COEUR d’ALENE — Jennifer Smock of Windermere CDA talked supply and demand in North Idaho’s real estate market during the Hayden Chamber of Commerce luncheon Thursday.

Smock said new construction is needed in almost every city.

“Believe it or not, there’s still not enough inventory out there to supply the demand,” she said.

Smock said the demand for new construction has shifted to northern communities such as Rathdrum, which is not built out to the same extent as Coeur d’Alene, Hayden or Post Falls.

“It’s driving the price points up significantly,” Smock said.

According to Smock, people are paying around $429,000 for a 1,200 to 1,400-square-foot new construction “starter” home in the areas of Coeur d’Alene, Hayden and Post Falls, and around $420,000 for the same size of home in Rathdrum. In 2020, the median price for new construction was sitting around $361,000.

The median resale value for a single-family home in Kootenai County is sitting at $567,000, Smock said, and trends over the past five years indicate a “leveling off” of the region’s real estate market.

“There’s slow progression,” Smock said. “The compound growth of 2, 3, 4% is something we really love to see in real estate.”

One area of long-term concern that Smock identified is that although Kootenai County’s homeownership percentage sits above the national average at 72%, she expects that number to go down as younger, first-time home buyers are having an increasingly tough time entering the market.  

“We talk a ton about our youth and first-time home buyers, and how hard it is for them to get into the market,” Smock said.  

The median age for first-time homebuyers is the 40s, according to Smock.  

Smock said the overall increase in demand for housing is largely attributed to an influx of people moving to North Idaho in the past five years — the majority of which are coming from California, Oregon and Washington.  

“There’s nothing wrong with that,” she added.