Good friends of our marketing director learned in March that their daughter would spend the next 52 weeks of her young life battling cancer.

About two weeks into the treatment, she started to lose her hair.

To show solidarity, her friends and schoolmates held a "Bald is Beautiful" fundraiser for her and her family...and shaved their heads in the process!

Click here for the inspirational clip from "Seven's Heroes."

Labels: Boise, News

In this weekend's edition (full text):

February sales were lower than those in 2006, but builders say buyers are back in the market.

Treasure Valley housing sales remained in the doldrums in February, but showed renewed signs of life in March, according to industry experts.

Area builders say an eight-month slump in sales has been replaced this month with a steady stream of customers looking to buy.

February sales were lower than those of February 2006, newly released data show.

According to the Intermountain Multiple Listing Service, which tracks sales in the Treasure Valley, 1,284 homes sold in February, a 36 percent drop from the same month a year ago. Ada County had just 563 sales, compared with 780 a year ago. Canyon County recorded 250 sales, or 38 percent fewer that in February 2006.

But prices were up over the same period a year earlier, despite declines nationwide. In Ada County the median price of a home was $229,500 in February, up 4.3 percent from a year ago. In Canyon County the median was $160,000, up 10 percent.

"We don't have a lack of people buying," said Anthony Nusbaumer, vice president of sales for Hubble Homes in Meridian...

Jack Centers, president of Tahoe Homes in Meridian, said his February sales were about 20 percent higher than the previous month.

"We're getting back to normal," said Centers, who believes nervous investors started dumping local properties last year, fueling the downturn in 2006.

As we've blogged before, the housing downturn simply hasn't hit Boise as hard as it has other markets. In fact, our staff just completed a spreadsheet tracking home appreciation in Ada and Canyon Counties (broken down by region, e.g. NW Nampa, East Boise, etc) from 2002 to the present.

The numbers are encouraging. With a few exceptions (notably Melba), homes have been steadily appreciating, with the well-known spike in 2005 and a major correction in 2006. Now, as the article notes, homes are still appreciating at a healthy rate.

Contact us if you'd like a copy of this spreadsheet.

Labels: Boise, News, Real Estate