Despite the extended downturn in the housing market, Carey, a two-square-mile city of 500 is holding fast to hopes for a real estate development boom.
Rising fuel prices are hitting this town especially hard, because most residents and target homebuyers commute 35 to 45 miles to the Wood River Valley for work.
Carey real estate became a hot commodity three or four years ago when spiking real estate prices in Hailey and Bellevue drove many home buyers out of the Wood River Valley market. In response, electrical contractor Craig Patterson developed Carey View Estates, the city's first subdivision. He said the 36 lots sold quickly in 2005.
"We sold 11 lots in one day," he said. "The prices jumped from $30,000 to $50,000 and then to $75,000. It was overwhelming." Patterson said he would get three or four calls a month from people looking for lots.
"Now I don't get any," he said.
Still, real estate prices remain within the $75,000 to $91,000 range for a 10,000- to 16,000-square foot home. Patterson said almost all of the original land buyers during the real estate bubble were realtors and speculative homebuilders from the Wood River Valley and Twin Falls.
Land prices rose so quickly that families with deep roots in the city began to doubt whether their kids could afford to stay in town. Some farmers in Carey prospered by selling land for subdivision development.
"If you sell your property as agriculture you get maybe $4000 an acre," said Public Works Director Bob Simpson. "If you sell it for development it can go for $60,000 an acre."
And so the boom was on.
City Planner Sara Mecham got a crash course in urban planning, updating street standards and other municipal ordinances for a town that only became incorporated as a city in 1996. Even though sales have ground to a halt in the last two years, she is still reviewing some 15 subdivision applications, which could bring as many as 1,000 new homes to the city.
"We have had offers from developers who said they will build equestrian centers, swimming pools, community centers, senior centers and bike paths," she said. "I think this is all speculation. I don't think there is any list of people waiting to move here."
Ketchum developer George Kirk presented plans to Carey P&Z about two years ago for an 80-acre annexation, included plans for a "city center" and aviator residences above airplane hangars beside the grass strip airport.
Ketchum developer Harry Rinker's son Rod Rinker paid for an option on more than 200 acres of agricultural land, eventually buying a smaller portion, which he quickly re-sold to another developer, who is waiting for subdivision approval for 94 homes.
The race to develop property was won by developers Dick Fairfield and Charlie Holt, the principal partners in Green Field Estates and Waterford Park respectively. Only three of the 26 lots in Greenfield Estates have homes on them. Waterford has two homes built in a subdivision of 66 lots. Almost all five homes were built by the developers and are currently being rented.
Holt dug a new municipal well, built a water main from the city's water tank, upgraded a road entering the subdivision and built the city's first sidewalks within Waterford. These are the only amenities the city has realized from all the development hype.
Nearly two years after completion, the Waterford subdivision is weedy and dry, with a forlorn, unused playground in the center. Only 60 percent of the original Carey View Estates on the other end of town have homes on them.
"We built the homes out there to show first time home buyers what can be done," said Holt's partner in Waterford, John Sheer. He says building a home in Carey is still a competitive option for first time homebuilders in Hailey.
Yet realtor Janine Bear, who is the listing agent for Greenfield Estates, says she is seeing "screaming deals" in the Woodside subdivision of Hailey, due in part to foreclosure sales in the neighborhood. She said that 46 lots and nine homes are currently for sale in Carey, none of them under contract.
Bear bought "The Watering Hole" bar and restaurant on the eastern end of Carey two years ago, but shut it down last year due to a lack of business.
Five woodworking operations provide about 30 jobs for the 500 residents in the city. An estimated one-third of the rest drive elsewhere each day to find work. A van belonging to Sun Valley Company takes several people north each day to the ski resort for work. Even the city's Mayor, Rick Baird, who remains upbeat about Carey's future, commutes to his job as manager of Hailey's Friedman Memorial Airport.
"There is not quite the same push we had a few years ago to develop," said Baird at his office in Hailey a few weeks ago. "But none of the applications for subdivisions have been withdrawn. We have the open space in Carey, and access to fishing and hunting. We are also on the edge of Craters of the Moon National Park."
Yet Baird, like anyone you ask in Carey, agrees that the town needs more businesses of its own to keep the community intact.
A steady stream of trailers brings alfalfa hay, the city's cash crop, out of the city to industrial dairy operations in the Magic Valley. Carey farmers also produce hops for Coors and Budweiser, but the price of hay, which has doubled in the past year, is providing a balance to some of the hopes dashed by the real estate bust.
Carey City Planner Sara Mecham has been working to establish municipal ordinances that will be used to process 15 subdivision applications in the city. If all of the subdivisions are approved, they will bring 1,000 new homes to the rural area. Photo by
