Canyon County home prices at 10-year low
Real estate agents say foreclosures are still dragging property values down.
BY SANDRA FORESTER - sforester@idahostatesman.com
Copyright: © 2010 Idaho Statesman
Published: 10/12/10
Canyon County’s median home price in September dropped to a 10-year low of about $82,000, slightly more than half of Ada County’s median home price, according to Intermountain Multiple Listing Service numbers released Monday.
There’s a half-price sale under way for homes in Canyon County. The question is whether it will it end before discounts get even bigger.
Canyon County’s median home price in September dropped to $81,900, the lowest since the Y2K computer-bug era, and about half of its $170,000 peak in 2007, the Intermountain Multiple Listing Service reported Monday.
The reason: homeowners in distress.
”In Canyon County, close to 70 percent of the homes that are selling are either short sale or foreclosures,“ said Jim McNabb, branch manager for the Coldwell Banker Tomlinson Group in Nampa and a longtime real estate professional. ”It’s having a real negative effect on values. I’ve not seen such a rapid decline in property values.“
The latest figure is even lower than January 2000, the first month of more than a decade of price data reviewed by the Idaho Statesman.
That month, the median had fallen to $82,400.
But there’s an upside: Bargain hunters are buying. The number of homes sold in Canyon County was up over the same month for the past three years.
”There are buyers,“ McNabb said. ”We have activity.“
In Ada County, the median price fell to $158,000, about the midpoint of the $149,000-to-$168,000 range that prices been bouncing in for more than a year.
McNabb and others said jobs are needed to rebuild the local housing market.
”That’s the only thing that’s going to stop the decline“ of home values, he said.
Nampa Association of Realtors President Gloria Urwin said she’s concerned that the recent disclosure of mistakes in foreclosure proceedings by national lenders will put Canyon County in a worse position.
Bank of America Corp., the largest U.S. lender, extended a freeze on foreclosures to all 50 states Friday as concern spread among government officials that homes are being seized based on faulty data.
JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Ally Financial Inc.’s GMAC Mortgage unit stopped repossessions in 23 states, amid allegations that employees submitted documents with unverified or false information to speed the process. PNC Financial announced Friday that it, too, would postpone at least some foreclosures.
Urwin said she’d like to see banks lower loan values for struggling homeowners instead of foreclosing and reselling the homes for a fraction of what was owed.
”Banks need to loosen their belts and start working with people,“ she said. ”Why not rewrite the loans and add a clause if they’re concerned about a market correction in two years? ... Give (people) an incentive to stay in their homes.“
Regards,
Michael Hon
CEO, The Iron Eagle Realty Team
Associate Broker, Market Pro
Certified Short Sale Specialist®
Investment Property Consultant
Direct: 208.919.0458 Office: 208.939.9033 Fax 208.514.1422
www.IronEagleRE.com Michael.Hon@IronEagleRE.com
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