Valley's home inventory shrinks, but so do sales

One agent says reducing the number of available homes is 'key to turning this market around.'

BY JOE ESTRELLA - jestrella@idahostatesman.com

Published: 09/13/08


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Treasure Valley housing sales figures for August contained a few nuggets of goods news for the second consecutive month, despite another decline in year-over-year transactions.

According to the latest Intermountain Multiple Listing Service statistics, the inventory of available homes for sale in the area fell 9 percent in August, to 7,168 from 7,889 the previous month.

"That's going to be the key to turning this market around," said Shaun Tracy, associate realtor with Re/Max Capital City. "We have too much supply for the demand that exists. Until we can come into balance, we won't start building any momentum."

Mike Pennington, residential specialist with John L. Scott Real Estate, said the market is already showing signs of gathering steam because of a lack of new construction.

"That's going to drive people into the existing home market, and that will help clean up a lot of the remaining inventory," he said.

Others, however, continued to insist that the MLS numbers do not accurately reflect the actual number of homes for sale because they don't include condominiums, townhomes, manufactured housing or trailer homes. When those numbers are factored in, the local inventory numbers swell to 8,468, said Heinrich Wiebe of Wiebe Modern Realty.

"There are different ways to skin a cat, depending on how you want to slant things," Wiebe said.

According to the MLS, 657 homes sold in the Treasure Valley last month, a 23 percent decline from the comparable period a year ago. Ada County recorded 472 transactions, about 22 percent fewer than a year ago, while Canyon County's 185 sales were off 11 percent from August 2007.

Home values continued to fall in Ada County, where the August median price of $200,000 represented a one-month decline of 5 percent from $210,00 in July.

Canyon County fared a little better, as its August median price of $141,900 was 1.3 percent higher than in July.

Joe Estrella: 377-6465

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