"Everyone Here Is From California." We Checked.
You hear it at every backyard barbecue in the Treasure Valley, usually delivered as settled fact. We went looking for the numbers. Here's what they actually show — including the parts that don't flatter the skeptics. First, an honest problem with the data Anyone citing "recent Census data" about whi
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Your Assessment Notice Is Not a CMA
Every June, assessment notices land in Ada County mailboxes, and every June we have the same conversation twice a week in two different flavors. One version: "The county says it's worth $610,000, so that's what we should list at." The other: "The county says it's worth $610,000 and there's no way —
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Look Up the Road Before You Buy the House
In most of the country, if you want to know what's planned for the street in front of a house, you call the city. In Ada County, the city doesn't know. Roads here belong to the Ada County Highway District — an independent, separately elected taxing district responsible for planning, building and mai
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The Ditch in Your Backyard Isn't Yours
Somewhere in the back third of a lot in Meridian, Kuna, or west Boise, there is a strip of ground the homeowner mows, pays taxes on, and does not control. It's the irrigation easement. And it is the single most common thing we see buyers discover after closing rather than before — usually the first
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