Housing Unit Growth by County: 2000-2008

Residential housing increased within Idaho during the eight year period 2000-2008.  The period covered the residential real estate boom and the beginning of the housing bubble;  the total housing count increased by 110,000 units.   The Bureau of Census reports the distribution of the new homes across the state, at the county level.

The Economic Research Service (ERS) applies a county typology to summarize economic and social data.  One  classification developed by ERS assigns each county to one of six categories of economic dependence.  The categories are: agriculture, mining, manufacturing, federal and state government, services, and non-specialized.   The relative increase in housing units was small for the two counties in the mining economic class: Shoshone (3.0%) and Custer (1.8%).  Teton County experienced the highest percentage increase of all counties, 86.1%.  Neighboring counties of Madison (45.4%), Jefferson (29.5%) and Bonneville (25.5%) also had high rates of housing starts.  The economic dependence class for these southeastern Idaho counties included service based, non-specialized, and agriculture.

Counties that contain substantial national forest acreage fall into the economic category of government dependence (map shade of green).  The housing units increased in these counties, but probably not due to increases in public payrolls.  The change in housing units reflects the amenity draw of public lands for the recreation and retirement home market.  Idaho County is in the same economic dependence class, but the housing unit changes was only 2.2%.

To view an enlarged map summary of the data, read more>>

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