Our Meridian Blog

It’s going to be a busy weekend coming up for all of you garage salers and farmers’ market fans.

The Meridian Farmers’ Market is in full swing now, and will be every weekend through September.  The event takes place every Saturday from 9:00am until 1:00pm, in the parking lot of the Boise First Community Center on Eagle Road. 

Since I posted earlier in the week about the Hunter Pointe Garage Sale I have been driving around the neighborhoods of Meridian, and it appears that many of the local communities are having garage sales the same day as well.  This Saturday (tomorrow!), besides Hunter Pointe, I know there will be neighborhood sales at Paramount, Cedar Springs, Summerfield, Sundance, and Chateau Meadows.  These are all neighboorhoods in the northeast end of Meridian, around the Locust Grove, Meridian Road, Fairview, Ustick, and McMillan Road area.  Plenty to do and see this weekend, so get out and enjoy the hot weather.  And say hello to all our neighbors! 

 The Hunter Pointe HOA would like to invite you all to their Annual Neighborhood Garage Sale this Saturday, May 17th.  Hours are from 8:00 am until 3:00 pm, and they are expecting many homeowners to participate.

 If you are a Hunter Pointe owner, there is no formal sign-up, so simply get your goods on display Saturday morning, and have a good time.  The weather forecast is for temperatures to be in the 90’s by Saturday afternoon, so it should be an excellent morning for buying and selling. 

 Hunter Pointe subdivision is located just south of Ustick Road on the west side of Locust Grove.  See you there.

The Hunter Pointe HOA board has picked two homes in their subdivision that really have the Christmas spirit in their decorations this year.  The “First Place” home in the sub is up in the 800 block of Cougar.  I understand the kids had a big hand in decorating that one.  Well done you guys!  And the “Second Place” home, as voted by the board, is in the 1200 block of Hunter.  There are a number of the other homes in the neighborhood that are very well done also, and it was hard to choose just two.  And perhaps next year there will be a new category, for “duets”… adjoining homes that look really good together.  All of the board members mentioned those. 

Be sure to drive down all the streets some evening this week and take a moment to appreciate the hard work all of our neighbors are sharing.

Thank you all so much!

 One of the things I think we’ve all enjoyed throughout our lives is driving around the neighborhoods at Christmas time and enjoying all of the lights and yard displays.  I’ve seen lots of folks in subdivisions all over the valley getting out there and putting their Christmas spirit on display.  Some homes are a work in progress.  You go by one night and think how pretty it is, but you go by a couple nights later and see that they weren’t finished and the number of lights has doubled or tripled!  You gotta love that.

Many of the communities and subdivisions have decorating contests.  Check with your HOA for what might be happening in your neighborhood.  The Hunter Pointe subdivision will be having their first annual decoration contest this year.  Judging will be on Thursday December 13th before 7pm.  Make sure you’ve got your displays ready on that evening.  There will be yard signs and prizes for the 1st place and 2nd place yards (as judged by the HOA board).  Sounds like fun!

If your neighborhood has a display contest that you would like me to mention, please call me and let me know.  Also, if you or one of your neighbors has a really noteworthy display, or you find a good one on your own nightly cruises, let me know and I’ll mention it here so we can all enjoy it.

At our recent Hunter Pointe HOA Annual Meeting, I was asked about how the neighborhood is holding up in this current real estate market.  A number of people have mentioned they don’t feel that homes are selling.  Others said it felt to them that there were a lot of homes for sale right now… “is our neighborhood alright?” and “the newspaper makes it sound so horrible, should we be worried?”

I did a little digging into the numbers this past week and learned a few things about Hunter Pointe that ought to reassure the homeowners there.  And it makes the point that I have been saying for months.  The real estate market is not uniformly awful here in the Treasure Valley, or in Meridian.  In fact, there are neighborhoods that are pretty good and which have hardly noticed a downturn at all.  Hunter Pointe is one of those.

First of all, there are only 5 Hunter Pointe homes for sale through the MLS right now.  That seems to be about the number I’d call normal for this past summer, although we had a few extra “For Sale By Owners” earlier this year.  There are plenty of homes for sale in all of the neighborhoods around Hunter Pointe, but this neighborhood has stayed pretty steady most of the year.  There are currently no pending sales that I can find on the MLS.  Through 2007 there have been 10 homes sold, an average of one per month.  That compares to 26 homes in all of 2006 (just more than 2 per month) and 24 in the last 7 months of 2005 (just over 3 per month as an average).  So, of the 290 homes in Hunter Pointe, 60 have changed owners in the last 32 months. 

Everyone wants to know about price though.  How has the neighborhood faired over the last year or two?  I think you’ll be surprised.  For the six months of May through October in 2005, there were 20 sales.  Prices ranged between $154,900 and $197,600, with an average price of $178,424.  By square foot price, so we can compare, that is an average of $104 per foot.  Homes in Hunter Pointe are nice, don’t vary too greatly in size or condition, so for this neighborhood, square foot prices are educational.  Yes, the smaller single levels will tend to have a little higher square foot price than the bigger two story homes.  Foundations, roofing, plumbing, and electrical are the biggest costs in a home.  “Lifting the roof and slipping in another level” spreads those costs over more square feet in a two story (remember that as we go along).

So, where did sales and prices go from there?  Well, For the next six month period, through April 2006, there were 15 homes sold.  This period saw the most range in price, size, and condition, with prices ranging from $169,000 all the way to $269,900, with the average price being $204,541.  Square foot prices were all over the board too, from $99 to $132, with $119 per foot being average.  Hot markets do that.

The next six months, through November of 2006, had 12 sales, again ranging widely between $178,500 to $279,900 (the highest price I can find in this neighborhood).  Square foot prices tightened up a bit, ranging from $116 to $138.  Average price in the neighborhood was $218,380, partly because more of the larger homes sold during this period.  This period was after the market had topped over and was slowing down.

November 2006 through April 2007 showed an average of one sale per month, although three sales went in December and two months had none at all.  Average home price in that time was down slightly, to $213,200, but only one of the larger homes sold.  Looking at square foot prices, home values were still rising.  Surprised?  It’s true.  Average price per square foot in Hunter Pointe between November 2006 end of April 2007 was $131 per foot.  A bit misleading, because the foot price for the bigger homes in the neighborhood is often going to be lower than the price for the smaller homes.

In the last six months, through the beginning of this November, there have been six homes sold.  Here again, we see the difference between the smaller homes and the larger homes affecting the “averages”.  Average sales price was $219,983, which is up a bit from the last period.  Average square foot price dropped a touch, to $129.  Confusing?  Only a little.  But when you break the numbers out and look at what is actually happening in the market, you see that it hasn’t been a disaster after all. 

Not all neighborhoods have faired as well as Hunter Pointe.  And neighborhoods with new construction, or with homes that are only a year or two old have taken a much larger hit than the numbers for this neighborhood might suggest.  But I have said all summer long, and will say it again, existing homes that are well kept, well presented, and priced correctly are still selling, and prices in many neighborhoods, like Hunter Pointe, have remained firm.  Don’t let the newspapers get you down!

   The Annual Meeting for the Hunter Pointe Homeowners Association is coming up.  The meeting will be Tuesday next week, October 23rd.  The meeting will take place in the library of Chief Joseph Elementary School at 7:00pm.  We’re pleased to be able to meet at the school again.  The folks at the Country Inn and Suites on Pine St treated us very well last time we met, but the school is definitely more convenient.

Some of the topics will be various homeowner concerns, a discussion of STOP signs and speed bumps, and the Christmas Home Decorating Contest.  If you have anything you would like to bring up before the HOA and your neighbors, please come to meeting.   We’ll see you all there!

This morning I received a notice from the Mayor’s office that the Mayor has a “Coffee with the Mayor” opportunity coming up next week.

The public is invited to join Meridian Mayor Tammy de Weerd and other city leaders for “Coffee with the Mayor” on Thursday, September 6, from 9:30 – 11:00 am, at Groove Coffee, located on the corner of Locust Grove & Fairview, just west of Fred Meyer. This open-house style gathering allows citizens the opportunity to meet the Mayor, discuss community issues, ask questions, and connect with old and new friends, in a friendly, casual environment. No reservations are necessary; people are encouraged to simply stop in.

Well, the phone calls have slowed down.  I haven’t had a call on property tax assessments since Monday.  In the last couple weeks I’ve received a number of calls, and each one is asking if I would do a CMA or ” a little market research, to see what homes are REALLY worth in my neighborhood”.  One caller told me the County was crazy, his home just couldn’t be worth that much, could it?

The first thing I try to explain is that the assessor uses last years sales for comparable stats in order to value property each year.  Every home must have an actual visit every 5 years, and the other years the assessor uses sold market stats to judge values for each neighborhood.  For the last couple years, Ada County property owners have gotten a pretty good deal, because the assessed value was lagging our hot market by quite a bit.  It is more noticeable this year because the property value increases have slowed way down, as have sales.  Looking at all the For Sale signs and reading the newspaper accounts of the horrible housing market, many homeowners have the feeling their homes aren’t worth as much as last year, so the Assessor must be crazy, or a crook, or both.  No, I’m sorry, he’s just catching up.

According to the Statesman earlier this week

The median increase in assessed value in Ada County is 16.7 percent. But in Southeast Ada County, the median assessment increased 23.64 percent. Boise Bench residents should expect to see the largest jump, 23.79 percent.

I’ve done a little neighborhood searching and found some interesting numbers to share.  We’ll start here in Meridian with the Hunter Pointe neighborhood.  Between 2005 and 2006 the average property assessment for the homes I looked at rose by 22 to 24%.  The increase for this new assessment for the same homes was only 9 to 11%.  Did you Hunter Pointe owners notice that most of the increase this year was for land value?  For a newer community like Copper Basin, the same thing holds true for the overall increase, this year’s assessments were up about 9%.

Just to the north of us is Bristol Heights.  Their assessed values took a big jump in 2006, 22-23% for the properties I looked at.  But this year the same properties only went up 8%.  I pointed that out to one of the owners who called me earlier this week, but I’m not sure it soothed the sting any.

The Bench area is called out in the newspaper article, so I looked at a couple neighborhoods there and found that they’ve had two really tough years in a row.  Because there were so many properties valued at the low end of the Treasure Valley market price ranges, a lot of those little Bench houses have changed hands the last two years, and the market prices have gone up and up as the supply of “cheap” properties disappears.  In 2006 the Bench houses I looked at ranged from 34 to 44% increases in assessed value.  I did not find any over 20% in the ones that I looked at for this year, more like 14-16%.

The North End of Boise might be interesting to look at.  Those neighborhoods saw assessments ranging from 5% to 22% this year.  Last year saw a similar range, 2% to 15%.  Remember that North End property values started climbing before most of the rest of the County.

The neighborhood that really got hit hard however, was the Indian Lakes neighborhood in Boise.  Indian Lakes is an older community built around a golf course, south of Amity and east of Cole.  2006 assessments look to have been increased by 9% over 2005.  the increase over 2006 though is a breathtaking 37%.  Lot assessments nearly doubled, with lots valued last year at $50,400 climbing to $105,000 this year. 

Pay attention to your own assessment… if that land value hasn’t kept up, be prepared next year.  But remember, if the market really is as bad as the newspaper keeps saying it is, assessed values next year won’t be newsworthy, like they were this year.  And if you would like to know a little more about your own neighborhood, I’ll be happy to give it a look.