Latah County escapes home foreclosure crisis 

Of Latah County’s 15,247 homes, just one of them filed for foreclosure in February.

That’s a statistic that Ada and Canyon counties can only dream about these days. According to RealtyTrac.com, Canyon County had the highest foreclosure rate in the state, with 473 properties filing in February. That’s one in every 140 homes.
Ada County was not too far behind with one in 219 filing for foreclosure, or 697 homes.
The state had 1,764 filings total, adding up to one in 357 properties.
So Latah County is one to be admired.
A lot of things are going right in Latah County, said Margaret Howlett, executive director for the Latah Economic Development Council.
She said new businesses are continuously being announced, largely as a result of research done at the two nearby universities, the University of Idaho in Moscow and Washington State University in Pullman, Wash.
She said a “natural science cluster” is beginning in the area, stocked with companies that deal with environmental matters, like environmental engineering firms and a river restoration firm.
Additionally, energy firms like Moscow-based GoNano Technologies are finding a place in the area.
“We haven’t seen massive layoffs,” Howlett said. “Certainly our unemployment is not great, and we want to work on making it better. We want to work with existing businesses to get through the hard time, but we’re also seeing some cutting-edge businesses that are really working with what’s going on in the country and around the world.”
Howlett said the universities have contributed to a stable economic base that means the Latah County real estate market is not out of control.
Debbie Loaiza, owner of Moscow-based Team Idaho Real Estate, said 2008 was not too different from 2007 for single-family homes.
Prices dropped 2.4 percent, from $216,600 to $211,500, and days on the market went up 11.3 percent, from 124 to 138. The number of homes sold dropped 11.5 percent, from 347 in 2007 to 307 in 2008.
For comparison, in Canyon County, prices dropped 15.5 percent, from $179,905 to $155,740, and days on the market went up 43.1 percent, from 58 to 83 across those two years. And 34.3 percent fewer homes were sold in 2008 than 2007, falling from 3,238 to 2,126, according to the Intermountain Multiple Listing Service.
So with prices and sales staying comparatively stable in Latah County, homeowners aren’t finding themselves trapped with negative equity like they are in foreclosure-rich areas.
Loaiza cited several reasons for the county’s low foreclosure rate.
“I think that it would probably be a combination of people making wise decisions of what to do with the equity in their home and not getting upside down with seconds; it would have to do with our prices not escalating out of control and also some good lending practices,” she said. “We didn’t have some of the predatory lending going on that you see in other areas – we’re a small community here, and people work with local lenders and are not necessarily getting into bad loans.”
Charlie Nate, principal for foreclosure tracker IdahoDataProviders.com, said it’s getting to a point where the adjustable-rate mortgages made at the height of the Treasure Valley building boom are being reset. So month after month, starting in December 2008, Ada and Canyon counties have blown away records for number of foreclosure starts.
And Nate said it’s only going to get worse, judging from high inventory levels, short sales driving prices down, mounting job losses, tight requirements for credit approval and more upcoming mortgage resets.
Latah’s Howlett said her area’s escape from the foreclosure spiral is a function of the county’s form.
“Who can say what the lessons are? I think that we’re blessed,” she said. “I think we are very blessed with having the universities as our economic engine in the community. … It’s a very stable economic environment.”

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