People in Boise Need to Sell Their Houses

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Jul 19, 9:30AM EDT

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People in Boise Need to Sell Their Houses — © Feverpitched / iStock via Getty Images

A group that follows trends in the housing price market recently made a stark comment. “Boise, Idaho, long considered a distant outpost far from big-city job centers, leads the nation in overpriced housing, with more people discovering the area while working remotely during the pandemic,” according to the Florida Atlantic University School of Business.
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By the measure of its study, the housing market in Boise is priced 70.76% above where it should be. The analysis was based on Zillow data on the top 100 markets. Beyond this data, the researchers used complex modeling. Likely, other housing experts might do the calculations differently.
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Home price increases in the United States have started to level off in some areas, after a rise of 20% nationwide last year, according to the S&P Case Shiller home price index. One primary reason is that mortgage rates for 30-year fixed loans have moved from under 3% to over 5% and may rise further. This undercuts a period of “housing affordability.” Presumably, the markets where home prices rose most quickly and to the highest levels should be the most vulnerable now.

Why have home prices risen so quickly in Boise? The largest factor is probably that the areas around the city have posted higher population growth than any in America, according to the Census Bureau. If that influx slows, even slightly, home prices are threatened. Ironically, high home prices may be the reason people relocate elsewhere.
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Most people do not buy homes as investments. They buy them to live in. For people who intend to keep homes for years, price increases may not be a reason to buy a home. Home flippers, on the other hand, view home prices as the key reason to be buyers. Boise probably will not be one of their targets anymore.
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Home prices in the United States will flatten or even fall in some areas. Home prices in cities where they have skyrocketed are likely the most vulnerable, which puts Boise near the top of that list.

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.