Coeur D’Alene is hottest new emerging market in US (Boise: apartments, rentals)

[elousv]

I think this is different than the bubble in 2008. Coeur d'Alene may very well be permanently expensive.

[banjomike]

Originally Posted by elousv

I think this is different than the bubble in 2008. Coeur d'Alene may very well be permanently expensive.

I agree.
Vail, Colorado was once a very cheap place to live in.

That was around the same time Coeur d'Alene was cheap to live in too, over 100 years ago.

[cleosmom]

Originally Posted by banjomike

I wouldn't expect the housing prices to go down for a very long time to come.

Idaho has always been a housing boom or bust deal; when times are good, home contractors tend to overbuild rather than stopping at the top of the demand curve.

And then, with an over-supply of new homes, there's always a long time lag before new oontrcutiion gets underway again.

The two quite often get out of synch with the overall economy and employment ratios because of this tendency.
There are always several large home construction builders who go out of business during these lopsided cycles, and many times, it's only the over-cautious ones that survive.

Over-cautious homebuilders don't pounce on a booming seller's market after they've lost their shirts a few times before. They take it slow and easy, waiting to see just how long this boom will last.

It's the Idaho way, and has been this way all my life. Longer than my life, according to my Grandfather, who was a homebuilder himself off and on his entire life.

He became a farmer when he married my Grandmother, who came from a long line of adventurous farmers. They married late in life for their time- both were in their 30s.
Granddad never had the money to buy a farm when he was single, and Grandma homesteaded about to 1,000 acres on her own, living alone in a homestead shack and teaching school in the winters. The shack was built on skids, so it could be pulled from one piece of ground to the next.
... and while she homesteaded alone, her father, also a big homesteader, along with his 7 other daughters, were always there to help her out during the farming season.

As a couple, they had all the land and alternate skills they needed to ride out a farm depression or a housing shortage.
But they were an uncommon couple in these parts. Most of their neighbors went bust and left the land eventually, and none of the large home-builders survived the Great Depression.

They did. And they became very prosperous when WWII broke out and every crop that reached harvest was a profitable paycheck. Granddad worked the fields with plenty of farm hands who needed a job, and Grandma fed them all, along with their families.
After the war ended, both were too old to do the heavy work anymore, so Grandma got her real estate license and started selling homes to returning veterans.

Both were good money managers; when the vets found they couldn't get a home loan from the banks because they had no credit history, Grandma would assume the loan herself, and became the financier for the vets.
She was very proud her entire life that not a single one of her vets ever let her down by failing to repay her loan.

It was all just the Idaho way.
We do things differently here and always have.
But even so, my grandparents were pretty remarkable in their resourcefulness. While it's a common quality here, they had an abundance of it all their lives.

I love this story!! My Grammy survived the Great Depression. She was a widow raising three young children in the Kansas Dust Bowl. She took great care and pride in what she had, including her children. To this day I still have her Victorola sitting in my living room. That will be passed down to the next generation soon.

[nowhereman427]

Originally Posted by Igor Blevin

Reminds me of 2006. Then 2008 happened. What goes up, must come down.

Upside down in 2008 when homeowners owed more on their home than what the house was worth or what they could have sold it for. Had to have property taxes reassessed to lower property taxes because home went down in value-hit rock bottom.

[oldafretired]

There are articles in the local paper almost on a daily basis about the insane growth in NID. Makes you wonder why these bureaucrats keep approving new developments if they live in the area and have to deal with the mess they are creating. I can't imagine the majority of residents wanting this crap. If these bureaucrats want a big city and the problems that come with it, they should just move to Spokanistan instead of screwing up NID.

https://cdapress.com/news/2021/may/11/new-neighbors/

[apple92680]

Originally Posted by oldafretired

There are articles in the local paper almost on a daily basis about the insane growth in NID. Makes you wonder why these bureaucrats keep approving new developments if they live in the area and have to deal with the mess they are creating. I can't imagine the majority of residents wanting this crap. If these bureaucrats want a big city and the problems that come with it, they should just move to Spokanistan instead of screwing up NID.

https://cdapress.com/news/2021/may/11/new-neighbors/

You can't have libertarian-style "free market economics" and socialistic "central planning" at the same time, as both run contradictory to each other.

In free market economics, the property owner gets to sell or develop the property however they want, with minimal to no influence from a governmental entity. Zoning is merely an afterthought and can change on a whim if the right people are in place and the money is there.

In central planning, the zoning and associated ordinances remain fixed and are done for the betterment of the entire community, rather than the property owner(s) with the most money. In a centrally planned community, the main complaint is the lack of flexibility on behalf of the governing entity.

Idaho has styled itself as a state that prizes free market economics and shuns the more socialistic central planning.

This is a quagmire that a lot of conservative regions and towns find themselves in these days. They want all the perks of growth without the inconveniences.

Post Falls and Rathdrum will never be an Irvine, Valencia or Westlake Village, because that sort of central planning runs counter to the current Idaho ethos.

Coeur d'Alene and it's lake, for better or worse, have turned that city into an expensive resort, a la Aspen, where housing is unaffordable for few outside of the very wealthy. This means that retail/hospitality and service workers in Coeur d'Alene -- by and large -- will have to live outside of the city limits in adjacent communities. Dalton Gardens is just as expensive as Coeur d'Alene, and so is much of Hayden and Hayden Lake.

This means that the onus to house the regions less-well off falls on Post Falls and Rathdrum, or they cross the Fourth of July to live in the heavily polluted mining communities of the Silver Valley.

With central planning, you can accommodate lower income people into a mix of middle class and wealthy people in order to keep a community healthy and without risk of turning into a ghetto. Again, though, that's not what's happening in "libertarian" North Idaho. It's more like -- whoever has the most money dictates the zoning and can build whatever they want, wherever they want, whenever they feel like it.

[nm9stheham]

Originally Posted by oldafretired

There are articles in the local paper almost on a daily basis about the insane growth in NID. Makes you wonder why these bureaucrats keep approving new developments if they live in the area and have to deal with the mess they are creating. I can't imagine the majority of residents wanting this crap. If these bureaucrats want a big city and the problems that come with it, they should just move to Spokanistan instead of screwing up NID.
https://cdapress.com/news/2021/may/11/new-neighbors/

The bureaucrats don't own the land, nor do the 'majority of residents'. So unless you want to to buy some of that land and hold it undeveloped, you/they cannot just say 'no' to development; it is not your right to do so. It can only be 'channeled' along some some set of planning and zoning and ordinances.

Just beware: The more restrictive that development becomes and the more hoops you have to jump through, the more expensive it gets. I have planned out the costs of the development process in Jackson WY for 1 story-on-basement, 3000 sq ft finished area home with a garage there. Plan on adding $40k-50k to the price for the extra stuff they require, most of which is just reviews and plans and permits and licenses... nothing added to the house itself! It is just a roadblock to ownership for most people like yourself. And in pretty places where the gov't has actual legal control over development, the prices skyrocket for the remaining limited land. Stanley ID and the Sawtooth Nat'l Recreation Area (SNRA) is a perfect example. But that is not really any different than when the land is privately held.. like in Sun Valley ID. CdA is a pretty place.. so is Smith Mtn Lake in VA and the Outer Banks of NC as just a couple of other examples. Same outcome... prices going up and up, and more and more developed land.


That is because neither the developers or the local bureaucrats are creating the demand to live there. Fundamentally, there are lots of new people in the world every day, and they have to live somewhere. As land runs out, the prices go up and up; partly due to supply, and partly due to the fact that the cheapest-to-develop land goes first, followed by more- and more-expensive-to-develop land, and all modified by demand, local conditions, etc... just like good farmland being farmed first, and then inferior farm land next.

'Big city problems' depends on what big city problems you are talking about... Expense? Yes... Portland all over again? No, that's not at all a given to follow; plenty of examples of nice places staying nice. That is more about local moral culture, and political power and influence.

[elousv]

This atrocity did not need to happen; https://cdapress.com/news/2021/may/11/new-neighbors/

There are ways of saying no, but hard to do when someone gives you a fat wad of tax free cash.

[Mister Torgue]

Originally Posted by elousv

This atrocity did not need to happen; https://cdapress.com/news/2021/may/11/new-neighbors/

There are ways of saying no, but hard to do when someone gives you a fat wad of tax free cash.

That’s story is pretty abhorrent and makes me sad. Money isn’t always everything. If I was in that situation and especially if older/retired I would turn down any offer if I loved where I was living. I can foresee being in this situation when we are retired up there. Hopefully we will raise our daughter to love and respect her family’s land enough to keep it.

This SAME thing happened to my grandmother in Frisco Texas. Her ~1 acre lot is the last plot of land that has grass and is undeveloped in the area that all used to be nothing but farmland. It’s just a beautiful field of grass, a few trees and modest small house my grandfather built with his own two hands. Now it’s surrounded by a much larger apartment building (5 floors?), a huge expensive mega church (money better spent on the needy) and a strip mall area.

[oldafretired]

There's no end to this. The approval for these huge developments need to be on the ballot for the residents to decide rather than a handful of bureaucrats.


https://cdapress.com/news/2021/may/1...-californians/