Originally Posted by JamesM

Good article. It validates and supports that there is no shortage of housing but that the market is driven only by demand triggered by low interest rates and speculation/opportunism. A hint of realism from someone in the market although as always no risks mentioned.

My only advisory here is that these real estate association and people from within the interest always talk up the market- for their own reasons- not too dissimilar to the non-impartial banking content that gets shared here. A bank economist whilst looking at many variables will only share the favourable ones in public. Those who evaluate the risk in banks will see something very different.

Originally Posted by Shard

Going up to 35, that's kind of expected isn't it? If it were 20-30 it would be a more striking statistic.

Originally Posted by Mordko

Yes, its kind of expected. Expected but also high, particularly given that moist millennials just out of school are included and that generation warriors are claiming that nasty boomers stole all the goodies.

Originally Posted by Shard

I can imagine trading California for Texas, but California for Idaho ?! Well, I guess it's still in the West and if it's that much more affordable maybe makes sense.

Originally Posted by Jsmth321

I have never been there, but looking at photos it's surely is in a pretty setting with mountains in the background.

Anyhow looking into their economy they are home to HQ of some pretty large companies, Boise Cascade Company (manufacturer of wood products and wholesale distributor of building materials) Albertsons (major grocery chain) J. R. Simplot Company ( frozen food processing, fertilizer manufacturing, cattle feeding, and other businesses related to agriculture) Lamb Weston Holdings ( food processing company that is one of the world's largest producers and processors of frozen potato products) Winco Foods (another grocery chain) Body Buidling dot com (health food supplement company) Clearwater Analytics (FinTech company provides automated investment accounting, performance, compliance, and risk reporting for insurance companies, asset managers, corporations, banks, governments, and other institutions.)

Single biggest private employer is Micron Technology, Inc. (they produce various data storage and memory cards and related)

Looks like high tech jobs are a growing part of the city's economy with companies such as Hewlett Packard, bodybuilding.com, health content and software ( health content, patient education solutions, and software for hospitals, doctors, consumer companies) CradlePoint (cloud managed wireless edge networking) ClickBank (some sort of ecommerce company) MetaGeek, Microsoft and a variety of others.

Apparently a big location for call centers with some 7,000 people employed in call center industry,

Apparently Varney Air Lines originated in Boise, but the founder had a distaste for potatoes so moved to Washington state, Varney Air Lines was one the predecessor airlines to what would become United Airlines.

So I guess I can now see why Boise is popular, cheaper than California, has fin tech and high tech jobs, some major companies HQ based there, it's a more roubust economy than I thought they had.

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-sta...tates-rankings

Looks like a decent place affordability wise if your a professional, but probably is pushing locals which is what happens when a place starts to become a tech centered economy, so probably not the most affordable for non-professionals born and raised.

Originally Posted by Shard

Are the generation warriors the millenials ?

Originally Posted by Mordko

Not necessarily. Every age group has an inalienable right to its own plonkers.

Originally Posted by Mordko

Who are they playing?

Originally Posted by JamesM

This chap bought some fresh perspective to how government ought to approach housing. He's definitely less nauseating than the typical bear: https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/this-36-y...et%20in%202010.

Originally Posted by Jsmth321

It's not everyday you see someone benefitting from status quo saying there needs to be change to it.

Government also needs to bite the bullet and accept they need to build a lot more social housing than they are, there is no private developer miracle that will provide enough housing to ever bring rents down to where those on disability or a single parent making $17/hr will be able to afford rent.

Or massively raise the housing supplement for people on disability and single parents on assistance, because the current $375 and $570 for most on disability is way below market rent in pretty much anywhere in BC.

Originally Posted by Mordko

Yes, empty homes tax made BC houses and rentals SO much cheaper.

Also, punished all the people we wanted punished. A double whammy.

https://vancouversun.com/news/local-...me-of-21-years

https://bc.ctvnews.ca/vancouver-seni...emic-1.5576941

Not at all an empty gesture designed to pander and get a few extra votes without solving anything.