Treasure Valley finally noticing the lack of affordable housing options.
An article in today’s Statesman reports on a meeting held yesterday where developers of high-end housing talked about the lack of affordable housing in the valley.
If you are in the market for a high-end house, you’re in luck.
If you’re in the market for a low-priced house, take a number and stand in line.
Huh. This is new? The article goes on to suggest that the market is undergoing a ‘correction’ that started last year. I’ve never quite understood the concept of a market ‘correction;’ was it incorrect previously? This all implies that markets are some kind of creature that exists independently of people. Folks, houses (and anything else, for that matter) have value because we agree that they do. It something we agree to as a society, and in many ways, it works.
Sadly, housing markets don’t seem to work if you don’t have plenty of money. If you’re poor and need clothes, there’s Wal-Mart or thrift stores; if you’re broke and need food, you can eat out less, eat more rice and beans, or go to the food bank. If you want to buy a house, well, something’s preventing the housing market from creating a product targeted to you, and it’s not just greed. More on this later.
Toward the end of the article was this gem:
Thirteen planned communities covering 18,000 acres with 72,000 homes are in the works for Ada County; about 2,000 condominiums are in the pipeline for Downtown Boise alone.
Yike!
