A billiard room, a terrace with barbecue, a swimming pool and a room for cleaning bicycles and dogs: Luke Evans proudly leads the tour of the common areas of the building of thirty apartments just delivered by the family business. From the balcony he observes the mountains and, above all, the wasteland, where shops and restaurants will soon flourish. In the background, the school is already under construction, while the wooded river is bordered by a cycle path.
Boise, the capital of Idaho, is booming and this valley, which once served as a ranch, is turning into a residential area. The city of 235,000 is one of those friendly and affordable towns where life is good, which has always appeared at the top of the charts, but where people haven’t really moved.
Then came the crisis linked to Covid-19, which created a click: sometimes nicknamed “Zoomville” (in reference to the Zoom video conferencing application, widely used for teleworking), Boise welcomed migrants from the Pacific coast. : Seattle, Portland and the San Francisco Bay, where confinement rules were considered unbearable.
This has raised real estate fever, with an explosion in demand, as in all those small American cities unknown to Europeans, which have seen an influx of city dwellers from the coasts, Florida, Texas, Arizona or North Carolina. . In Ada County, which includes Boise, the price of a home jumped nearly 60%, from $ 375,000 (about 383,000 euros) in April 2020 to $ 590,000 in July 2022.
In the United States as a whole, the increase was 45%. Luke Evans shows one of the fully equipped apartments: $ 549,000 for 93 square meters. Well done accommodation, but at more than 6,000 euros per square meter in a village on the outskirts of the desert, at the foot of the Rocky Mountains.
The storm threatens
Period! The party is over. Half of Luke Evans’ apartments, which have been on sale since June, have not yet left. This summer, transactions in Ada County fell by more than 20%, as they were across the country. Gone are the days of a house selling out in three hours, with bids in excess of $ 100,000.
The family business has slowed down: in 2022, instead of delivering one house a week as before the pandemic, it will deliver only two a month. “In 2023 we plan to continue at this pace”confides M. Evans.
There are still few signs for sale in the city, but the storm is threatening. “The stock has risen by 150% in one year, we are approaching three months”says real estate agent Sheila Smith. “Prices have fallen below $ 500,000”, ensures. Across the United States, since June, the decline has been confirmed: the median value of a home has lost 6% in two months, from $ 414,000 to $ 390,000, according to the National Association of Realtors. real estate).
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