Boise Real Estate Blog

$4 a gallon gas is affecting the Boise real estate market.

I talk with a lot of buyers and sellers each week and I am hearing the same thing from many of them.

They are telling me that expensive gasoline is causing them to rethink where they want to live.

I recently showed a home in Eagle to prospective buyers from Horseshoe Bend who want to move to Eagle to be closer to work due to the cost of commuting.

The only thing holding them back is the home they must sell in Horseshoe Bend before they can buy here.

That could take awhile.

And, I am hearing similar comments from potential sellers who live in Star, Middleton, Kuna, and Nampa as they deal with the cost of commuting to jobs in Boise.

Makes you wonder what it’s like to live in Nampa, fight the traffic on I-84 in rush hour, and pay $4 a gallon for gas while working for $11/hour and paying for child care.

If you’re looking for a home to rent, be careful.

The rental market is full of homes owned by investors who never intended to be landlords.

Many of those owners live out-of-state and rushed in to buy homes on speculation during our formerly hot market, then failed to sell and get rich before things cooled down.

Now, they’re absentee landlords with little or no property management experience.

Some of them can’t afford to pay 8-10% of each month’s rent for professional property management, so they try to manage their rental properties from a distance.

That can lead to poor maintenance, lax tenant screening, and other problems.

And, many of those owners are still trying to sell their properties while renting them.

If you rent a home that’s for sale, you’ll have to deal with the intrusion of Realtors ^® showing the home and you’ll have to move if the owner finds a buyer.

The worst case can occur when a rental home goes into foreclosure.

In some instances, the renter will not know the property is in foreclosure until they are evicted after the property has been foreclosed.

There are reputable investors and landlords out there.

It’s best to rent from them.

Am I the only one who giggles when yet another “expert” predicts the precise moment when the housing market will recover?

Depending upon the expert du jour, we can select from the following:

• Tomorrow
• Next week
• Next month
• Fall 2008
• Spring 2009
• Fall 2009
• Sometime in 2010
• Sometime in 2011
• Sometime in 2012

I had a thought the other day (didn’t even hurt!).

What if there is no recovery?

What if this is it?

What if . . .

• Demand remains lower that expected?
• Supply eventually equals demand?
• Prices stabilize at affordable levels?
• The speculators/flippers lick their wounds and move on to the next big thing?
• Credit tightens further and buyers have to have a substantial down payment, stellar credit, and be able to afford the home they’re buying?
• Homes appreciate at 2-3% annually like they did five years ago?
• People once again buy a home to live in instead of using it as their personal ATM?

What if this IS the future?

My best guess?

If you’re waiting for “Back To 2005”, it’s going to be a long wait!

It’s important for home buyers in the Boise real estate market to understand soil conditions and the risks associated with them.

Much of the Boise area has an underlying layer of clay just beneath the soil’s surface.

That layer of clay prevents surface water from being absorbed, and can result in that water moving in “sheets” above the layer of clay.

Sounds kinda technical, right?

Well, here’s what it means (in plain English) to you as a homeowner.

If your home doesn’t have proper drainage, you can end up with moisture in your crawl space and perhaps mold.

Mold is the kiss of death in real estate.

Once you have mold in your home, you must disclose it (material fact) to all future buyers, and most of them will run away after they hear about it.

And, if you file a water damage claim with your insurance company, your home will likely get listed on the national CLUE database, which can result in not being able to get insurance in the future, which may result in future buyers not being able to obtain financing when you want to sell.

Not to mention that it’s very expensive to remediate mold problems these days.

Moisture in crawl spaces can be avoided through some common-sense practices, including:

Watering Your Lawn Sensibly

I often see homes where the lawns are being over-watered.

It’s often best to water once/day at 6:00 a.m., with less water.  You don’t need to water two or three times a day for 30 minutes per station.

Directing Rain Water Away From Your Foundation

Here are some examples of downspouts that I see:

Least Desirable

Better

Best

The last option is the best one with the rain water being piped to a dry well (a pit full of drain rock that penetrates the layer of clay) away from the home.

It’s also desirable to have full gutters on your home to avoid rain water running directly off the roof and being absorbed into the ground adjacent to the foundation.

This is an example of a home without full gutters that is more likely to cause moisture in the crawl space.

BTW – you’ve seen those chain downspouts, right?

Well, I have them on my home and I’m way kewl, but they don’t work very well.

The water doesn’t follow the chains when it rains hard, and the gushing water blows the bark/rock away when it finally hits the ground.

Hope this helps ~ now get your mind out of the gutter, will ya?

I am sometimes amused by the public’s fascination with global warming.

We could use a little global warming in the Boise area about now.

It feels like we are experiencing global cooling this year, compliments of La Nina.

This has been the coolest Winter I have seen since moving here more than seven years ago.

I arrived on September 1, 2000 and the next four days ranged between 112 to 115 degrees.

I wondered what I had gotten myself into, but soon realized that was an aberration.

This year is quite a contrast from previous years when the trees began budding out in early Spring.

Here we are on April 17^th and the trees are just now starting to bud.

I have a few daffodils and tulips showing their stuff, but my grass is just now starting to green up.

I wonder what our Summer will be like this year?

Will we have the usual number of hot days, or will it be cooler this year?

The nice thing about living here is that we have four distinct seasons without any of the extremes that many areas experience.