{"id":333,"date":"2011-09-21T14:02:28","date_gmt":"2011-09-21T20:02:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/?p=333"},"modified":"2011-11-23T10:00:16","modified_gmt":"2011-11-23T17:00:16","slug":"digging-around-for-the-roots-of-idahos-foreclosure-rate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/2011\/09\/21\/digging-around-for-the-roots-of-idahos-foreclosure-rate\/","title":{"rendered":"Digging Around for the Roots of Idaho’s Foreclosure Rate"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Molly Messick<\/p>\n

A sign advertises a foreclosed home in Nampa, Idaho’s Blackhawk Subdivision.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The Idaho housing market\u2019s boom and bust is sure to be a long-term focus here at StateImpact.\u00a0 RealtyTrac\u2019s August numbers<\/a><\/strong>, out last week, show that Idaho has the fifth highest rate of foreclosure in the nation.\u00a0 The Boise area has seen the worst of it, with foreclosures concentrated in Ada and Canyon Counties.\u00a0 There, filings are a daily occurrence.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Idaho\u2019s housing boom was concentrated around its two main metropolitan areas, Boise and Coeur d\u2019Alene.\u00a0 John Starr of the global real estate company Colliers International had a front-row seat as capital poured into the local market in the years preceding the bust.\u00a0 When he thinks of the early 2000s, he remembers watching land prices rise with demand, and house lots shrink.\u00a0 What the area wound up with, he says, were more and more subdivisions, packed tight with houses.\u00a0 Now, many of those homes stand vacant.<\/p>\n

In Starr\u2019s analysis, the decision by big banks and out-of-state developers that Boise was a good place to put money has a lot to do with Micron Technology.\u00a0 When Micron took off in the early 1990s, other employers were drawn to the state.\u00a0 Idaho boomed.\u00a0 Census data<\/a> show that the state’s population grew by more than 28 percent from 1990 to 2000, and by more than 20 percent from 2000 to 2010.\u00a0 To housing developers looking for places to invest, Idaho was a gem.\u00a0 But Starr says they should have looked closer.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe reason we were doubling the national average growth rate was we were moving in a whole bunch of people that we couldn\u2019t produce here in Idaho, namely electrical engineers and so forth to work at Micron,\u201d he said.\u00a0 \u201cThe data points that people were looking at that were helping them make decisions about coming to Boise and deploying capital and building and helping us grow \u2013 those data points were skewed.\u201d<\/strong>\u00a0 In 2003, Micron announced plans to lay off 10 percent of its worldwide workforce.\u00a0 More cuts would follow.<\/p>\n

According to Metrostudy, a housing and data information company, Boise’s housing market began to bottom out in 2009<\/strong>.\u00a0 Housing starts are now at an all-time low of 1,172.\u00a0 John Starr and others think the area’s foreclosure problem will persist for at least several more years.<\/p>\n

Like a lot of people in his line of work, local real estate agent Tom Koltes has had to shift his focus in the wake of the housing market’s collapse.\u00a0 In the years before the recession, his primary focus was new construction.\u00a0 “I did subdivisions, lots, and then builders in those subdivisions,” he said.\u00a0 Now Koltes helps troubled homeowners offload their properties through short sales, and works with prospective buyers who want to get a good deal on a foreclosed property.\u00a0 “Where the market was going was growth,” he said.\u00a0 “Obviously now it\u2019s picking up the pieces of too much growth all at once.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Molly Messick A sign advertises a foreclosed home in Nampa, Idaho’s Blackhawk Subdivision. The Idaho housing market\u2019s boom and bust is sure to be a long-term focus here at StateImpact.\u00a0 RealtyTrac\u2019s August numbers, out last week, show that Idaho has the fifth highest rate of foreclosure in the nation.\u00a0 The Boise area has seen the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":356,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12],"tags":[40],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/46"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=333"}],"version-history":[{"count":35,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2267,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333\/revisions\/2267"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}