Sale of this Meridian home, bought 3 years ago for $500K, shows how ‘bananas’ market is
When a home down the road from Kelcie Moseley recently sold, the Meridian woman was shocked.
She’s watched as home prices have steadily risen the past few years as demand soared and supply dwindled, bringing record high prices in Ada County. But she wasn’t prepared for the amount the buyer paid for the six-bedroom, 3,790-square-foot house on the backside of Keith Bird Legacy Park and down the street from the new Meridian Costco.
$1.05 million.
That’s more than double what Moseley paid for her 2,200-square-foot house a year ago. And nearly double the $534,000 the sale house in the Bainbridge Park subdivision was assessed for by the Ada County Assessor’s Office.
“It’s just been bananas how much they’ve gone up,” Moseley said by phone.
Her astonishment led Moseley to tweet about the house, located at 5952 N. Botticelli Ave.
“Want a clear example of how absolutely (expletive) the Treasure Valley housing market is right now? This house in my subdivision assessed at $392,500 in 2018, and recently it sold on the first day it was listed for ... $1.08 million.”
Based on other recent sales that Kaysha Clark, an agent with Silvercreek Realty Group, had negotiated in that neighborhood, Clark believed she could get at least $995,000. Owner Shane Speakman agreed, so they prepared to list it at that price. But as they were signing the authorization papers, Clark had a change of heart.
“We signed the paperwork, but I was like, ‘Let’s just go $1.05 million,’” Clark said by phone. “’Who cares in this market. Let’s see if we get it.’ So we did.”
The two-story house was shown to potential buyers on a single weekend when Speakman and his family were on vacation. It was on the market for a day and a half before Speakman accepted the offer from the buyers, a Meridian couple who are downsizing.
“We were anticipating that we would have a barrage of interest, which is what happened,” Speakman said by phone.
“Crazy, isn’t it?”
Speakman, who works in the technology industry, paid Brighton Homes $500,000 for the house three years ago, when it was new. He said he spent between $20,000 and $30,000 on improvements.
“It’s not lost on me that this is a heck of an appreciation,” he said.
Ada County home prices set record again
The median price for homes sold in Ada County set yet another a record in January: $454,000, which was $19,100 above December’s mark, also a record, according to the Intermountain Multiple Listing Service. In the past five years, the median price in Idaho’s largest county has nearly doubled.
Meanwhile, the number of houses listed on the market continues to shrink. In January, there were 269 houses for sale, down from 333 in December.
In neighboring Canyon County, where prices have traditionally been much lower, January’s median of $338,490 was down $955 from December. It was the first time in a year that the Canyon County median did not set a record.
Until a year or so ago, homes priced more than $1 million took on average a year to sell. The number of buyers who could afford houses in that price range was much smaller than those looking at less-expensive homes, said Rick Gehrke, an agent with RE/Max Executives in Nampa who sells in both Ada and Canyon counties.
“Sometimes, there just wasn’t the demand for those,” Gehrke said by phone. “Now it’s dog eat dog, balls to the wall, Wild Wild West and tighten your seat belts, because it’s ruthless.”
This story was originally published February 13, 2021 at 4:00 AM.
