How are the home prices holding in the RE slump? (Boise: sales, real estate)

[micrguy]

I talked to someone in the construction field earlier this week and he said that if builders stopped building houses today, Boise has an eighteen month inventory of new houses. 2007 will be a hard, but much needed year of correction.

[Putty]

So maybe I should start looking in CA, or CO for a home, since they are dropping, and I could get a good deal on them.

[California Carl]

Our market is very slow in the North Bay. It seems like there are a few buyers on the fence, but they are being very cautious even though interest rates are down again.
There is a huge inventory of homes on the market. Mine being one of them. Our average price, $567,000 has dropped 10% compared to last year $617,000
Prices skyrocketed out of reach and many buyers opted for "creative financing" that put some of these new buyers at risk of forclosure.
The media does not seem to be helping matters as nearly every day they comment on the housing market both on the news and in the papers.
Well, I hope mine sells soon. I guess I'll have to assume that if I take a beating here on my price, I should be able to recoupe some of it when I get to Boise. I have a feeling this could get ugly.....

[vintage]

Originally Posted by micrguy

I talked to someone in the construction field earlier this week and he said that if builders stopped building houses today, Boise has an eighteen month inventory of new houses. 2007 will be a hard, but much needed year of correction.

That sounds right. I just took a drive yesterday and looked around. They have not stopped building as of today. The developers seem to be in deniel and most are still laying foundations. The comming correction will be ugly.
Please come to Boise and buy a home.

[vintage]

I really don't like to use the word "correction" since it is used by the real estate industry to soft peddle the truth. If prices "correct" next year in this valley, does that mean the prices have been "wrong" the past few years?
Have you bought a home recently at the "wrong" price while a realator told you it was a " great time to buy"?

It will get very nasty before it's over.

[California Carl]

You may be right. It will depend on how many buyers came into the market last year and the type of financing they chose. Also, do they have good stable jobs? What about the people that refied their homes to pay off other debt? How far in the hole did they go?
I hope it does'nt get worse but it might. The housing market helped this area stay ahead of the last recession but we may pay for that now. They did go so high, that an average family with two good paying jobs can't qualify any more. You need to earn like over 100K a year to qualify for 30 year mort. with 10% down on an average 570K house.

[buckleyclan]

Can one still find a 4/2 + 1800 sf house on a 1/2 acre or more for under 300K?
I want to move to the Boise area, but it seems the Californication has driven your prices to unreachable levels, just like CA...

[micrguy]

We are both looking for about the same kind of house. If you want a new McMansion in a new cookie cutter subdivision it will be hard to find what you want. Especially with a lot that big. However, if you want an older home there are a fair amount of houses that would fit what you are looking for. I found one house out in west Boise built in the 80's that had a lot almost that big, was around 2000 square feet and had a 600 square foot workshop as a seperate building. Last time I checked it was $245,000 or so and had been on the market for over 120 days.

I have been looking at houses since mid-September and the prices have been falling considerably on some houses. But one thing to look out for that they can't do in other states is to get an accurate "Days on market"(DOM). There are houses that I looked at in September, but show up on MLS as only being on the market for 10 days. In Idaho, if you change the sale price you can re-list the house, that way it does not appear that the seller has been trying to sell it for 5 months. I subscribe to a realtor's site that gives me all of the new listings that fit what I am looking for and there are some houses that have been newly listed at least 4-5 times since the summer. It makes a difference when you want to make an offer, especially if you know the house has been for sale since last summer as opposed to last week.

[SWCMale]

I know some people in the Treasure Valley, in Meridian just ten miles from Boise, the boom is still booming, selling homes in the 130k-220k in the first week or two, or within the month! Most only drop their prices 1k maybe 2k. Property taxes went down, sales tax rose a penny. The area is BOOOMING THEY SAY....?

[Pineboy]

Boise is still booming despite a slow down. In fact the whole state of Idaho is. A Government agency just ranked Idaho #1 in the nation for home appreciation and Idaho, especially the Boise Metro are expected to be at the top of home appreciation through 2007.
Come on think about it---Boise has been growing steadily(one of the fastest growing cities in the nation) for over a decade now and the growth is gaining speed. There is a lot of room to grow in Idaho and Boise so I don't see a bubble burst for quite some time. Some agricultural areas may see a slow down or very slow home sales, but Boise, McCall, Idaho Falls, Coeur D'Alene, Twin Falls, are going to keep booming and booming...

I work in real estate and I can vouch that even though values in Boise have risen fast the past few years, that the value of most areas is STILL undervalued.