Archive for the 'Wasilla Real Estate News' Category
Neal Fried Is Bullish On The Valley January 3rd, 2007
Neal Fried was in Wasilla today giving a great presentation regarding the Mat-Su economy to the Valley Board of Realtors. Neal is an economist for the State of Alaska. He has a talent for making statistics seem interesting. He is excited about research. I was excited about his statistics. All the charts are courtesy of Neal Fried, click on them to enlarge.
Here are some of the highlights:
- The population in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough continues to grow even though other population areas are shrinking. The chart to the top left illustrates that. The valley continues to show healthy growth even though Anchorage actually experienced negative growth. The state as a whole also saw negative growth as the yellow column shows.
- Job growth in 2006 was slower, but still healthy. The four years previous to
2006 showed job growth of over 1,000 new jobs per year but 2006 saw only 646 new jobs. Fried’s guess is that 2007 will be similar to this year in job growth. - Housing affordability has decreased. This has been the case nationwide. Prices of homes have increased to the point that it now takes 1.9 workers at an average Valley income to afford the average home in the valley. However, since Anchorage wages are higher it only takes 1.4 Anchorage workers to afford that same home. That is the reason we have so many Anchorage workers living here. In fact, 35% of our work force commutes to Anchorage. In addition, another 10% work elsewhere in the state.
How To Ski All Day For FREE! December 31st, 2006
For years the Mat-Su Borough has been making noise about developing Hatcher Pass. At least two large resort developers have pulled out of the deal after exploring the project. People living at the end of Palmer and Wasilla Fishhook Roads often speculate on how much their land will be worth when the big resort goes in.
But a lot of valley residents aren’t waiting. People young and old have been using Hatcher Pass for many years. Downhill skiers, snowboarders, and sledders have been using the 16 mile hill for a long time. This is a pull-off that is a little more than 1/2 way between the Motherlode and Hatcher Pass Lodge. There is a sign there regarding sledding 
but no one seems to pay attention to it.
On a good weekend dozens of pickups and SUVs shuttle people from the bottom to the top of the hill. Some are with their party and many are just hitching rides. This has been a valley secret for years and years. Why spend the big bucks on the ski lifts when you can ski all day for free at Hatcher Pass? Palmer and Wasilla high school kids are still keeping the ancient tradition of playing hookey on great snow days to sneak off to Hatcher Pass for a day on the slopes.
This is just one more benefit of living in the Mat-Su Valley. Email me for more great ideas on how to recreate without spending lots of money or going far from home.
Point Mac Prison December 26th, 2006
It looks like the prison is going to be put out at Point Mackenzie. Sounds like a good place for it. I attended the Wasilla Chamber of Commerce luncheon on Dec 19 to hear Borough Manager John Duffy and Borough Economic and Development Director Dave Hansen give a presentation on the economic impact of the prison.
This prison is a $330,000,000 project. That is the largest construction project in Alaska since the pipeline. They hope to break ground by this coming summer and have the prison on line in 2010. The prison will house more than 2100 inmates and require about 600 direct jobs and more than 500 indirect jobs.
Most interesting to me is the prediction of needing about 420 homes to house the workers. Although these homes will not be purchased until the prison is on line in 2010 it is my belief that the anticipated impact of the prison will cause people to buy up most of our excess inventory under $300,000 by the end of the year.
Of Jails and Houses December 24th, 2006
I can’t seem to go anywhere these days without someone asking me about the market. Are values still rising? Are we going to have a crash? What is my home worth. Should I buy/sell now or wait? This article will attempt to answer some of those questions.
No Crystal Ball
It’s important to remember that we can only see the present with any clarity. We can also compare the present with the past but future predictions are hazy at best. So let’s start with last year, compare it to this year and guess about the future.
The Core Area
We will confine our comparison to the greater core area. The greater core area is a term I use for Wasilla, Palmer, Big Lake, and the Knik-Goose Bay Road area.
Yesterday
In 2005 the Multiple Listing Service shows 1380 residential home sales in the greater core area of the Mat-Su Valley. The average sales price was $213,834. That is surprisingly close to the amount of sales in 2004 which saw 1316 sales. But the average price was up 13% from 2004’s average price of $188,058.
Marty Van Diest, Tele 907.232.7900 / marty[at]valleymarket[dot]com
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