Meridian Idaho Real Estate Statistics–2010

Below you will find statistics regarding the real estate activity during the month of February:

Closed Sales – February 2010
# Closed: 108
% Change: +31.7%

Average Sales Price: $185,052
% Change: -8.9%

Median Sales Price: $160,744
% Change: -12.4%

Closed Sales – February 2009
# Closed: 82
Average Sales Price: $203,049
Median Sales Price: $183,400

Pending Sales
# Pending: 250
Average Asking Price: $188,249
Median Asking Price: $169,000

Available Homes
# Available: 1,000
# Vacant: 575
Vacant Percent: 57.5%
Average Asking Price: $198,957
Median Asking Price: $174,900

Data does not include condominiums or townhomes. Data taken from Intermountain MLS on3/5/10 and pertains to single-family residences on lot or acreage.

source: boiseblog.com

To search the MLS real time Click Here
To obtain a free market evaluation for your home Click Here
To chat with Matthew Le Baron Click Here

OVER 406 BANK OWNED HOMES FOR SALE IN ADA COUNTY

As you probably know, there is a plethora of bank owned homes for sale in Boise, Meridian, Eagle, Kuna and Star.   Banks are motivated to sell and will typically price these distressed homes 10-30 percent under current market values.  Granted, most do need cosmetic work done prior to move-in such as new carpet, paint, lawn maintenanceand other misc items.  However, there are some bank owned property which the previous homeowner has taken it upon themselves to leave the residence in nasty shape by taking a sledge hammer to walls and doors along with pulling all appliances like the range, dishwasher, disposal and microwave (sometimes water heaters and furnaces, too).  Unless you would like to take on the costs, I suggest bypassing some of the bank owned homes on the market. 

It is also important to not look for only bank owned homes.  There are numerous non-distressed homes on the market (fair market sellers) that must sell.  These homes are priced competitively and do not need the improvements that a foreclosed upon home typically does.  With that, it is important to consider the costs of repairs when deciding whether to purchase a home which needs some love (yet is priced lower than the home down the street) or one that is turn key and ready to be moved into.

Bank owned homes will be prevelant in our market through 2010 and part of 2011.  Would you like a list of bank owned homes forwarded to you?  If so, send me an email with your contact info and I will provide a list of bank owned property currently on the market.

To search the MLS real time Click Here
To obtain a free market evaluation for your home Click Here
To chat with Matthew Le Baron Click Here

Meridian’s Portico mixed-use development marks milestone

Over the last 18 months, the mixed-use development in Meridian called Portico has leased 265,000 square feet of commercial space. That’s about 80 percent of the 327,849-square-foot project at the Eagle Road exit off I-84.

In a commercial real estate market as tough as it is today, development company Gardner Ahlquist has decided the achievement is something to celebrate. At 1:30 p.m. today, Feb. 4, Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter, Meridian Mayor Tammy deWeerd and other elected officials and corporate leaders plan to gather at the Portico West Building, 3277 E. Louise Drive, on the fourth floor to laud the progress.

“Here, in this anchor location of our med-tech economic development zone, Gardner Ahlquist Development has achieved something great and has demonstrated that an outstanding location and design can help commercial real estate thrive even in a soft economy,” De Weerd said in a Gardner Ahlquist release.

Tenants at the development include:

• St. Luke’s Meridian Medical Center, which purchased an 80,000-square-foot office building for use as an outpatient surgery center and physician offices

• Scentsy Inc., which is moving its headquarters into 67,000 square feet at Portico. Scentsy is a growing manufacturer, designer and marketer of scented, wickless candles

• ESI Construction, construction manager for the project, also moved its headquarters to Portico

• Saltzer Medical Group, which has leased and occupied a 20,000-square-foot office space for consolidation of two clinical locations, including 18 physicians

• A Buffalo Wild Wings restaurant

• Ling & Louie’s Asian Bistro, in a space that will be constructed soon. The restaurant will employ over 100 people.

Also planned is a 175-room upscale hotel from an Idaho-based hotelier. The hotel’s brand has not yet been announced.

Otter takes Portico’s successful leasing as a positive sign for Idaho.

“Meridian’s latest economic development success is one more important signal that the Idaho economy is going to be one of the turnaround stories of 2010 and 2011,” he stated.

Paramount sells 51 new homes in 2009

Boise-based developer Brighton Corp. is declaring 2009 a successful year for Paramount, its master-planned community in Meridian.

Fifty-one new homes sold in the community last year, and three new commercial tenants moved in – Walgreens, Edward Jones and Idaho Health Care Association/Idaho Center for Assisted Living.

2009’s residential total was up from 2008, when 43 homes were sold in Paramount. Seventy were sold in 2007 and 108 in 2006, according to numbers Brighton pulled from the Multiple Listing Service.

“We’re very happy with ‘09, and we hope the momentum will continue,” Brighton Marketing Coordinator Angie Dilmore said.

A total of over 400 homes have been sold in the development, where 1,200 homes are planned. It is bounded by Chinden Boulevard and Linder, McMillan and Meridian roads.

*IBR

Commercial Construction Uncertain for 2010

The end-of-year totals for construction employment aren’t in yet, but not many would say 2009 was a good year for the construction industry.

The number of people employed in the Idaho construction industry was 33,300 in October 2009, the most recent data available. That’s down 36.5 percent from October 2007, when 52,500 Idahoans had jobs in construction, according to the Idaho Department of Labor.

Nationwide, about one in five construction workers is without a job.

So the hope is that 2010 will bring an end to the drop-off in construction projects and jobs. But industry experts aren’t seeing signs of that turnaround.

“There’s no telling what’s going to happen as far as the number of jobs,” said Bob Fick, spokesman for the labor department. “A lot of it could depend on the whole business about the commercial end of the construction bubble bursting; if that occurs, that would have an impact.”

Fick said the department’s projection is that construction employment levels will not be back at pre-recession levels until after 2025. Growth in the industry will be fueled by population growth.

For now, Idaho is in the same boat as the rest of the country, waiting for growth to catch up to the last construction boom.

At a Boise meeting of the Urban Land Institute, a group for those in the development industry, ULI’s Vice President Dean Schwanke offered some advice for 2010: “Don’t develop anything,” he said. “You’ll be better off than if you do.”

In an interview, Torry McAlvain, president of Boise-based McAlvain Group of Companies, said he agreed with Schwanke’s assessment. The demand just isn’t there.

He said he thinks 2010 will be the worst year in the 30-year history of his construction company, with staff layoffs possible if things don’t pick up.

McAlvain just finished up a two-and-a-half year project building the underground wings of the Idaho State Capitol, which he called a fantastic project.

“You hate to see a project like that end,” he said. “In our industry, we’re always looking for projects that are multiyear-type projects. Those are good for our industry.”

He said a lot of the contracts out there now are for three- to eight-month projects.

McAlvain also scored a $15 million contract in early 2009 to construct the Orchard Interchange on Interstate 84, funded by Grant Anticipation Revenue Vehicle, or GARVEE, bonds. New contracts like that will be fewer and farther in between in 2010.

Tom Cole of the Idaho Transportation Department said next year will be a good year for highway contractors when you consider the projects already awarded and under way, but there won’t be many big new projects put out for bid in 2010.

There will, however, be a number of smaller jobs, like pavement rehabilitation and bridgework around the state.

“I wouldn’t say next year’s going to be a bad year,” Cole said. “The following year’s going to be very questionable because of lack of funding for big improvement-type projects.”

He said even if funding comes through, either from an additional federal stimulus or from new state money, big contracts won’t immediately become available.

“One of the problems is that a lot of jobs take a fair amount of time to get the design done,” he said. “You’ve got to do the environmental documentation, you’ve got to buy the right-of-way, and that takes quite a bit of time, so if we didn’t have those projects ready to go, the jobs we’d be looking at would be bridges, pavement restoration, things like that – not adding capacity, not new interchanges. We have very few of those left because we haven’t had the funds available to do them, so we don’t have the design ready to go.”

The state’s transportation board is planning to ask the state legislature for additional GARVEE funding in the upcoming legislative session. The board approved a $45 million request in October, but that amount has decreased in response to savings on other GARVEE projects and changing cost estimates. Cole said anyone’s guess is a good guess as to whether or not the legislature will agree to the transportation board’s recommendation.

Kate McCaslin, CEO and president of the Inland Pacific chapter of the trade group Associated Builders and Contractors, said another federal stimulus is unlikely given the national deficit.

For now, about a third of the first stimulus package’s funds have been spent. But the money will eventually be gone, leaving a gap in construction financing that will be difficult to fill given the state of construction financing.

“The credit markets are frozen, and until the credit markets fall and banks start lending again, this country is going to be in deep, deep trouble,” she said.

She said the regulation pendulum has swung, and regulators are now telling lenders they don’t want to see any construction or real estate loans on the books, even for good projects.

Meridian-based ESI’s Vice President Neil Nelson said his company has enough of a retail, government and industrial backlog that he’s not too worried about 2010. Most of ESI’s work next year will be out of state.

Nelson said the biggest risk in the near future is subcontractor bankruptcies and failure to pay suppliers. And while he is encouraged by his own company’s backlog, he knows commercial construction is not headed for a quick recovery next year.

“The industry in general is going to be tough,” he said. “Architectural and design billings are still declining or flat at best. There was a slight increase in October and November, but that slight increase doesn’t necessarily make a trend. And if they’re not designing, we’re not building.”

 

Brought to you be IBR

Another Perspective on the Market Turn-Around . . .

Dani Grigg with IBR wrote a blog which I wanted to pass along.  It discusses alternate perspectives which are interesting:

If you walk down any given street in the U.S., odds are that one in every four homes you pass is worth less than what the owner owes on his or her mortgage.

In Idaho it’s almost as bad, with one in five homes under water, according to data from First American Core Logic, a real estate information company based in California.

I don’t know the numbers for the whole state, but median home prices in Ada County have been falling pretty steadily since mid-2006. This autumn they were down 37 percent since the peak in July 2006.

It’s a dangerous situation for homeowners who have to sell.

And it’s a headache for real estate agents, who have to deal with the long process and scanty payback of getting a bank to accept an offer that is less than what the owner owes.

I talked to a real estate agent this week who thinks the market doesn’t have to be this way.

If the community’s homebuyers would agree to stop approaching home sales with an eye to hack the price down to a fraction of its original size (I know another agent who calls this “raping” the seller), values would stop falling. Nearby homes would be able to be listed at prices more in tune with what the owner owes and with what the house is worth, according to some.

And he said others have a role to play as well: sellers should try to keep homes off the market, appraisers should give a property credit for every dollar of its worth, banks should start prices higher, and brokers and agents should stop accepting low-ball offers.

He talked about a home in Meridian that was purchased for $300,000 a few years ago, but is now listed at $190,000. He said he knows the listing agent would accept an offer as low as $170,000.

If we want to see an end to the real estate carnage and short-sale fever, that’s got to stop, he said.

I can’t speak for sellers, appraisers, banks or agents, but I think I can speak for buyers. I’m one of them.

It’s short-sighted of me, but getting the market back on track is the least of my worries.

I am thinking about purchasing my first home in time to qualify for the $8,000 tax credit, but my price cap is low. If I can find a house in my price range that is in a safe neighborhood, I’m going to take it. If that house really shouldn’t be in my price range – I’m OK with that. I’m leaving it up to the banks and the sellers’ agents to look out for everyone else’s interests. That’s their job, not mine. My future children will grow up in a neighborhood where they are safe, and that’s my top priority.

I think most buyers have a similar perspective.

And I hope that doesn’t make us “rapists” – hopefully we can just be labeled as we see ourselves: Lucky.

Nampa launches free downtown WiFi

Sweat Equity on the Rise!!

Jim and Kristina have taken advantage of the real estate market.

At the start of 2009 this couple sold their home in Meridian with the intention of moving to California to be near family. After months and months of looking at several homes in the Golden State, the couple became discouraged and began to sense that Boise Idaho’s pricing, along with quality of living, was too good to pass up. With that, Jim, Kristina and I began a search for their new home.

New construction, short sales, bank-owned property and occupied homes alike all had positives and negatives. When the dust settled, however, the couple found that a well-built bank-owned property within a cozy community fit the bill very nicely. Although the floors were ratty, the paint distasteful and curb appeal lacking, the home had much potential. The kitchen was open and bright with plenty of cabinet space, the floor plan flowed with ease and the quality of construction was first rate. In 2006 this home would have sold for the mid 180’s but by working together, the Beans were able to make the purchase for only $130,000.

Jim and Kristina have always been “handy” people. In fact, while in California the couple spent many weeks helping their son and daughter construct their personal home. During this time, Jim and Kristina learned trades that included installing tile, hardwood flooring, siding-you name it!! The knowledge was definitely put to good use.

The work began. Kristina began stripping the countertops and laying tile. Jim started pulling the dirty carpet and ripped vinyl planning to lay a hickory floor. All the while, doing prep work for the full interior paint job. After nearly 30 days of sleeping on cots and eating cold dinners, the Beans completed their project and invited me over to see the results of their “sweat equity”.

I could hardly believe that it was the same home! The smell of fresh paint and lacquer was prevalent while Kristina excitedly directly me toward the kitchen. Granite and tile graced the middle island, countertops and backsplashes; the cabinetry was antiqued while the stainless steel appliances topped it off. “Wow!” I exclaimed. Next, Jim spoke about the hickory flooring that was laid throughout the first floor. It was gorgeous and only cost $1,000 for the material! Jim and Kristina were proud of their work and had every right to be.

Before leaving, Jim and I discussed the market and what the home might sell for right now. At least $150,000, I mentioned, if not more. Jim stated that he and Kristina had put $2,000 (plus or minus) into material and couldn’t be more thrilled that they had realistically made $16,000 for their time. “In a year or so, Matt, we’ll be doing this again. And also, my kids down South are itching take advantage of the pricing around here”.

Meridian Homes