Idaho Is Roaring

“Had someone asked me in March,” wrote economist Megan McArdle in September, “I would have predicted that after six months of pandemic, the housing market would be full of panicked people frozen in their homes, except for those who were being evicted. Instead, the housing market is roaring.”

It continues to roar today. As the Economist observes, those roars are fed by low interest rates, government cash handouts, and a desire of many to move to homes suitable for telecommuting.

Of course, some housing markets are roaring louder than others. As CNN notes, “home prices are rising faster in the middle of the U.S. as Covid drives people away from coasts.” CNN cites home price index data published by the Federal Housing Finance Administration.

I downloaded these data, specifically, the third quarter all-transactions indices for metropolitan areas and for states. These data break out metro areas into divisions such as Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, and West Palm Beach; Oakland, San Francisco, and San Rafael; and Seattle and Tacoma. That results in 404 metro areas ranging from New York to Carson City, Nevada. Metropolitan areas generally include all of the land within county boundaries, both urban and rural, so we can’t use these data to show whether people are moving to suburbs or exurbs.

We can see some larger movements. Most strikingly, Idaho is roaring the loudest of any state. From the third quarter of 2019 to the third quarter of 2020, statewide housing prices grew by 9.8 percent, far more than any other state; the next-highest is Utah at 7.0 percent. Prices rose by more than 10 percent in Boise, Coeur d’Alene, Idaho Falls, and Pocotello. The only other metro area to see a double-digit rise was Cumberland, Maryland.

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Third, in general small- and medium-sized metro areas are doing best. Of the 50 metro areas with populations of 1.5 million or more, only two are in the 50 loudest-roaring housing markets. Those two, Phoenix and Tampa, have low densities and fairly affordable housing markets, so would be attractive to people planning to work out of their homes. Tampa, of course, is not in “the middle.” Only four more of the 50 largest metro areas are in the top 100 roaring markets: Cleveland (!), Columbus, Kansas City, and Indianapolis.

Conversely, large metro areas tend to be doing the worst. Of those same 50 largest metro areas, 31 are in the bottom half of the markets when ranked by home price growth. These include Denver, Milwaukee, and St. Louis, so being in the middle is no guarantee that a metro area’s housing market will be booming.

Finally, Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio are also in the bottom half; I would argue that is because these markets are among the least-regulated in the country which enables them to easily absorb new growth without increasing housing prices. Of course, I would have said the same about Indianapolis, but its prices rose by 6.4 percent.

It will take more research to see what other factors are motivating changes in housing prices. For those who are interested, I’ve uploaded a spreadsheet showing the change in home prices and 2019 populations of all 404 metropolitan areas. The information so far, however, reinforces the notion that the planner’s ideal of a dense city such as San Francisco does not match most Americans’ ideal of a livable home.

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About The Antiplanner

The Antiplanner is a forester and economist with more than fifty years of experience critiquing government land-use and transportation plans.

7 Responses to Idaho Is Roaring

  1. prk166 says:


    Prices rose by more than 10 percent in Boise, Coeur d’Alene, Idaho Falls, and Pocotello. The only metro area to see a double-digit rise was Cumberland, Maryland.

    That last statement about Cumerland feels like’s it’s missing some important qualifier.

  2. prk166 says:


    Finally, Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio are also in the bottom half; I would argue that is because these markets are among the least-regulated in the country which enables them to easily absorb new growth without increasing housing prices.

    Sharp changes over such short period of time, no matter how friendly the regulations, don’t strike me as very plausible. Regulations aside, you can’t plan + finance + be selling homes in all of 7 months.

    The only way regulations would make a difference would be that developers already having land , plans nd infrastructure in place for new homes. So developments like Toll Brothers Star Trail. Then when demand for more homes go up, you can start building more.

    Of course, there’s the question of why a developer would built out all that infrastructure years before they possibly built and sold home for it. Some of that may be because local regs allow for it and make it easier. Some may be because of projected growth.

    And together those things feed into each other.

    https://www.google.com/maps/@33.240812,-96.8285519,3a,75y,33.81h,79.75t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sd_oKmceUFHJH74P9gow-vg!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo0.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3Dd_oKmceUFHJH74P9gow-vg%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D100.79726%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i16384!8i8192

  3. metrosucks says:

    They’re all moving to areas like Boise and turning it into a liberal shithole. Same as the places they fled.

  4. prk166,

    “That last statement about Cumberland feels like’s it’s missing some important qualifier.”

    You’re right: I meant the only OTHER metro area. Fixed it; thanks.

  5. Frank says:

    The Antiplanner conveniently forgot to mention Seattle.
    .
    Seattle now ranks as the most competitive housing market in the nation, with 71% of homes selling in under two weeks, according to a new study released this week.

    .

  6. Frank says:

    Metro, they won’t be there for long. That can’t handle the winter nor can they deal with the lack of “diversity.” Of course, they define diversity as having black people and ethnic restaurants safely located a half hour away, but not in their back yards.

  7. metrosucks says:

    I thought there was already plenty of “refugees” in Boise committing heinous murders and rapes. Not what they are looking for?

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