Regardless of where in Idaho, from Ada County the home of Boise, the state capital to Bannock and Idaho Falls the mortgage meltdown and the economic collapse the followed it has left a trail of foreclosures across the state. In every major metropolitan area and farming community banks have reposed homes once owned by the families of the Gem State.
The economy of Idaho is not as diverse as most and the Gross State Product of the entire state is less than 10% of annual revenues for companies such as DuPont, Microsoft and Boeing. This limited economic output and agricultural focus are just some of the reasons that a small ripple in the economy can cause a great disturbance throughout a non diversified state. Combined with the limited financial output is an unusually high home ownership percentage. Idaho has become a small player in the high tech industries sector and today serves as its largest single industry. This fact does not take into account that the economy of Idaho is still relatively small in comparison with other states and incredibly small if land area is added to the equation.
Idahoans own their homes 72.4 percent of the time compared to the national average of 66.2 percent. As an example of this confluence of self reliance and limited output, Idaho ranks in the Top 10 in the nation in the category of foreclosures per housing unit. In order to sustain a recession a state needs an increasing economic foundation combined with a population that is centralized. Meanwhile Idaho is the 14th largest state with one of the lowest population densities.
This could all be good news for an real estate investor in Idaho as the opportunities have never been more abundant than they are currently for the average person or investor to purchase foreclosures at well below market value. Taking into consideration the depressed prices of homes in Idaho the savings are multiplied and merely await the sub-prime mortgages to purge from the system and the real estate industry to bottom out. Before the bottom is felt which most professionals agree will be later in the year 2012 there will be more and more foreclosures coming on the market for the savvy investor to take advantage of.
The population of Idaho is growing more each year than California or New York as people migrate into the state from surrounding states. These new citizens will require housing and the investor that buys wisely in today's market will reap rewards that may never been seen again in our lifetimes. Unemployment is another positive for the residents of Idaho as the Nations unemployment is substantially higher than that of Idaho. Cities such as Nampa, Caldwell, Coeur d'Alene, Meridian, Post Falls and Twin Falls are all growing at paces that exceed 44 other states as the population in Idaho grows by more than 2% per year and has done so for the past decade.
This growing population needs and will need housing and the smart investor will take advantage of this flat spot in the housing market to accumulate foreclosed real estate for sale in the next 18 to 36 months. Opportunities such as this don't come around more than once in a lifetime.
