Boise September 2023 Market Update

Before we jump into the numbers of the specific home prices and what's happening there, let's look at the national information, the national data that's driving, of course, local prices here. Obviously, the big thing is going to be mortgage rates.

Mortgage rates are currently sitting at 7.3 percent. Now, inflation had come down, dropped all the way down to three percent, but it's back on the rise, up to 3.7 percent. That's certainly an indicator and a driver of mortgage rates.

The FED just met and said they are going to hold interest rates steady at the moment, so we'll see where things play out. However, a couple of weeks ago, mortgage rates spiked suddenly from about seven percent to seven and a half percent, and that really slowed things down. We're seeing those numbers start to show up in the actual data.

Now, again, mortgage rates are sitting right now around 7.3 percent. They had fallen and come back to 7.3 percent, holding steady there for a while now. So, that is driving the numbers right now.

Now, the home prices in the Boise area, Ada County, which is Boise, Meridian, Eagle, Star, and Kuna, they fell from $540,000 to $520,000. Now, that is a blended average of single-family homes of existing resale and new construction. Existing resale actually got hit the hardest, falling from $540,000 to $510,000.

New construction homes actually did better; they rose from $545,000 up to $552,000. So, you know you have to remember that Ada County overall is a smaller market, so there can be swings quite a bit. It's never just a smooth ride up or down; it's bouncy up or down.

Now, Canyon County, also an even smaller market, fared actually quite well. The average home price, median home price, was $405,000, and both existing and new construction were basically pretty level. So, everything's level right now in Canyon County.

A big number I like to look at is the final sales to list price. This shows us, on average, what did all the homes list for, and then what did they ultimately sell for, either over or under. Now, a balanced market is considered about 98. Anything above that tends to swing into a seller's market, below that into a buyer's market.

Right now, for both counties, we're sitting over 99—99.3 percent for Ada and 99.8 percent for Canyon County. That means that overall, homes are not actually experiencing too many price reductions on average, a little bit, but not overall.

What does this mean for you if you're looking to sell a home right now? It means, more importantly than ever, you have to be aggressive on your pricing. If you overprice your home, your home is going to sit on the market; you're going to experience price reductions, and you're going to be frustrated, and maybe you won't sell your home at all. So, ideally, what you want to do is underprice your home.

It's going to get more buyers looking at your home online, and it's going to turn into more showings and more offers. For showings, I see one offer come in, so the more showings you can drive on the home, the more offers you're going to get.

Now, if you are looking to buy a home, of course, that means that we need to come up with a specific strategy for each home that you're looking at buying. Some homes could be overpriced, some could be underpriced; we just have to go after that specifically. Just to note, for new construction homes, there are some promos that builders are offering. It's just going to vary depending on the builder.

Just reach out to me; I can gather that information for you if I don't have it already, and we can figure out what the best promos are that's going to work for you. With the right builder, they don't always disclose it upfront, so we really got to probe and ask and get all those credits for you to get that done.

Now, what a lot of builders are doing right now is they're preferring to offer credits and incentives rather than lower the price because if they lower the price on homes in their subdivision, it lowers the value overall, and they lose quite a bit of money, and the home sellers actually lose a lot of money too because of lower prices overall. So, it's actually a good thing to keep the prices there and then give credits.

So, if you are looking to buy or sell a home here in the Treasure Valley, all you've got to do is reach out via phone, text, or email. Looking forward to working with you. I'll see you on the next video.