While housing markets in California, New York and Florida have gotten the most attention in the news for their dramatic price recovery since the great financial crisis, it is Boise, Idaho (pop. 226,574) that leads the nation in terms of the strongest housing recovery, according to a recent report by SmartAsset.
Using data from the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), SmartAsset compared movements in the Housing Price Index (HPI) for the 100 largest metro areas in the U.S. Specifically, they considered each metro area’s HPI change from its pre-crisis peak to trough, pre-crisis peak to current price and trough to current price.
Western housing markets experienced the strongest recoveries, according to the report. All five of these market metro areas have seen their home prices more than double since they bottomed out during the recession. The markets with the strongest recoveries have been Boise, Idaho; San Francisco-San Mateo-Redwood City, Calif.; San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, Calif.; Seattle-Bellevue-Kent, Wash.; and Denver-Aurora-Lakewood, Colo.
Meanwhile, almost a quarter of metro areas have not fully recovered. Housing prices in 21 of the 100 largest metro areas have failed to reach pre-recession levels. In fact, in six metro areas, the most current HPI (from the third quarter of 2019) is more than 10% lower than it was at its pre-crisis peak.
