This headline is completely misleading.
No, home prices in Boise and Idaho are not more expensive than in San Francisco, Portland, or Seattle.
BOISE — It’s official: Home prices in Boise rose at a faster rate than in any other of the 100 largest metropolitan areas in the U.S. over the 12 months ending in September, a federal agency reported Tuesday.
Home prices increased 11.1 percent, according to the Federal Housing Financing Agency.
And it wasn’t just Boise. Idaho topped the 50 states and the District of Columbia with an increase of 11.6 percent. Arizona and Maine were next at 7.9 percent, following by Utah at 7.8 percent.
The Mountain region, one of nine divisions used by the U.S. Census Bureau, registered the largest regional increase in home values at 6.9 percent, the report said.
Boise’s increase edged out Tuscon, Ariz., (10.3 percent), Honolulu (9.9 percent), and Grand Rapids, Mich., (9 percent).
“It’s not surprising that we have the highest appreciation, because we’ve been quoting a 12 percent increase,” said Rick Gehrke, a real estate agent with RE/Max Executives in Nampa who sells in both Ada and Canyon counties. “There’s places in North Boise higher than 12 percent.”
The median price of 999 homes sold in Ada County in October was $352,000, according to a report from Boise Regional Realtors. That was up $2,000 from September, but $3,000 less than the record-setting $355,000 in August.
In Canyon County, the median price of 530 homes sold in October was $254,900. That tied a record set in August.
“Buyers are coming from everywhere, I can tell you that,” Gehrke said. “A lot of people are coming from California, a lot from Nevada, surprisingly.”
Boise continues to get positive press around the country. One of the latest examples is a writer’s account in Business Insider of her four-day visit to downtown.
“Coming from New York City, I can certainly see the appeal of Boise: It’s a manageable size, yet it has everything you need,” Katie Warren wrote. “And I don’t think I’ve ever visited another city where the residents — perhaps partly because many of them came from big cities like Los Angeles and Seattle — are so unabashedly delighted to live there.”
Via the Idaho Statesman