Boise is down 5% YOY but that's comparing today's prices to January 2022, well before the actual peak. From the peak (probably May/June) I bet Boise is down at least 10% if not more. And that's sales that have closed - ie, contracts signed a couple of months ago.
Boise (or SLC, or Denver, or anywhere else) isn't *that* special. Interest rates and household formation rates (which skyrocketed during the pandemic) will ensure that things will grind down for quite a while. It probably won't be *fast* like 2008/9 (unless we get a recession), but down it'll go.
-W
Yep, prices will probably decline further, and that's a good thing. My house is a place to live, not an investment, so I don't personally care, but improved affordability would be healthy for society. The point was trying to make about Boise (and doing a poor job of it apparently) is that a big crash was predicted. Some reports claimed Boise was the most overvalued market in the US, with some estimates putting it at 70% overvalued. And yet, so far, San Francisco and a few other coastal markets have seen steeper declines, which was unexpected. Of course, things could change in the year(s) ahead, but I just think this stuff is very difficult to predict and even the experts are often wrong.
It's hard for things to crash hard when the market is locking up. With significantly fewer listings and buyers being more selective because of higher mortgage costs, sales volume is way down. That tends to draw out the price reductions that inevitably happen. Plus we have a lot of owners or recent purchasers still hanging on to the hope that this is temporary. Maybe they'll be right but if mortgage rates are still 6% 3 years from now I think we'll see healthy downward movement.
Agree, things will likely decline further due to interest rates. But local factors still matter.
Is Boise immune to a decline? No. But the popular narrative that it's primarily a pandemic boom town is overdone. The influx of people predated the pandemic, and the housing market was exceptionally tight for years prior, and this is not the result of no-growth policies. We bought our current home before the pandemic. It was on the market for less than three days, our offer was one of eight and it wasn't even the highest offer.
What I'm seeing on the ground here, and what I'm hearing from contacts in the RE industry (realtors and builders): Inventory remains tight. SFH construction has slowed in the outer suburbs, builders learned from 2008-2009 and pulled back well in advance. It's slim pickin's in inner ring neighborhoods -- North End, Warm Springs, Depot Bench, West End -- with very little for sale. Homes in these areas that are priced well continue to sell quickly by historic norms. There's more inventory in the outer suburbs, and properties sit longer and are more likely to drop prices. Properties that are overpriced and/or have problems (awkward layouts, on busy roads, etc.) are not selling well, whereas a year ago people didn't care. Interesting note: multi-family housing in the downtown core, so far, is largely unaffected. There's just so much demand for housing, especially close in, that existing projects are still underway and new projects are being proposed.
