Boise’s housing market boomed early in the pandemic but now it is cooling fast, according to the Wall Street Journal…(WSJ)
Nicole Friedman writes that “The factors that made the Boise area so alluring, such as its relative affordability and its fewer pandemic restrictions, are less appealing now that prices have climbed and companies are calling workers back to their offices.”
- Nancy Vanden Houten, lead U.S. economist at Oxford Economics, ranked Boise as the least affordable U.S. housing market in the first quarter. “Too many buyers cannot afford housing in this market…Some markets have become much more overheated than others, and I don’t think we can rule out price declines in some of those areas.”
- Shauna Pendleton, a Boise real-estate agent for Redfin said when rates jumped over 5% it’s like someone turned the lights off. “The buyers just disappeared off the face of the earth.”
Rising home prices aren’t always the upside everyone tends to think it is. Samia Islam, an economics professor at Boise State said Boise employers have trouble recruiting workers because they can’t afford housing. Thos who have been living in Boise have seen their property taxes climb alongside home values.