House prices set new records across the Treasure Valley in March, as buyers hit the spring selling season in force. Scarce inventory continues to plague the market – in March, Boise only had a one-week supply of housing on the market. Ada County had about ten days and Canyon County had under two weeks. It's not just a seller's market; it's a savage seller's market.

But even with our short supply, the monthly and yearly gains we’re seeing in sales prices are staggering. The average annual appreciation we’d expect to see for a home is around 4%. Instead:

• The median sales price in Ada County hit a new record of $469,250 in March, rising by more than $100,000, or nearly 28%, in just one year.
• Boise's median cost of a single-family home rose to

Remember that spike in demand we saw right after the holidays? It’s now hitting buyers in their bank accounts. Both Ada and Canyon counties set another round of new sales price records in February. In fact, the median sales price actually jumped by $29,000 in Canyon County, reflecting the largest monthly increase ever recorded.

The median sales price in Ada County hit $452,750 in February, a 39% increase over last year’s median price of $324,950. In the past year, the number of available listings has also dropped from 1,347 to just 303 homes. For context, we’re talking about a county with more than a half-million residents, and growing.

In Canyon County, the new median sales price record hit $368,000. Not only does that represent a $29,000 jump

Imagine sitting on a roller coaster that is climbing up, up, up… and waiting for a fall that never comes. The last year in Treasure Valley real estate has felt a lot like that climb, as median home prices continue to log double-digit increases, leaving everyone to wonder, “how high will this ride go?”

In January, home prices in the Boise Metro area once again set new records as frenzied buyers fought over scant inventory, driving up already historically high prices. The median single-family home price in Ada County hit $449,330 in January, closing in on the $450,000 mark for the first time. That’s an increase of 23.78% or $86,000 in just 12 months.

• The Canyon County median home price jumped to $339,000. That’s an annual increase of 33.36% in

With only weeks of available inventory and homes selling in a median of 6 days, it’s no surprise home prices are continuing to skyrocket across the Treasure Valley.

We said goodbye to 2020 and rang in the new year with another round of record-high prices across the valley. In December, Ada and Canyon county and the cities of Boise, Meridian and Nampa all broke previous price records.

Over the past year, the median home price in Ada County rose by more than $82,000, a 23.6% increase to $432,462. Canyon County home prices increased by a whopping $85,000 since last December, a 33.3% jump to $339,900. Not to be outdone, the cost of the typical home in Boise increased by $86,000, or 25.6% to $420,750.

Fortunately for home sellers (and less so for

At the beginning of 2020, no one could have predicted that within months the world would be battling a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic, which would cripple both national and global economies. It was nearly inconceivable that local governments would be forced to limit or entirely shut down many business activities and that unemployment would rise to levels not seen since the Great Depression.

Just as no one could have predicted that national home sales would hit 14-year highs during this same time period, ringing in new price records in every major American city.

While it seems counterintuitive, what we’re seeing is two sides of the same coin. For better or worse, the roaring twenties have indeed arrived, and in Treasure Valley real estate at least,

We’ve seen many new records set – and subsequently broken – in the Treasure Valley real estate market in 2020, and the last month is no exception

In October, we saw housing prices surge to new records once again as feverish buyers competed for a dwindling supply of homes. This caused the length of time houses spent on the market to drop to a median of 5 days, a new record in both Ada and Canyon counties.

Even in the hottest spring markets the Treasure Valley has experienced, homes have not sold this fast.

Let’s look at October’s numbers before taking a step back to reflect on how the month caps off what has been an extraordinary year in Treasure Valley real estate:

• In the past year, the number of homes for sale in Ada County dropped

Amid critical housing shortages and record demand, bidding wars continue to drive up Boise area home prices.

Treasure Valley homebuyers in the 1980s had more housing stock to choose from than buyers today, thanks to the unprecedented shortage of listed homes we are currently experiencing. As a result, homebuyers can end up facing a gauntlet: bidding wars, forfeiting basic protections to make their offer more attractive, and paying record-high prices in order to land a home.

How did we get here? A few primary factors spring to mind: the Treasure Valley’s decades-long population boom, coupled with the fact that new construction has lagged behind demand for at least the past seven years in the valley.

Those factors are predictable (and were

Home prices in the Treasure Valley continue to break new records. No better example of that is Ada County, where home prices have hit a median of $400,000 for the first time in August. This represents a 12.7% increase in price over the previous year. It also means home prices have officially doubled in Ada County since late 2013.

Ada County is not an outlier – Canyon County and the cities of Boise, Meridian and Nampa all set new record sales prices last month. For instance, Boise’s price hit $379,900, beating last year’s median sales price of $337,767. In Canyon County, the median sales price hit $309,900 in August, whereas last year it was $250,000 – that’s a nearly $60,000 increase in one year.

To further put record prices in perspective,

July brought continued great news for home sellers in the Treasure Valley: record-high home prices in both Ada and Canyon Counties, combined with record-low inventory, is making home buying in these markets more competitive than your favorite extreme sport.

While we are seeing the strongest seller’s market ever recorded in the Treasure Valley, there is a silver lining for home buyers. Thirty-year mortgage rates continue to hit new lows, most recently 2.88%, offsetting some of the record high selling prices we’re seeing.

Let’s take a closer look at the numbers before we jump into what is driving this current market:

• The biggest gains we’re seeing is in Canyon County, which hit a median sales price of $300,000 for the first time ever,

New listings took a nosedive across the Treasure Valley in June, driving home prices up and setting new sales records in Boise, Ada County, and Canyon County.

Despite the continuing pandemic, demand for homes has not lessened – it has grown – as sellers postponing listings, and new construction delays are now compounding an already critical lack of supply in the valley.

To get a better idea of just how sudden and dramatic the change was, let’s look at the numbers:

• In Ada County, available listings plunged from 1,353 in May to 985 in June – a more than 27% drop. When compared with last year’s available listings (1,715), we see a 42.6% decline. For context, we haven’t seen so few listings on the market in any June since the ‘90s housing