Real estate agents are selling houses locally, but it is not easy, said Ti Smack, a Realtor at Group One in Eagle.
Here are some of the things he and Realtor Michelle Ward say about selling now:
"The key to selling your house in the current market is having it in mint condition and pricing it to sell," Smack said.
If you bought your house when prices were highest, you must be prepared to sell it for less than you paid for it. "The key is to get it 5 percent to 10 percent below market price and to have it in mint condition, and then you'll get it sold," he said.
"It has never been harder to sell your home. You have to listen to what they say about how to price your home correctly."
Staging will go a long way toward helping a house sell, Ward said. Staging is making sure a house looks good to potential buyers. That includes decor, paint and carpet, sometimes everything down to the knicknacks and the pictures on the walls.
Dozens of expensive Eagle homes with views, high-end appliances, lots of bathrooms and other fancy features are caught in a foreclosure trap.
In 2007, 101 homes in Eagle had dates set with auctioneers because owners couldn't pay their mortgages. Eagle, with a population of 21,000, has one in 20 Ada County residents, but had one of every eight foreclosure filings last year.
The trend shows no sign of slowing in 2008. Halfway through February, 44 homes already are in the same plight, according to a database of foreclosure properties compiled by Charlie Nate of IdahoDataProviders.com.
Families, investors and builders have been hurt.
Take Justin Walker, owner of Crestwood Inc. Crestwood built houses, mainly for investors, during the good times leading up to summer 2006, when the market began to sputter.
As values dropped, many buyers broke their promises to buy, he said. "I can't get ahold of half of them," Walker said.
On one database, Crestwood is listed as the owner of 15 homes somewhere on the road to foreclosure. The actual number is closer to 20, Walker said.
The money Crestwood owes for each home ranges from a low of $228,000 up to $800,000 for a luxury home in the Two Rivers subdivision along the Boise River.
He said he could sue the people who were supposed to buy his houses, go through long legal battles, win - and end up with buyers who can't qualify for loans.
The biggest problem now is that banks are increasingly conservative about lending money, he said. He doesn't expect that to change for a year or two.
"I don't know the outcome of Crestwood, but it doesn't look good," Walker said.
Even prime properties have gone begging for buyers.
One advertisement on boise craigslist, all in capital letters, says: "SHORT SALE. LOWEST PRICE APPROVED BY BANK ... CAN NOT GO ANY LOWER. HOME OPEN DAILY. "
This 3,562-square-foot home, in Eagle's BanBury subdivision, was built in 2007. It has banks of windows looking out on the 15th hole of the golf course. No one has lived in it.
"BanBury is the premier golf course in Boise, maybe in all of Idaho," said Realtor Michelle Ward of Boise, who is trying hard to sell the home for a builder who since has left town.
The price is $588,000. This past summer, it was $679,000.
For the money, you get not only the view, the clubhouse, the community lake and other features, but a house with alder cabinets, granite countertops, upscale appliances and an upstairs bonus room with its own bath and closet.
It is one of at least 32 homes for sale in the subdivision and is among several recently in or headed toward foreclosure.
Ward is aiming for a short sale. That means the home is mortgaged for more than it is worth in a depressed market, and the lender is willing to accept less than the loan amount to sell the house.
When a lender forecloses on a home, the property can be sold at auction. But auctions for the kind of high-end houses Eagle has in abundance aren't drawing much interest.
A recent auction at Pioneer Title Co. in Boise offered an $880,000 house in the fancy Two Rivers subdivision between the north and south channels of the Boise River. The minimum bid was the default amount: $557,916, plus interest, late fees and foreclosure costs.
The auction was postponed at the last minute, a common occurrence as homeowners scramble to save their homes or file for bankruptcy. But no one went away disappointed from this auction, because no came to bid in the first place.
"In today's market, who is the buyer?" asked Tim Burroughs, of Keller-Williams Realty in Boise. "The local person is not your buyer anymore."
And the influx of people from out of state has dried up.
Sometimes, homeowners can avoid losing their homes by making a deal with their lenders to take less money than they owe. But some don't even try.
"Some people just pack up and leave," Burroughs said, "and sometimes they just leave everything, and neighbors would say, 'No, we haven't seen any moving vans come by or anything. They just gave up. ' "
Burroughs said he is trying to sell a house for an out-of-state investor who bought it after Forbes and other magazine rankings put the Boise area in the national spotlight.
It's no surprise the house is not selling, he said.
The home has a problem: It backs up to Ten Mile Road, which is scheduled for widening and possibly other road work. Burroughs said his client was misled by another real estate agent.
He was told, according to Burroughs, that, "'You've got to buy this. It's going to sell before it even gets finished.' Unless you got that in your fortune cookie today, how would you even know that?"
Burroughs said he has tried to discourage people from taking out loans beyond their means, even when the money was easy to get. "I don't want to be the reason that when you come home on the 25th of the month that you can't afford a Domino's pizza."
Under current conditions, it would take almost seven years to sell all the homes in the Eagle area priced at $1 million or more, according to December statistics provided by the Group One real estate company. That assumes no one builds more homes or puts existing homes on the market.
But Dan Dixon of Holland Realty, who has been in the business for 28 years, says Eagle will pull out of its slump eventually.
"We are going to be OK in the long run," he said. "We just have to endure this in the meantime."
Colleen LaMay: 377-6448
