Boise-Metro Housing Market (how much, home, buy)

[AlleyTD]

Originally Posted by IDtoTX

I can speak for my family. We have a house for sale (MLS # 98344070 )in Meridian. Our family relocated to TX for a job. Instead of being in an apartment with 3 kids and two dogs we are living with my parents until our house sells. Not the best situation but it's working. We don't really have anywhere to put our furniture right now so our house is acting as a storage unit. Might as well be getting something for that mortgage payment, right???

Was our house one that you saw??? We've gotten quite a bit of activity recently.

AH HA!!

Thanks I was curious and your answer makes perfect sense. I love when such simple pieces fall together.
I bet your folks love having the kids around.

I didn't show your home, but I just looked it up.
It's lovely!!

Good luck, I hope you sell soon!

[Torrie]

Originally Posted by Twinkle

Question, though... he noted in another blog entry (not the one below), that 55% of the homes on the market are vacant. Why do you think that is? Where has everyone gone?

55% percent of the homes being vacant doesn't mean much. Hopefully he explained this a bit more as to how he came about this figure as it can be confusing to the reader who might not know how to interpret this. And if you don't know exactly what this figure includes, then you're not going to know the right questions to ask. So it's very easy to interpret the information incorrectly.

55% sounds dramatic, but let's look at this closer. Though I'm only seeing what you posted, there are a variety of reasons as to why 55% are showing vacant. What he's probably not telling you is this includes Condo's, Townhouses, To Be Built and Under Construction properties. For obvious reasons some of these properties are going to be vacant. I'm assuming he's just doing Ada County as that's what he seems to focus on. Other reasons for vacancy could be owner bought a second home, the house could be a rental, owners relocated and the home is being sold/owned by a relocation company or maybe the property is owned by an investor. The point is, there are several factors as to why a home might be vacant.

If you do a pull in MLS right now for Ada County, Single Family, Single Family w/acreage(No Condos or Townhouses) and include all ages of homes except for To Be Built, Under Construction, and Newer Never Occupied, the total drops dramatically from 4,249 listings to 1,161 listings. If it were me, I wouldn't lump in Condo's or Townhouses with Single Family as they are a whole different type of market.

Originally Posted by Twinkle

Only 7.7% of the homes on the market sold during January, which means the other 92.3% of the homes on the market went begging.

That supports my contention that about 90% of what’s on the market is either overpriced or not in prime showing condition.

I don't completely agree with his comment above, just because the market is slower doesn't mean it's because the 90% of homes left over are overpriced. Typcially the percentage of sale price to list price runs anywhere from 94% to 99%. Meaning agents get somewhere between 94%-99% of asking price. This is a stat that brokerages pull that I've looked at, not something that I personally pull. The most recent one I looked at was dated 11/07-12/03/07, and it showed all agents in MLS getting 95.80% of the asking price for that time period.

There's several reasons as to why homes aren't selling. Obviously the mortgage mess has an affect on buyers, not to mention potential out of state buyers who want to come but are experiencing difficulties selling their homes. Then you have other buyers who are more than qualified but are scared to do anything because the press has convinced them that the market is terrible. So what I'm saying is, you can't just blame it on price, there are too many other things that can be factored into the equation.

I will agree with his comment about homes not being in prime condition. I'm amazed at how many homes I've walked through that shouldn't even be on the market because they're not ready. If you want to command top dollar for your home and you have for example 38 other homes in your neighborhood for sale, well you better dot your i's and cross your t's. That means no cooty factor in the bathrooms or kitchens, no dead bugs in the windows and on the carpet and no burned out light bulbs, just to name a few. The potential buyer will most likely walk on out and head for the next listing.

[Anchorless]

10:01 a.m. -- Idaho home foreclosures up 92 percent from January 2007 | News Updates | Idaho Statesman (broken link)

...Ada County reported 270 filings in January, up 44 percent from a year ago, while Canyon County had 197 foreclosures for a jump of 240 percent.

Yikes. And January '08 was up 6 percent from last month (though the paper calls that "good news").

I guess it can only get better, right?

[ADABOI]

A good insightful article that highlights general housing trends in America. Anyone believe these trends will show themselves in the Boise metro area?

The Next Slum?

[micrguy]

Any Hubble subdivisions will be a prime candidate. I saw this in Phoenix, houses that were brand new 20 years ago looking dumpy and turned into rentals that were 20 miles away from the center of town.

Don't think the Boise area will get hit with much of this, but I can see Canyon County getting hit with suburban slums.

[jack7y]

A good insightful article that highlights general housing trends in America. Anyone believe these trends will show themselves in the Boise metro area?

The Next Slum?

That's a very interesting article. It puts the mortgage crisis into a broader perspective too.

Thanks for the link!

[wireman]

I live outside of the Middleton area and what blows my mind is all of the empty subdivisions, where all of the utilites are in but there are no houses being built.
The kicker is these people are still clearing more good farm land to put in more empty subdivisions, its like "hello" the bubble burst and the folks doing the speculating are not seeing the big picture......this goes way beyond Idaho and for that matter way behind the whole country.

We are in a mess people, the bubble is not coming back anytime soon, I don't care what helecopter Ben and the federal reserve do they are powerless to stop the train that is in the process of derailing.

1.consumer spending is what our country runs on.
2.the fed cannot bring our equity back.
3.without equity how do people use their house as an atm machine.
4.some markets have already lost 50% or more of peak bubble equity.
5.another bubble is the only solution.
6.there is not going to be another bubble.
7.goggle hyperinflation (thats where we are going).
8.stop overbuilding (plant wheat)
9.buy silver or gold.
10. the USD is toast.

[HDL]

The days of 2005 pricing are long gone !!! And the fact that there is still so many new subs being built is really amazing to me ! The only way we will see any BIG dent in inventory either here or in any other parts of the country, is for large companies to relocate to those cities and bring with them jobs that pay an average of $50K or more !

Originally Posted by wireman

I live outside of the Middleton area and what blows my mind is all of the empty subdivisions, where all of the utilites are in but there are no houses being built.
The kicker is these people are still clearing more good farm land to put in more empty subdivisions, its like "hello" the bubble burst and the folks doing the speculating are not seeing the big picture......this goes way beyond Idaho and for that matter way behind the whole country.

We are in a mess people, the bubble is not coming back anytime soon, I don't care what helecopter Ben and the federal reserve do they are powerless to stop the train that is in the process of derailing.

1.consumer spending is what our country runs on.
2.the fed cannot bring our equity back.
3.without equity how do people use their house as an atm machine.
4.some markets have already lost 50% or more of peak bubble equity.
5.another bubble is the only solution.
6.there is not going to be another bubble.
7.goggle hyperinflation (thats where we are going).
8.stop overbuilding (plant wheat)
9.buy silver or gold.
10. the USD is toast.

[wireman]

Originally Posted by HDL

The days of 2005 pricing are long gone !!! And the fact that there is still so many new subs being built is really amazing to me ! The only way we will see any BIG dent in inventory either here or in any other parts of the country, is for large companies to relocate to those cities and bring with them jobs that pay an average of $50K or more !

I hate to be a killjoy or bringer of doom and gloom, but reality is what it is.
Seriously the treasure valley needs to implement some sort of a moratorium on new developments until there is a solution to the current housing crisis.
Flooding the market with new housing pads is ludicrous with so many sitting without homes on them.

The commercial building market is starting to take a big hit here, I have been in Idaho for 15 yrs. 12 of which working for the same company in mainly commercial/ industrial electrical construction and I am now starting to be concerned for my own job for the 1st time.

Our economy is one big beast that feeds on itself, right now the beast is becoming very sick.

[HDL]

(a moratorium on housing) But from what I've seen so far, the chances of that are VERY SLIM . When it comes to development, the GREATER GOOD doesn't seem to matter here (JMHO ).

Originally Posted by wireman

I hate to be a killjoy or bringer of doom and gloom, but reality is what it is.
Seriously the treasure valley needs to implement some sort of a moratorium on new developments until there is a solution to the current housing crisis.
Flooding the market with new housing pads is ludicrous with so many sitting without homes on them.

The commercial building market is starting to take a big hit here, I have been in Idaho for 15 yrs. 12 of which working for the same company in mainly commercial/ industrial electrical construction and I am now starting to be concerned for my own job for the 1st time.

Our economy is one big beast that feeds on itself, right now the beast is becoming very sick.