Boise Real Estate’s Long Road To Recovery: Part II
Reduced Listing Inventory
If you’ve tried to find a clean, sharp, closeable home in the Boise market lately, you know the choices are few with less than a four-month supply of listing inventory.
We are continuing to absorb our listing inventory steadily, even during our usually-slower Winter market.
I am not expecting a significant increase in our listing inventory anytime soon; not even this coming Spring.
New Construction
New home construction is returning to the valley; albeit in a measured way due to tighter construction lending practices and fewer builders who survived the downturn.
Many buyers are opting for new homes, even if they have to await completion, because they can’t find the home they want in the resale market.
Low Interest Rates
You can get a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage these days for less than 4%.
Today’s interest rates are the lowest we’ve seen in the past several decades.
Affordability
When you consider today’s drastically lower home prices, combined with today’s interest rates, it quickly becomes apparent that it’s cheaper to own your own home than rent in many instances.
A Different Breed of Buyer
I an encouraged to see people buying homes for the right reasons now.
Today’s buyers are buying homes to live in; not to use as their personal ATM while refinancing every year so they can spend their (false) equity on toys they don’t need.
The speculators are gone from today’s market and that’s very healthy in the long term.
Conclusion
The Boise real estate market’s road to recovery continues to be long and winding.
But, we’re very fortunate to be emerging from a market downturn that was nowhere near as severe as that experienced in other parts of the country.
The market we have is the market we have (and it’s pretty darned good compared to most!)
And, I think it’s the market we will have for the foreseeable future.
Welcome to the “new normal”!
January 3rd, 2012 Posted in Inside Real Estate |
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