BEND, OR -- Affordable housing is difficult to find in the Bend area, to say the least. But, help may soon be on the way. After years of little to no multi-family construction, the city of Bend is now seeing interest from developers.

Aaron Henson, Senior Planner with Bend's Community Development Department, tells KBND News 10 different projects are underway. "Most of them are actually out of area developers- Eugene, Seattle. There are folks from other parts of the northwest that are seeing the rent levels reaching that tipping point, with vacancy rates really low. They're responding to the market demand."

Henson says there was only one complex built in the past 10 years, and that was just built last year with about 100 units. "There hasn't really been much, if any, apartment construction going on in nearly a decade. With few exceptions, there's been very little activity in the multi-family sector." He adds, "Rents have risen high enough and relative to land costs and construction costs, all of a sudden it makes sense to finally build some more apartments. Given our extremely low vacancy rates, it's desperately needed and long overdue."

Most of the 10 projects filed with the city are on the northeast side of Bend.