing about job availability or broadband quality; read it alongside income and housing rather than as a stand-alone lifestyle score.
Drive alone
63.8%
Work from home
22.4%
Public transit
0.2%
City-level Census ACS commuting estimates covering 53,363 workers age 16+.
The joined FBI UCR record reports 1530.5 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, below the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 33% lower in arithmetic terms, but agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies.
Treat this as a reporting-rate comparison, not a prediction of personal risk or a neighborhood-level safety grade. Tourism, daytime population, reporting practices, and variation inside the city are not adjusted away. The state rank and same-state peer table are the narrower comparisons available on this page.
Total reported rate
1530.5
Violent rate
168.5
Property rate
1362.0
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, incidents per 100,000. Voluntary agency reporting; not a danger score.
The two sources should not be blended into one comfort or safety score. Use the climate values for baseline conditions and the risk index as a prompt to inspect specific hazards, insurance, and local emergency guidance for a particular address.
NOAA normals put the annual mean temperature at 47.6°F, with 10.6 inches of precipitation and 21.6 inches of annual snowfall. FEMA's state-averaged National Risk Index score for Oregon is 63.4 out of 100. Climate normals describe long-run weather; the FEMA score on PlainCities is a state average of county NRI inputs and combines hazards, exposure, vulnerability, and resilience.
FEMA risk index (state avg)
63.4
Annual precipitation
10.6 in
Mean temperature
47.6°F
NOAA Climate Normals and FEMA National Risk Index (state-averaged on PlainCities). Hazard context is not address-level.
Above median income · poverty 5.7% (Below-median poverty)
Cost of Living Index (state)
103.4 (US=100)
Above-average cost · BEA RPP 2024, Oregon average
C
City profile score · Bend, OR
58/100
5 published dimensions · ACS/FBI 2023
Comparative score against U.S. cities with population of 1,000 or more on Census ACS medians
(income, poverty, bachelor's share, cost of living) and FBI UCR violent-crime rates when
published. Higher means a stronger standing on those published figures, not a livability
rating, not a recommendation to move, buy, or pick a "best" city. Missing inputs drop out
and redistribute weight.
How it is calculated.
Bachelor's+ share A
51.1%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Household income B-
$88,792
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Poverty rate C+
5.7%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Violent crime C-
169 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Cost of living F
103.4 index
BEA state Regional Price Parities index (100 ≈ national average); lower is stronger on this axis. Same value for every city in the state.
Bend profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Bachelor's+ share: 85/100 (A) · 51.1%
Household income: 68/100 (B-) · $88,792
Poverty rate: 61/100 (C+) · 5.7%
Violent crime: 54/100 (C-) · 169 /100k
Cost of living: 25/100 (F) · 103.4 index
Where Bend sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Bend's median home value and FBI crime rate plotted with similar-size and
same-state peers (padded with large cities when the peer set is thin). The second
read: pricey does not always mean safer, check which quadrant this city lands in.
Census ACS median home value vs FBI UCR crime rate - Bend highlighted among 12 peers.Read the chart values
Bend, OR (this city): home $646,800, crime 1,531/100k
Quincy, MA : home $598,100, crime 1,668/100k
Davenport, IA : home $162,900, crime 4,122/100k
Fishers, IN : home $370,200, crime 732/100k
Chico, CA : home $455,300, crime 2,597/100k
Lynn, MA : home $472,600, crime 1,745/100k
Beaverton, OR : home $543,100, crime 3,026/100k
Hillsboro, OR : home $483,400, crime 2,747/100k
Gresham, OR : home $440,000, crime 2,837/100k
Medford, OR : home $387,000, crime 4,324/100k
Springfield, OR : home $323,800, crime 3,097/100k
Corvallis, OR : home $480,600, crime 2,695/100k
How does Bend compare to other US cities?
Bend measured against every US city with 1,000+ residents, computed live from the same Census and FBI data shown throughout this page.
Household income70% higher than other cities
Home value91% pricier than other cities
Median rent66% pricier than other cities
Safety45% safer than other cities
"Safer than" reflects total crime rate from FBI UCR; the others use Census ACS estimates.
National percentiles can mask local variation. Looking only at Oregon, Bend ranks #29 of 85 Oregon cities by lowest crime rate - a narrower, more locally useful cut than the national comparison above.
How we calculate these percentiles & ranks
Each percentile compares Bend against every qualifying US city; each in-state rank narrows that to Oregon only. Full formula and direction notes: methodology.
Oregon-relative analysis
Median Gross Rent places Bend near the bottom of Oregon's cities
Among the 395 Oregon cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Bend ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Bend only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#94 of 364
74th percentile in Oregon
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 395
0th percentile in Oregon
Median Home Value
#31 of 366
92nd percentile in Oregon
Poverty Rate
#213 of 395
45th percentile in Oregon
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#37 of 395
90th percentile in Oregon
How in-state ranks are ordered
Ranked by raw value (highest first); a higher rank is not automatically "better" for every measure, see each metric's own context above. This is a comparison within Oregon only, not a livability score. See the methodology for the source and calculation.
Gauge source note
70th percentile nationally for median household income · 45th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Bend's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Bend's percentile rank on 3 favorable-direction measures (income, affordability, safety) vs. every tracked US city -- higher on every axis is more favorable. Not a composite quality score, just the arithmetic mean of the axes shown.
How Bend's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$646,8009th percentilemore affordable than 9% of 15,600 US cities
Show national distribution
Each bar is a $25K-wide band; taller bars hold more US cities. The dashed line + filled bar mark this entry. Hover or tap any bar for its full count, share, and where it sits relative to this entry.
Source U.S. Census Bureau ACS 5-Year Estimates · 2023
Bend's home-value-to-income ratio: 7.3×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
pressured
> 5.0×
National rank
#14,811 of 15,516
More affordable than 5% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#664 of 750
Mid-size cities (50,000–199,999)
At 7.3×, Bend sits in the pressured band:
national rank #14,811 of 15,516 and #664 of 750mid-size cities (50,000–199,999).
Housing value is high relative to the citywide income median, a comparison flag, not a verdict on any household.
How this ratio is calculated
Ratio = Census ACS 2023 median home value ÷ median household income for cities with both fields and population ≥ 1,000.
Rank 1 = lowest ratio (most compact). Bands match the fleet affordability thresholds used on guides (<3.0 / 3.0–5.0 / >5.0).
This is not a mortgage payment estimate and does not include rates, taxes, insurance, or down payment.
Income distribution context
$88,792Bend, OR median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Bend, OR median household income (Census ACS 5-year) with U.S. national quintile shares for context. Diagonal = equality; the curve is national, not computed for Bend, OR.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)51.1%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)5.7%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)65.3%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
101,472
Median Income
$88,792
Median Home Value
$646,800
Median Age
40.3
Poverty Rate
5.7%
Labor force participation
65.3%
Bachelor's Degree+
51.1%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
1530.5
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
168.5
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
1362.0
per 100,000 residents
Crime reporting caveat
Reflects incidents reported to the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting program — agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies by jurisdiction and year, so this reflects reporting activity, not a definitive danger score. Not adjusted for tourism, commuter, or daytime population.
Climate
Avg Temperature
47.6°F
Annual Precipitation
10.6"
Annual Snowfall
21.6"
Schools
Total Schools
31
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Bend's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
99,690 residents
2021
102,397 residents
2022
103,172 residents
2023
104,598 residents
2024
106,743 residents
2025
107,342 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
🏗️ Slowing
Total Permits (2024)
645
housing units authorized
Single-Family
513
detached homes
Multifamily
132
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
6.4
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
756
642
114
$150.4M
2020
1,076
652
424
$210.8M
2021
1,457
747
710
$311.2M
2022
1,193
619
574
$260.2M
2023
1,614
619
995
$388.4M
2024
645
513
132
$232.2M
Permit volume decreased 15% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Drive Alone
63.8%
Carpool
7.6%
Public Transit
0.2%
Walk
2.5%
Work from Home
22.4%
Other
3.5%
Based on 53,363 workers 16 and over.
Monthly Utility Costs
Oregon statewide monthly utility average (EIA 2023): $185
EIA 2023 residential energy data puts average monthly utilities across Oregon at $185 (electricity about $85 , water and sewer about $50 ).
These are Oregon statewide averages, not a meter reading for Bend. Actual bills vary by home size, usage, and local rates. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023.
Living Costs & Risk
Oregon's BEA cost-of-living index is 103.4 (Above Average; US average = 100, RPP 2024). HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in the county around Bend is $1,425/mo. FEMA's National Risk Index, averaged to Oregon statewide on PlainCities, rates natural-hazard exposure at 63.4 / 100 (Moderate).
Cost/risk geography note
Cost of living is a Oregon statewide BEA average; rent is a county-level HUD Fair Market Rent for the county Bend sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Bend compares to similar-size Oregon cities
Same-state peer method
Closest same-state population matches, not geographic neighbors. Population + median household income come from Census Bureau ACS 5-year B01001 and B19013.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau ACS 5-Year 2023, FBI UCR, NOAA Climate Normals, NCES CCD, Census BPS 2024, Census ACS B08301/B08136, U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023, BEA Regional Price Parities 2024, HUD Fair Market Rents 2026, FEMA National Risk Index.