Here is a link to our “May Real Estate Update“:

This Newsletter is full of interesting and useful information perfect for buyers, sellers, homeowners, or renters.

This month’s issue includes topics such as:

“First Time Buyers’ Dos And Don’ts”;
“Taking The Real Estate Investment Plunge”;
“Tax Rebate Uses For Buyers”;
“Review The Landscape Before You Buy Or Sell”;
“Housing Bills Will Help Homeowners And Economy”;

Plus a roundup of April real estate activity as well as much more advice and information.

Enjoy. If you have any comments, let us know. Or, if you would like to see a certain topic covered in future months, let us know that too!

This is an interesting read - combining history of the growth of the area with “what’s going to happen now” scenarios.

As a surge of traveling motorists teemed across the U.S. in the decade after World War II, roadside motels sprouted up along the east end of Coeur d’Alene’s Sherman Avenue, which then carried U.S. 10, a main east-west artery.

In 1964, work began on Interstate 90, constructed through Coeur d’Alene over a period of 24 years, and the federal highway system and its flood of traffic left east Sherman behind in its rear-view mirror.

Some of Sherman’s ’50s era motels, including the Flamingo, the State, and the Bates, still survive, while others have gone the way of the chrome-laden gas guzzler.

Read more.

For all of you LinkedIn fans, I’m on linkedin.  Connect with me - I’d love to ‘meet’ you!

The strong real estate market is holding, with leaders in the industry still growing:

The top three Inland Northwest builders of single-family homes—Viking Construct­ion Inc., Sullivan Homes Inc., and Green­stone Corp.—all saw their total building-permit values rise last year, compared with 2006, says an annual list compiled by Cedar City, Utah-based Construction Monitor Inc. The combined value of permits obtained by the area’s top 10 builders last year was $177.8 million, down from $180.7 million the year before.

Another company growing and expanding, creating more jobs in the area:

Magnuson Hotels, a 5-year-old Spokane-based company that markets and provides reservation management services to independent hotels, says its business has soared since it launched a branding campaign last September.

About 100 hotels across the country currently are in various stages of changing their identities to the Magnuson Hotel brand, says Tom Magnuson, CEO of the company, which portrays itself as a low-cost alternative to expensive franchise chains. Another 500 hotels are affiliated with Magnuson Hotels, but aren’t using its brand name, he says.

Manufacturing is increasing slowly but surely:

A Rathdrum Prairie company that makes foam insulation and packaging materials is expanding its manufacturing complex considerably and plans to hire five to six additional workers once the expansion is completed.

The company, FMI-EPS LLC, which formerly was known as Foam Molders Inc., is having a 31,000-square-foot plant built for it just east of its current, 45,000-square-foot facility at 9456 McGuire Road, which is just south of Hayden Avenue and north of the city of Post Falls. The total cost of the project, including a $900,000 piece of equipment that will be installed in the new building, is about $3.4 million, says Gary Bremer, who co-owns FMI-EPS with his wife, Glenda.

“Virgle’s goal is simple: the establishment of a permanent human settlement on Mars. Larry Page, Sergey Brin and I feel strongly that contemporary technology is sufficiently advanced to make such an effort both successful and economical, and that it’s high time that humanity moved beyond Earth and began our great, long journey to explore the stars and establish our first lasting foothold on another world.”

Amazing!

F. Lewis Clark was born in Bangor, Maine, June 21, 1861. In 1884 he established the C. & O. Mill and elevator, the largest flouring mill in the Pacific Northwest. In 1910 Clark built a 15,000 sq. ft. mansion as a summer home in Hayden Lake, Idaho with his wife Winifred. The “Honeysuckle Lodge” was the most expensive home in Idaho at the time.In 1914 Clark mysteriously disappeared and was never heard from again. His wife tried to manage the estate but by 1922 she was forced to sell all of her possessions. In 1989, Monty Danner bought and restored the property. It is now a country inn known as The Clark House.

I found this info by stumbling. Try it, it’s fun!

Google Satellite Map & Streetview

Coeur d’Alene Visitors Bureau Reports Winter Lodging Sales
This year’s lodging numbers are up significantly from last year. Year to date (Idaho Tourism fiscal year), Kootenai County is up 19.1% from last year. We continue to experience significant increases in North Idaho as our area increases in popularity to visitors. We expect to see an increase in weekend visits for the shoulder seasons (spring and fall) through additionally marketing efforts of the CVB.  For more information about tourism and the CVB, contact Dani at 415-0114.

The meeting scheduled for April 3rd has been canceled.   Apparently, the ‘correct process’ was not done to hold the meeting.

Be looking for more information on this coming to current homeowners.  The process will be done correctly and a new meeting will be scheduled.

As soon as I know something, I’ll let you know here.

Unfortunately, there is no resolution on this issue, so at this point, all I can do is report it to you:

City, homeowners group pass on option to buy Prairie Falls golf course

POST FALLS — Prairie Falls Golf Club is for sale for $6 million, leaving 242 property owners in limbo wondering whether they’ll be viewing greens or more homes in the future and whether North Idaho will lose an option for affordable golf.

Both the city and the Prairie Falls Homeowners Association were recently approached to see if they were interested in acquiring the 120 acres in the north-central part of the city, but there were no takers.

A worker at the course said on Friday that golf play will continue for the rest of the year, regardless of whether it sells.

But, beyond that, it’s unclear whether the property or a portion of it will remain a course or be homes in the future.

Here is a news article on this, although I’m not sure it’ll be very helpful.

One of my main goals for this blog has been to provide accurate information, from stats to statements.  Everything factual, provable, accurate.  One of my biggest pet peeves is when someone spouts off information that is inaccurate.  Even bigger, is when it is a colleague or someone working within the real estate industry.

If you ever hop on over the the Coeur d’Alene Press blogs, you’ll see all sorts of talkers spewing information about how terrible the housing market is locally, about how home prices are going to drop drastically (I’ve read one person who’s just certain it’s going to drop almost 40% by the end of the summer), and about how no one is moving into Kootenai County anymore because it’s just too darn expensive.

Interesting troll bait - but every single statement is mere opinion based upon nothing but the desire to be a doomsday / naysayer.  Wishful dreamy thinking from those that missed their opportunity to make a big/quick buck buying real estate between 2003 and 2006.

So here’s the deal - the Coeur d’Alene Idaho metropolitan area was the 29th fastest growing metropolitan area in the nation.  Coeur d’Alene competed against every single county with a population of 50,000 or more.   That is 363 Metro areas.  Kootenai County grew faster than  334 other counties.

This is exactly why our housing prices haven’t taken a dive.  People still want to live here.  People are still moving here.

Kootenai County’s population increased 2.8% between July 2006 and July 2007.  That is 3,722 new residents, an average of  310 each month.   Kootenai County has been averaging approximately a 3% increase every year for the past 7 years.  That is a total of 23.7% increase over 2000.

For more information, please visit the US Census Bureau.