How are the home prices holding in the RE slump? (Boise: for sale by owner, real estate market)

[izzy]

Hi,

I design pages for a real estate magazine in central ca. Been working all day on it...realtors are slashing prices from a few thousand to $50,000. in this next issue.

Wondering how the market is holding in Idaho. Are you feeling the slump yet? And how much are the homes dropping?

Izzy

[cleosmom]

I keep an eye on the homes around here via one of the real astate mags and the newspaper and I'm not seeing any decline with prices here. In fact, tonight a client at work told me that they held open house on hers Saturday and she thinks they already have a buyer.

[micrguy]

I have been on two house hunting trips up to Boise so far and a few of the houses that I looked at have gone down in price anywhere from $10,000 to $40,000 since the second week in September until now. These are houses in the $230-260,000 range. One of the houses that my wife and I want to put an offer on has been for sale for over 120 days and it is in a decent part of town. It's not even a house that needs to get fixed up at all, you could move right in.

[izzy]

I bet the spring will be a good time to buy in Boise. Houses that haven't sold during winter. The market being down...sounds like a buyer's market. Hope we can sell our home in the spring and get a deal before the prices go back up in Idaho. Do you think the slump will last long?

Izzy

[cleosmom]

I have to retract my earlier statement, picked up a copy last night and each page indicates a good handful of "reduced"!

[vintage]

Originally Posted by izzy

I bet the spring will be a good time to buy in Boise. Houses that haven't sold during winter. The market being down...sounds like a buyer's market. Hope we can sell our home in the spring and get a deal before the prices go back up in Idaho. Do you think the slump will last long?

Izzy

I think the slump will turn into a crash that will last 3 to 7 years.

[micrguy]

One of my clients is a title company and from what he has said about real estate in the western states is that we are not going to crash, but just have a correction. Houses that doubled in price in 3 years are going to correct back to where they should have appreciated to in a normal market. A crash is what is happening in places like Michigan that have seen little to no appreciation in over 20 years and it takes 1-2 years to sell a house.

[Sheila Kibler]

I agree that we will not have a crash, just a correction. I am a real estate agent in McCAll, and Tamarack moving in and Boise having a boom in move-ins, the market has shot straight up for the past three years. It can only do that for so long before a correction must be made. We have had an average of $30,000 in price drops this fall, but they have stopped. The spring should bring back a leveling in prices and a boost in the real estate market.

[vintage]

Originally Posted by Sheila Kibler

I agree that we will not have a crash, just a correction. I am a real estate agent in McCAll, and Tamarack moving in and Boise having a boom in move-ins, the market has shot straight up for the past three years. It can only do that for so long before a correction must be made. We have had an average of $30,000 in price drops this fall, but they have stopped. The spring should bring back a leveling in prices and a boost in the real estate market.

I have a neighbor who just built a nice home for his family on the acreage near my home. His other home in Boise has been on the market, listed with a realtor, for two months and he has not had a single person stop by to look at the house. Two other families own land and have been waiting for their homes to sell so they can build, and they have been waiting since last spring. There are a lot of bored realtors in the area that would be happy to sell you one of the many homes glutting the market here. In fact I have a good friend with 26 years experience in real estate and she is very concerned about her future. So please come to Boise and buy a house. People are letting their listings expire with hopes to put their places back on the market this spring when the homebuyers come out to buy before the next school year.

In all fairness you should get some objective data before buying, after all a mistake could see you in foreclosure and bankruptcy in the future. Here is some data on the Boise market at this link http://www.housingtracker.net/old_ho...aho&city=Boise

Notice the trend in the data? The inventory of homes going up over the past year? These numbers only reflect the MLS listing and not the For Sale By Owner inventory that increases monthly nor does it include many new developments that have new homes not listed in the MLS. Inventory up and the prices will drop.
Regarding the median price of the homes listed please take into consideration the fact that the price does not take into account the substantial incentives used now to make a sale. Incentives that is paid by the seller because someone has to cover the expense.

There are many home that are being rushed to completion so they can be sold before people realize that the prices are already crashing.

Thank you Sheila Kibler for sharing that there has been an average $30,000 price drop this fall. The fall is not over yet. But, at that number of $30,000 is a major crash for some.

For example, lets look at a likely situation. Let’s look at Mr. Joe Gogetter and pretend he was forced to move to Boise 12 months ago by order of his boss, the CEO of Albertson’s INC. He wasn’t alone because hundreds of other executives were forced to do so with him. Mr. & Ms. Gogetter buys a home quickly so as not to get “priced out of the market” by the rapidly rising price of real estate.
Having three children with one having special needs has eating up all of their savings but they were lucky enough to have a realtor who could pull some strings and get them in the home on an ARM loan with NO money down! Being responsible and prudent they bought a median priced home at $265,000.

Since then, the CEO has sold Albertson’s INC (true) and 400 executives have either been fired while others given the option of moving to Minnesota to preserve their jobs (also true). Most will have to sell and move and that includes Mr. & Ms. Gogetter. So, they call up the real estate agent that sold them the home last year (she was so nice) and after the numbers are worked this is what was presented to the Gogetters.

Purchase price of home was $265,000 and the median home price has gone up to $285,000 over the past year. This gives the Gogetters a $20,000 equity! Now, they are told that if they want to actually SELL the house in this market they will have to LOWER the selling price by $30.000! This now will leave them owing the ‘bank’ $10,000.
But it gets worse. The real estate co. wants 6% of the selling price to sell the home as the family tries to find a rental in Minnisota. 6% of $255,000 is $15,300. Add the $10,000 shortfall to the $15,300 and the Gogetters will be able to PAY $25,000 for the opportunity to sell their home.
This is a financial CRASH in their lives that may take a decade to recover from.

Don’t take my word for the market here and be skeptical of any house-sales people attempting to drum up some business.

In two years those with cash will find many exceptional deals.

But, never mind me -come to Boise Valley and buy a house! Real estate can only go up! Buy now before you are priced out of the market! Only losers rent!

[izzy]

Originally Posted by vintage

I have a neighbor who just built a nice home for his family on the acreage near my home. His other home in Boise has been on the market, listed with a realtor, for two months and he has not had a single person stop by to look at the house. Two other families own land and have been waiting for their homes to sell so they can build, and they have been waiting since last spring. There are a lot of bored realtors in the area that would be happy to sell you one of the many homes glutting the market here. In fact I have a good friend with 26 years experience in real estate and she is very concerned about her future. So please come to Boise and buy a house. People are letting their listings expire with hopes to put their places back on the market this spring when the homebuyers come out to buy before the next school year.

The folks they will be waiting for are CA residents...who have to sell their homes in CA first. We are also in a slump and I'm not putting my house on the market until it goes back up. So they may be waiting for a year or two until The CA market turns around.

In the mean time my husband and I are going to look into buying a rental in Idaho. That we may later live in. Of course we will wait a little longer until the price of homes drop some more.

Izzy