First-quarter 2008 Treasure Valley single-family residential home sales plunged 37 percent from a year ago, according to industry statistics released Friday.
Experts said many homes that were sold in the last quarter of 2007 closed in the first quarter of 2008, but not enough to rescue the quarter.
"That tells you how dismal the first quarter of 2008 really was," said a real estate agent at John L. Scott Real Estate.
The Intermountain Multiple Listing Service, which tracks home sales, reported that 1,651 homes changed hands in Ada and Canyon counties from January through March, compared with 2,605 for the same period a year ago.
"I'd say that in the 14 years I've been selling real estate in the Treasure Valley, I don't think I've seen numbers as pitiful as they seem to be be," said an associate broker with Re/Max Capital City. "Things have slowed to such a crawl that a lot of Realtors, lenders and builders are not going to make it in this environment."
He knows of a couple who are both Realtors and who have just one sale between them this year. "And this is beginning to look like the new normal for now," Tracy said.
Median home prices have taken it on the chin, too.
In Ada County, the median price for a single-family home in March was $210,000, up from $205,000 in February, but down 7 percent from $224,900 in March 2007.
Canyon County's median price of $149,900 last month was down 2 percent from $152,990 in February and down 7 percent from $163,300 in March 2007.
However, median prices in both counties were still well above 2004 levels. Ada County's median price in March was 38 percent higher than the $151,881 recorded for the same month in 2004, while Canyon County's was 43 percent above the March 2004 median of $104,345.
Meanwhile, the bulging inventory of unsold homes remains a problem.
According to MLS statistics, there were 7,195 homes listed for sale in Ada and Canyon counties at the end of the first quarter, about 12 percent more than the 6,448 listings at the end of 2007.
Buyers continued to search for bargains below the $200,000 mark. Among the hot spots for sales in Ada County were the 138 sales in the Southwest Boise/Meridian area, where the median price of a home was $198,000. The Boise/Garden City area had 121 sales, with a median price of $190,000.
Scott Gray, also with Re/Max Capital City, said he is seeing more interest in Boise properties as the price of gasoline keeps rising. "It's getting a little more costly to commute to Boise," Gray said.
Another problem, he said, is that bankers have become more stringent in their lending practices, even for potential homebuyers with good credit. He speculated that as banks get back on their feet they will be more likely to start making home loans again. The second quarter will give a better indication of how the rest of 2008 will go, he said.
"There is a lot of pent-up demand out there," he said. "But people have been sitting on the fence because they were afraid that home prices would go down even further, or because they couldn't qualify."
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