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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.

Housing Conference Looks At Idaho's Market

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A two-day conference that starts Tuesday in Boise will address everything from housing trends to homelessness. The Idaho Housing and Finance Association’s Conference on Housing and Economic Development is the largest of its kind in Idaho.

Kevin Harper is with IHFA. He says the conference is important to anyone in the housing, economic development and business communities. “It’s of interest to a lot of real estate agents and brokers, mortgage brokers, bankers, lenders, builders and pretty much any business affected by those businesses as well, so it’s a pretty big deal.”

The conference will also look at technological and business trends, cyber crime, non-profits and how the upcoming elections could affectthe housing market.

“We like to get an idea of where the housing market’s headed. Everyone wants to know how are the demographics in the state of Idaho changing and how is that going to impact the housing market, and those are the kinds of things the conference is about.”

Harper says IHFA’s goal is to provide funding for affordable housing opportunities. Last year, the organization financed 5,800 new mortgages.

More than 600 people from 13 states have signed up to talk about where the housing market is headed in Idaho.

Harper says the conference happens every three years.

Find Samantha Wright on Twitter @samwrightradio

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As Senior Producer of our live daily talk show Idaho Matters, I’m able to indulge my love of storytelling and share all kinds of information (I was probably a Town Crier in a past life!). My career has allowed me to learn something new everyday and to share that knowledge with all my friends on the radio.

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