Economic Indicators Impacting Boise Real Estate

The U.S. economy grew faster than initially thought in the fourth quarter as businesses drew down inventories at a much slower pace and boosted investment, a government report showed on Friday. As the recession eases Boise real estate will be helped out by the positive news.

It was estimated that Gross Domestic Product would increase at a clip of 5.7%, instead it grew at a rate of 5.9% according to the Commerce Department, based on fourth quarter financial numbers. This is the fastest pace the GDP has grown since the middle of the year in 2003. The fastest quarter was the third quarter which posted a robust 2.2% growth rate. The Boise real estate market will see some benefit from these increases, plus other local market factors.

Major news agencies had indicated that the latter portion of 2009 posted a projected growth of 5.7%, including a total of all products and services inside United States borders. Not since the Great Depression of the 1930′s has the country seen this bad of a downturn, and it seemed like we were emerging in 2009 with the latter half of that year posting impressive numbers, but that has tailed off quite a bit in the initial months of 2010. A sharp brake in the pace at which businesses liquidated inventories combined with increased spending on equipment and software to boost growth in the fourth quarter, offsetting lackluster consumer spending and residential investment. This wan’t just a national trend either, as the Boise real estate market saw very similar changes in volume as well.

The initial projections for GDP growth indicated a 2.2% increase, but that has been revised down to about 1.9%, with inventory liquidations and lack of demand bringing some balance. Business inventories fell only $16.9 billion in fourth quarter instead of $33.5 billion estimated last month. Throughout the latter portion of the summer, inventory sales plummeted to $139 billion. The inventory changes alone were responsible for a 3.88% difference in GDP. Since 1987, inventories had not influenced GDP in such a substantial way. A big lift came to the Boise real estate market through the liquidation of these extra inventories by construction companies.

As a whole, the year 2009 featured the most dramatic decrease in GDP, at 2.4%, since the post World War II recovery of 1946. In the final three months of 2009, consumer spending increased at a 1.7% rate, rather than the 2% pace reported in January. Although offset soon afterward, the “cash for clunkers” program drove GDP, by stimulating consumption, up by a respectable 2.8%. The disappointing news came from the consumer spending sector which added only a 1.23% GDP gain, which is low considering it is normally about 70% of GDP. The Boise real estate market has shared in the impact of the national financial crisis.

The department confirmed robust spending on equipment and software caused business investment to grow for the first time since second quarter of 2008, despite a drop in spending on commercial real estate. Estimates for business investment came in at 2.9%, but rose dramatically to 6.5%, much higher than expected. In just the three months prior, it had slumped by just under 6%. With everyone watching the housing markets, projections of 5.7% were down graded to about 5% in the fourth quarter. In the third quarter it had posted a tremendous 18.9%. On the back of stronger exports and imports, which left a trade gap adding .3% to the GDP, the fourth quarter boasted better numbers than otherwise anticipated. With factors that effect Boise real estate and GDP, we are all eager to see a resolution to this crisis.

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