Daily News

MBA Urges Regulators To Avoid Invoking Suitability Standards
The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) recently made a preemptive strike against what it obviously perceives as the next threat against the mortgage industry - "suitability standards." Read more...

 

Boise Thriving In The Market Downfall For Now

(While most of the United States is reeling from the past year of depreciating values and decreasing sales, Boise, Idaho is doing more than just surviving.)

The city and surrounding area’s real estate market is growing each year and this year has been no different, while other hot spots have been writing books on their bursting bubble.

In fact, Boise is bringing back memories of yesteryear how an influx of people moved to the West to escape their depressing towns. The article, “A New Gold Rush Lures Development,” written by Maura Webber Sadovi and published in the November 15, 2006 edition of The Wall Street Journal, explains how Boise has found a way to create a hot spot within a vast cooling nation.

“In the southwestern corner of Idaho near the borders of Oregon and Nevada, the Boise metropolitan area's population jumped about 16% to 544,021 last year from its July 2000 level, one of the nation's largest metro-area percentage gains, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.”

The Boise mountain views amongst a fast-growing and diversified economy are definitely marketable to the new people moving in but its premier draw is its affordability with close proximity to the much more expensive West Coast markets.

“The third-quarter median home price in Ada County, including Boise, was $242,500. That compares with second-quarter levels of $283,400 in the Portland, Ore., region and $751,900 in the San Francisco metropolitan area, according to the Intermountain Multiple Listing Service Inc. and the National Association of Realtors.”

Potential buyers and real estate investors are knowledgeable that market close to more expensive markets will continue to grow in size and price. And since Boise is a located in a mountainous terrain, much of the surrounding land is protected by the government, which means that just when more people will want to buy property there, the land will be full. Existing property will greatly increase in value.

“‘Boise's one of the nation's top-10 undiscovered markets that's now being discovered,’ says Kenneth T. Rosen, chairman of the Fisher Center for Real Estate and Urban Economics at the University of California, Berkeley, who compares it with other smaller hip and affordable cities such as Madison, Wis.”

The local economy has rebounded with the commercial industry leading the way, after the tech bust in the early 2000s. “Employment in October rose 4.9% from the year-earlier month, more than triple the national rate of 1.4%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.”

Other than a sound investment and great place to live, Boise has become the “in” place in the Western Midwest. Younger people living in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming are all finding ways to call Boise, Idaho their new home.

“Both the suburbs and downtown Boise have attracted development. Over the summer tenants began moving into the 11-story Banner Bank Building, billed as downtown Boise's first new high-end office building since 1999. In addition, last year the city gained a $60 million mixed-use project called BoDo, a name derived from Boise downtown and inspired in part by Denver's revitalized LoDo, or lower downtown, neighborhood.”

The BoDo is renovating not just Boise but metropolitan Midwestern cities in general. The thought that a new cultural downtown area would ruin the history of such cities is waning in the sun.

Perhaps Carson City or Santa Fe could be next.

Back to Articles