Population Growth is Fueling Housing Demand
Population growth across the state has been the main driver behind the demand for more housing. The Idaho Statesman reported that the state’s population grew by 1.2% from mid-2014 and mid-2015 making it the 12th strongest increase in the U.S. This was caused by a high birth rate and domestic migration—people moving into Idaho from other states. Obviously babies aren’t buying homes, but family expansion is a key reason why people decide to purchase a home. Looking at domestic migration, the Boise Valley Economic Partnership (BVEP) provided these stats in a presentation to ACAR:
Comparing these figures to the consumer traffic on intermountainmls.com, indicates that this domestic migration should continue throughout 2016. Web traffic came primarily from these cities (in order): Boise, Salt Lake City, Meridian, Twin Falls, Nampa, Eagle, Los Angeles, Caldwell, Denver, and San Francisco. Sessions from Los Angeles grew the most compared to last year, up 180%. Overall, year-over-year trends for users and sessions were up over 13% each, and page views were up by 39%.
These population trends don’t seem to be slowing down, and may be compounded by more Millennials becoming homeowners in 2016. Looking at another statistic from BVEP, 72% of those moving to Idaho were under the age of 50, and a large portion of those people were 21-40 years old, capturing some in Generation X and many in the Millennial Generation.
According to REALTOR.com, “Millennials emerged as a dominant force in 2015, representing almost 2 million sales, [and REALTOR.com expects this pattern to] continue in 2016… Two other generations will also affect the market in 2016: financially recovering Gen Xers and older Boomers thinking about or entering retirement. Since most of these people are already homeowners, they’ll play a double role, boosting the market as both sellers and buyers. Gen Xers are in their prime earning years and thus able to relocate to better neighborhoods for their families. Older Boomers are approaching (or already in) retirement and seeking to downsize and lock in a lower cost of living. Together, these two generations will provide much of the suburban inventory that Millennials desire to start their own families.” As noted earlier, that inventory from existing homeowners is definitely needed in our market.
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