BOISE, Idaho — On this week’s edition of Growing Idaho, we are not going to try to predict the future of Idaho's housing market. That's impossible and dangerous to put faith in. Just like meteorologists don’t "predict" the weather. But what we are going to, just like meteorologists, is "forecast" instead. We’ll forecast the future of Idaho's housing market.
Right now, things are starting to look up for a possibly pleasant end of spring for the market. Here locally, we're seeing a warming front of more people buying and selling homes. That's despite a wave of pressure from high interest and prices, pushing out that housing affordability we enjoyed.
When did we enjoy that? According to a study from RealtyHop, 1970 was pretty nice. They said, in the Treasure Valley, the median household income was $9,858, but the median home value was only $15,900. Also, in 2022, according to their numbers, in the Treasure Valley, the median household income was about $95,461, but the median home value was $401,800. Bottom line, the market is 2.61 times more expensive for Millennials and Gen Z than it was for Baby Boomers. That's not even that awful compared to other states. That's only 28th worst in the nation.
Here’s the major housing market plotted out here, from 1970 to 2022, with population growth along the bottom and the unaffordability multiple running up. You see these major tech hubs, in California, Portland, Seattle, and Boise and the Treasure Valley just outside that very top of the unaffordability index. But it’s still up there. How can we keep up better? Experts say, inventory.
We just need more homes available.
There's good news in the latest home building trends. Home Solutions looked at data from the U.S. Census and the National Association of Home Builders. Idaho saw 891 construction permits last year. That's a 69% increase from the year before, ranking Idaho 8th in the country. The national average was 43%. So, that huge front of home building should bring a warmer affordability market to our doorstep, right? Absolutely not.
Here's your Seven First Alert Home Values Forecast where the harsh reality is always in view. SmartSurvey used 8 years of data from Zillow and the Bureau of Labor Statistics to forecast what the median house price would be in Idaho in 2030. That's forecasted to be a sweltering $879,313, with a personal income forecasted to be a chilly $50,047. That gives us a 17.6 house to income ratio, which would be 5th highest in the nation.
Remember, this is just a forecast, not a prediction, but the trends show housing affordability is headed in the wrong direction.
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