Treasure Valley expecting more home sales records

BOISE – The region surrounding Idaho’s capital is expected to post another record for single-family home sales and prices in 2005, as more jobs and still relatively affordable prices lure new residents from California and Nevada.

In the first six months, Treasure Valley home sales rose 26 percent to more than $1.2 billion and prices averaged more than $213,000, a 10 percent rise from the same period in 2004, according to the Intermountain Listing Service.

That has the industry predicting full-year numbers will easily surpass those of last year, when the total value of homes sold in Idaho’s most populous region surpassed $2.2 billion.

Even though housing costs are climbing, Idaho home prices haven’t risen as fast as the national average of 12.5 percent and trail far behind markets on the west and east coasts, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said recently.

In addition, Idaho’s economy is creating jobs at the sixth-fastest rate in the nation.

Both of these factors are helping to boost the Treasure Valley real estate market, as large home-building companies from Texas and Florida are moving to the southwestern Idaho and buying up land for building projects.

One company has already acquired 2,800 acres of land that it plans to develop, said Wayne Forrey, a Boise-based real estate consultant with Pathway Development. He declined to name the companies.

“They began looking at Boise when they realized that it was growing faster than Salt Lake City,” Forrey said, adding this purchase has served to drive up the cost of other properties for sale.

Single-family residential building permits issued in Idaho during the second quarter of 2005 increased by nearly 44.9 percent from a year earlier.