CANYON COUNTY, Idaho — Jeremy Fawcett is halfway to the American Dream as a local business owner in Nampa and he's now ready to buy a home.
"Ohh shoot dang, yes I do!" Fawcett said. "I wanna have a garden, I wanna have a dog. I want to be able to raise a family in a home where I get to control every aspect of it."
However, the median cost of a Canyon County home has brought that dream to a halt. The median Canyon County home is now $422,445 according to the latest MLS report, which is a $100,000 increase in 12 months.
Even though Fawcett is financially stable with no debt or outstanding bills, a normal home is out of his budget.
"It's getting crazy. It's getting wild, man," Fawcett told KTVB.
To afford a $422,000 home, the average buyer needs to make $100,000 a year, according to local Keller Williams' realtor Chris Carpenter. However, the median Canyon County annual income is $52,134, according to the latest U.S. Census data.
This means a normal salary cannot afford a normal home.
"It's the same competitiveness, it's the same market, everything's still just as busy wherever you go," Carpenter said.
It's this disconnect that's made Fawcett's dream just that - a dream.
"I've given up. I've given up. There is no way I can make it," Fawcett said. "So I don't think it's gonna happen."
However, there are options for first-time homebuyers, according to Guild Mortgage Sale Manager Kim Demma. From January 2021 to mid-November 2021, Demma said her team closed 61 loans, roughly half of which were first-time buyers.
The average household income of these first-time buyers leveled out at $61,234 and the average purchase price for these buyers was $321,983.
This data continues to show even an above-median income cannot afford a median home; however, it also shows more affordable options do exist for first-time homebuyers.
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