Real estate experts talk impact of new temple on Pocatello housing

On Thursday, the official location for the new temple for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in Pocatello was announced.

It will be located in the Satterfield area – east of Satterfield and Butte Street in a subdivision known as Crestview Estates.

Satterfield is still a developing and up-and-coming area in Pocatello, so would the temple have an impact on housing costs in the area?

Some local real estate experts feel it would only have a positive impact.

“I expect to see a positive impact and I expect to see it fairly immediate,” said Michael Wheelock, owner and broker of Premier Properties in Pocatello, and also the president of the Pocatello Realtors Association.

“I definitely anticipate it to be a positive impact,” agreed Ryan Satterfield, developer and broker for Satterfield Realty.

Satterfield’s family also donated the land the temple will be on and he said they did so in the anticipation of the benefits it would bring to the community.

Wheelock said looking at other areas that have added in temples, it often shows positive results for thos communities.

“We’re surrounded by communities that have had temples, and do,” Wheelock said. “Twin Falls being the most recent, and their immediate impact in the area the temple was built – immediately increased values. And so the trend is, when a temple arrives to a community, the values will go up.”

Both Satterfield and Wheelock said housing costs in the Satterfield and temple area will likely go up – mainly because of supply and demand.

Satterfield said over the last few years, they’ve seen a five to ten percent increase in the cost of new homes and he expects that trend to hold steady, or maybe even climb a little bit.

“Across the nation, as there’s more demand for materials, for labor, then that basically pushes up the price because it limits the supply,” he said. “We’ll see a very similar thing here. As there’s more demand, perhaps for those that want to live around the temple or in the temple area, the supply might not be able to meet that demand.”

Wheelock said the other problem is that there’s already a supply shortage in that area when it comes to homes.

“So currently because of the limited inventory right now, they’re already increasing,” he said. “The notion that project will be going on, and members of the church like to live near those areas, it should just be a simply fairly steady growth over the next five to ten year period and increase value steadily over those years.”

When asked if higher housing costs in the Satterfield area would also drive up other housing costs for the rest of the city, both Satterfield and Wheelock said it might.

“In other areas, perhaps down in Salt Lake, or where we’ve seen a lot of temples built, it has been shown that it can affect – positively – real estate values,” Satterfield said. “But we also have to take into consideration, what is the underlying economy doing in that city?”

“What would happen is, as that area increases in value, which I think it will, those comparables showing higher values can now be used by appraisers that are appraising other properties throughout our market,” Wheelock explained. “Our market is small enough they can utilize comparables in the Highland area for maybe south Pocatello or Chubbuck area. So yeah, I think the effect there will be – because there will be higher end comparables, it will tug up some of the values in these other areas as well.”

But Wheelock continued that it wouldn’t necessarily mean a large increase for lower-end, more affordable housing because there will still be enough demand for those kinds of homes as well to have lower-end comparables balance out that end of the housing spectrum.

Satterfield also added in response to the supply and demand issue in the area, that they are already working on adding new subdivisions to try and help with demand – and with the project increase with the temple’s potential.

Both Satterfield and Wheelock say overall, for the economy and community, they feel it’s going to be a positive thing.