Has Boise area’s house-price surge stopped? For better or worse, here’s the 2022 outlook
Phil Hoover thinks back to the spring, when houses for sale attracted a line of cars that stretched multiple blocks, garnered dozens of offers and sold frequently for more than $100,000 above the asking price.
“Those days are mostly gone,” Hoover said Friday by phone.
Hoover, a real estate broker for Phil Hoover Inc., described home prices as “flat” since the summer. In November, the median price of a single-family home in Ada County was $537,900, according to the Intermountain Multiple Listing Service. That’s a 0.7% increase from October’s median price of $533,950 and a 0.4% decrease from July’s price of $540,000.
Prices in Canyon County have followed a similar trend. The median price of a single-family home in Canyon County was $409,900 in November. The Canyon County price dropped 3% from October’s median price of $422,445. Compared with July’s $414,750, the median price is down 1.2%.
But prices are still up dramatically from a year ago. The largest price jumps mostly took place in the spring. Ada County’s median price is up 25.1% from November 2020’s $429,870. Canyon’s is up 25.9%.
New homes in Ada County broke the $600,000 median-price mark in November, an unthinkable figure not long ago. Local real estate agents see signs of slower price increases but not decreases. And at least one national authority says Boise is expected to have another year of extraordinary price increases in 2022.
From a historical perspective though, the November price in Ada County caught the attention of Realtor Lisa Kohl, of Keller Williams Realty Boise. She said prices in November typically decrease, so even though a $3,950 increase in median price may not seem like much, it’s an example of how much different the housing market has been this year.
Kohl said she hopes for prices to stabilize, because that would mean a “more of a level playing field” for buyers and sellers. But she said she doesn’t want to declare the recent trends a plateau.
“We still have some homes selling with multiple offers, especially if they’re priced well and they show well,” Kohl said by phone. “But then on the flip side of that, if something is overpriced or not marketed correctly, it sits. You have the tale of two worlds when you’re looking at some of these things.”
Kohl, like Hoover, said recent house sales have avoided the frenzy that took place in the spring. But they both calculated the supply of homes in both Ada and Canyon County to be close to one month’s worth, indicating a strong seller’s market. That means if no other houses entered the market, the entire supply would be sold in about a month. Typically in a balanced market, supply is between four to six months.
Nonetheless, buyers are slowly gaining ground. Homes spent an average of 29 days on the market in Ada County in November, compared with 23 in October. In Canyon County, the average days on the market in November were 31 compared with 26 in October. During the summer, the average time on the market in both counties was less than two weeks.
There were 471 single-family homes sold in November in Ada County, 23 fewer than there were in November 2020. But there were also more active listings (586 this year vs. 168 last year) and pending listings (961 this year vs. 898 last year).
The median price of an existing Ada County home dropped from $520,000 in October to $510,000 in November. For newly constructed Ada County homes, however, the price rose from $572,450 in October to $601,301 in November, a record price for newly constructed homes in 2021.
The primary driver of the high prices, based on year-over-year comparisons, is still low supply, Kohl and Hoover said. They said rising interest rates could also play a factor in prices.
“Last year we didn’t have any seasonality at all, because everything was just so on fire,” Kohl said. “Now we’re actually starting to see ‘Wow, yeah, we have some gains,’ but not quite as feverish in the market. That’s not a cause for concern in my opinion. We attribute that to normal seasonality.”
Predictions for 2022 housing market
With the new year approaching, it’s unknown what will happen next in Boise’s real estate market. But predictions are starting to emerge.
Earlier this week, Realtor.com listed Boise second in its list of top housing markets around the country in 2022. The cities on the list are “expected to see the strongest combined growth in home sales and listing prices among the 100 largest U.S. metros.”
Hoover said he thinks prices could stay steady through the winter, but it’s hard to predict what will happen in the spring because inventory is still low. That’s what played a major factor in 2021’s year-over-year double-digit percentage increases.
“I don’t think they’re going to return to that level,” Hoover said. “I think we’ll have more action next spring. But it’s unknown what level it’ll be.”
Kohl similarly anticipates some appreciation next year, but not 20% or 30% year-over-year increases. And she tells her clients to be realistic.
“That’s not reasonable, that’s not realistic and it’s not sustainable,” Kohl said. “We’ve seen some pretty big price increases but to expect to see that going into this year, especially with where things are at now, I would not say that’s a reasonable expectation.”
Other details from the latest monthly listing-service report:
▪ Of the 891 total homes sold in Ada County in November, only six sold for less than $300,000.
▪ Highest median prices: Eagle, $885,000; North Boise, $877,500; Northeast Boise, $783,215.
▪ Lowest median prices: Garden City, $308,813; Northwest Caldwell, $368,985; Parma, $398,900.
