Washington, Oregon, Idaho Among Top Housing Markets
Nationally, the housing market is cooling off fast.
But that doesn’t mean mortgage loan activity has cooled off in all areas of the country. Case in point: The Pacific Northwest.
In fact, amidst widespread California mortgage horror stories, the states of Washington, Oregon and Idaho - the greater Pacific Northwest - all made the U.S. Housing Predictor’s annual Top 25 market forecast.
The Housing Predictor, which forecasts more than 250 local housing markets in all 50 states, and names the Top 25 annually in January, projects the highest probability of appreciation of all for those 25.
Fourteen states are now represented by local housing markets in the Top 25 that are appreciating, despite the national real estate slump.
Propelled by a growing high tech boom and a healthy aerospace industry, the Seattle housing market, which appeared as though it would slow down and depreciate in 2007 earlier in the year was added to the list.
Portland, which has seen it’s Oregon mortgage demand more than double in the last six years alone, and Boise were also named to the Top 25 list.
With Idaho mortgage already setting records, Boise is forecast by the U.S. Census Bureau to easily double in size over the next decade.
The business friendly capital city has been named by many as the best place to start a new company in the nation.
The addition of the three Pacific North-West markets comes shortly before the annual mid-year update of the Top 25 U.S. markets, issued July 1 each year projecting housing market appreciation through the end of the year.
The top markets leaping in 14 states provide further evidence that local housing markets in a majority of the nation are appreciating or stabilizing as the U.S. real estate market rebounds from a nationwide slowdown triggered by higher mortgage rates and massive fraud in home loan lending.
Congress is considering the institution of new laws to further control home loan lender activity, which has been rampant with unethical lending practices forcing many homeowners into foreclosure.