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A greatly biased article, as just about all of them from the NY Post are, and irrelevant to this thread.
The people driving up housing prices in Idaho, and elsewhere, are not first time home buyers.
Probably true enough. But I don't think it is true with every one of our major cities, though.
Rexburg, as an example, has a disproportionate demographic of young married couple to our other cities, and it also has a very lopsided demographic in the number of residents with college degrees.
An argument could be made that Rexburg is a special case, as it was always a highly LDS town, and the expansion of BYUI has very much to do with it, but really, it's not much different in effect that the all the retirees who are moving to Sandpoint. The two groups are much different, but the effect on housing prices is identical.
I think that most stuff about housing prices nationwide has similar puffery in it.
I also suspect that they all are biased in some ways; an ancient iron-belt town in Pennsylvania, for example, where a town is stable but stagnant, and holds no promise for future growth, is bound to be ignored more than a town that's rapidly changing.
I'm no realtor, Mike, but I do have thoughts, info about this for Idaho Falls.
I do realize this thread is primarily about SFHs, but let's look at some changing and some stable demographics for Idaho Falls.
First, the Lead Article in Yesterday's Post Register was about the "Housing Crisis in Rexburg," with Idaho Falls close behind. This fall BYU-IDAHO has an enrollment of 18,000 - up 2,000 students from last year.. Not enough housing exists. Three major complexes are under construction, but until then?
Idaho Falls in FYI 2014 had a 5% vacancy rate in apartments. We know the numbers well as both the redevelopment projects downtown and the new The Falls 228 apartment complex in Snake River Landing used those numbers to calculate need for more units and the rent. Yesterday, for a totally different reason I checked out apartment availability in Idaho Falls. I honestly was blown away that the ONLY available apartments were a studio somewhere, two will be available in about 10 days in a nice complex on Hitt Road and some one bedrooms (less than 10 total) between a complex on Hoopes and the brand new The Falls apartments.
What else do we know? A house is on the market 44 days in Idaho Falls. It was 60+ last year. There are no available houses for sale basically between $200K - $500,00. There are more $750,000 - $1,000,000+ homes available than lower prices partially because some contain 10 acres or so. A few are smaller homes with large equestrian stable and some acerage.
I was present this week for a house closing. The 5,,000 Sq. foot SFH sold in 9 days, including a three day weekend. The first offer was faxed on the holiday. The buyer got the asking price.
Both the Real Estate Agent and Title Company Officer both mentioned how busy this summer has been. I know houses had increased 6% in Idaho Falls at the beginning of summer compared to January, 2016. I don't know the 3rd quarter numbers ending yesterday.
We are getting buyers of every age. Part of that was to ensure houses were available for new college grads. Thus the boom of seven Townhomes Complexes in Idaho Falls and Ammon. The largest being the 250+ complex being built by The Archdiocese of Boise. There have been homes built at every level. Probably more in the $400,000 - $750,000 range than 1 million plus, as smaller amounts of land is included with the home.
I don't know where you got the $144K, I think, number for the average cost of a home. I would doubt that is true currently, unless the Townhomes built last year are included.
So why the need? Yes retirees are a percentage, as are new INL, Melalueca, Northwest Cosmetics employees and a couple of other new companies that are doing millions in business throughout the world and are hiring more locals and recruiting nationally/internationationally. The regional services Idaho Falls provides requires more professionals and other employees that a city of a similar size in a state with a larger population throughout the state. Wait until NuScale starts in about three years with their $2 Billion project. We know the Idaho Labor Dept. did the studies to project 13,000 sustainable new jobs.
Pocatello saw a slight increase in growth last year for the first time in maybe seven years. The expanded FBI Center going in there will have 500 more employees. Other businesses are trying.
I think much like Boise and the Treasure Valley on the East side of the state we're seeing balanced growth spread through many sectors.
In an to an earlier question about isn't ID just reflective of the entire U.S.? No. Some states are losing populations. Not all are selling homes for major profits.
MSR
Last edited by Mtn. States Resident; 10-01-2016 at 06:35 PM..
Thanks, MSR.
Obviously you have a much better idea of how it is than I do, and honestly, I haven't paid very much attention to real estate here for a while.
I fully agree that the mix of job opportunity, young families, and all those other factors you mentioned are causing a housing shortage, and I've thought about how big the crunch will be once NuScale really gets going. That's going to be huge for I.F. and the entire state for a long time to come. I'm not at all sure this area is really ready for it, either.
While i was very young- around 8, in the early 50's- when the Palisades Dam construction and the boom the INL brought to town, occurring at the same time, I remember vividly how fast Idaho Falls changed in many ways. All the classes during my school days were crowded, the town's size doubled in less than a decade, and the local lifestyle changed the most of all.
My family was still living out on our farm, but I came in during the winters to live with my grandparents and go to school here. Those years were especially vivid as there was so much contrast between my country life and my city life.
Well it's been a long journey. I arrived in Coeur d'Alene 11 days ago, saw many houses, and went into escrow a week ago. I was originally looking at Sandpoint or more north, but after driving around I decided on Athol. It's 10 acres, enough room for the horses and dogs. I'm only 17 minutes from from Lake Pend Oreille and 30 minutes from Coeur d'Alene. Plenty of areas around to hunt.
Well it's been a long journey. I arrived in Coeur d'Alene 11 days ago, saw many houses, and went into escrow a week ago. I was originally looking at Sandpoint or more north, but after driving around I decided on Athol. It's 10 acres, enough room for the horses and dogs. I'm only 17 minutes from from Lake Pend Oreille and 30 minutes from Coeur d'Alene. Plenty of areas around to hunt.
Congrats, it's always great when your plans come together and welcome to north Idaho....!!!
I've worked in a real estate office in Boise for 15 years+, so I've seen a lot of ups and downs at this point, but I'm not an agent, so consider myself still somewhat of an outside observer.
What I've seen is that the bubble 10 years ago, it was obvious it couldn't last. My office builds homes as well, and we had basically stopped building before the crash happened, because we could see it was going to be bad, so we only had 3 specs in the ground the day the market crashed, and no permits turned in for new build jobs. So we weathered the storm pretty well. We manage rentals as well, and those became our bread and butter for a few years while real estate and construction were bad. My point is that it was obvious last time that it was going to burst, and soon. The prices had been artificially driven up by outside investors buying up any and all properties as rentals, intending to sell and make a profit when the market got high enough, which is exactly what happened. Many loans were being made that never should have been under any circumstances. Builders literally could not build fast enough to keep up with the demand.
This time is very different. The demand is coming from actual homeowners, rather than investors. People who want to live in the house themselves. And people who have to jump through a fair number of hoops to get the loan (although not as many hoops as a few years ago). The market has gotten very expensive for Boise wages, but it is being driven by those who can afford the houses, not by outside investors. We actually had quite a few of our rental owners sell this spring, which obviously didn't crash anything.
The market has stabilized over the last season, slowing down some, but still staying active. We have a more healthy number of houses on the market for the rate of sales right now. My prediction is that home prices will take a slight downturn over the winter, like they did last year, then pick up again in the spring, but at a slow increase.
It is getting difficult for young people to afford to buy a house here now, but buying a house isn't something that you should be able to do straight out of college, in my opinion. Most people have to rent for a period of time before they buy their first house in their 30s or even 40s. Somehow our culture has evolved to the point where many people think that everything should be available to them right out of the gate, instead of having to work hard and save over time to afford those things. My parents are builders, which is why I was able to afford my first home at 25. Otherwise, it would have probably been closer to 35, because I think it is irresponsible to buy a home with less than 20% down, and it would have taken me that long to save that much. But there are 5% loan programs, and even 3% loan programs, so young people can afford to buy. If they have to wait a little longer and save a little more because of increasing prices, that teaches maturity, and hopefully they will appreciate the home all the more as a result.
So when everyone in California who wants to move to Idaho moves to Idaho, won't Idaho be just like California? Then where do you go?
Everyone in California who is being displaced by people with more money is moving to more affordable places. But the one positive is that creates the need for more infrastructure thus more jobs and a better local economy. All those people need services.
When I retire I plan on selling everything here in So Cal and it will allow me to buy more properties cash in another state. I will still stick to RE investing I'll just do it eksewhere. At that point it will be my job. Full time.
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