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BOISE — So you think you want to buy a house in Boise? Where the region’s median home prices are at record highs, construction is still below precrash levels and West Coast ex-pats are flocking in, flush with cash and amazed at all the real estate “bargains”?
Buckle your seat belt. And take a little hard-earned advice from Mike Daniels.
He is 47, a blue-collar worker and Chicago native who fell in love with Boise, wanted to buy a house on a tree-lined street in the City of Trees and grow old here with his wife, Dee.
Sadly, the capital of the fastest-growing state in America played hard to get. Because it could.
In June 2017, the middle of the Daniels’ home search, 35 percent of the houses sold in Ada County went for more than their list price. One in five was sold for cash. Houses were spending less time on the market than they had since 2006, the climax of the last housing boom.
Realtors and home seekers decried the lack of inventory. That problem, they say, has only gotten worse this year. The result? In Ada County, the median home price in March was $308,950, up more than $11,000 since February and 24 percent higher than the previous March. Only four houses countywide, all used, sold for less than $160,000 that month.
And neighboring Canyon County, the Treasure Valley’s low-cost alternative, saw March’s median home price rise 21 percent over the year before, to $211,945.
Everyone has a tale of woe: The agent who wrote nine offers for three buyers but only one was accepted. The downsizing homeowner who sold his house and can’t find another to save his life.
And the Danielses. The first house the couple tried to buy was a modest bungalow in the wildly popular North End. They offered the asking price: $269,900. They got into a three-way bidding war and upped their bid to $280,000. It still did not end well.
“We ended up losing, we found out afterward, to someone who paid only $500 more,” Daniels said. “But it was a cash buyer. My wife was really upset. She was, I don’t want to say heartbroken, but she was emotional.”
To read the full story, visit the Idaho Statesman.
