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00000176-d8fc-dce8-adff-faff71570000The Boise-metro market was hardest hit in Idaho's housing crisis, with foreclosures concentrated in Ada and Canyon Counties.Idaho’s housing boom was centered around its two main metropolitan areas, Boise and Coeur d’Alene.John Starr of the global real estate company Colliers International had a front-row seat as capital poured into the local housing markets in the years preceding the bust.When he thinks of the early 2000s, he remembers watching land prices rise with demand, and house lots shrink. What the area wound up with, he says, were more and more subdivisions, packed tight with houses.Census data show that the state’s population grew by more than 28 percent from 1990 to 2000, and by more than 20 percent from 2000 to 2010. Starr said that's due in large part to growth at Micron Technology. That growth, in turn, fueled Idaho's housing boom.“The reason we were doubling the national average growth rate was we were moving in a whole bunch of people that we couldn’t produce here in Idaho, namely electrical engineers and so forth to work at Micron. The data points that people were looking at that were helping them make decisions about coming to Boise and deploying capital and building and helping us grow – those data points were skewed.” - John Starr, Colliers InternationalAccording to Metrostudy, a housing and data information company, Boise’s housing market began to bottom out in 2009.

Little By Little, Idaho's Hard-Hit Housing Market Begins To Revive

Housing development in Meridian, Idaho.
Molly Messick
/
StateImpact Idaho
Housing development in Meridian, Idaho.

Idaho was hit hard in the housing crash.  For the better part of three years, the state’s foreclosure rate was one of the highest in the nation.  The Boise area saw the worst of it.  That means it’s been a while since this scene played out with any kind of regularity.

Lynne Smith pushes open the door of the home she’ll move into in just a couple of weeks. "This is it!" she says.  "It’s just nice to come in and look around and say, 'Oh, this is going to be my house!'"

It’s brand new.  It even smells new.

"I can’t wait," Smith says.  "You know, it’s just me and my son, and he’s already picking out the paint colors for his room... It’s just really nice.  He’s super excited about it."  Continue reading...

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