A Love Affair Gone North

I love Anchorage (although I instruct  our realtors never to use that verb when describing a home) ‘love’ is the appropriate word for my feelings about my adopted hometown. I arrived in Anchorage in 1979; took Cal Winey’s real estate class and the rest  is history. Anchorage in 1979 was a do whatever you have the guts to do. Many of us  took that challenge to heart. We built thousands of homes, apartment buildings, new roads, and neighborhoods from Sand Lake to the hillside.

I’m not a hunter, fisherwoman, fat tire biker or rock climber but the smell of new lumber, the fresh turn of dirt from an excavator’s bucket has kept me here for over forty years. And most of all helping Alaskans catch their American dream of home ownership whether it’s their first condo or a two million dollar home. 

So now to keep that dream alive, I drive to the Mat-Su twice a week. I still ‘love’ walking the Park Strip with Peaches and Hapa; joining friends for coffee at City Market; walking the Potter Marsh boardwalk, and doing the occasional open house to stay connected to the community. But the smell of fresh lumber, the buyers’ smiles of a new home are not as often as they used to be with building permits at an all-time low in Anchorage. People ask me “When are you moving to the Valley?” and I say never “Anchorage is my home.” But I hear that refrain often now from other aging boomers who would like a new ranch home with a triple car garage on a wide lot that you are lucky to find in Anchorage for less than $850,000. So the love affair wanes just a little bit every day, every year.

So here’s the most startling static of all. The Mat-Su Valley built half of the new homes in the state in 2022 with only 15% of the population. Anchorage was second with 23%. The Valley, like Anchorage, was not immune from a slowdown in construction in 2021-2022, due to high inflation and doubling of mortgage interest rates. Although home sales in the Valley have slowed during the first quarter of 2023, there were 308 sales with a population of 111,752  compared to Anchorage’s 355 with a population of 289,810. Part of that was driven by the lower cost of sales. According to the statewide  MLS, the Mat-Su had an average sales price of  $373,913 compared to Anchorage’s $462,142.     

Mat-Su’s population in 2022 was 111,752 compared to Anchorage’s 289,810. Mat-Su continues to gain in annual migration between Anchorage and the Mat-Su.  During 2020-2021 2,932 Anchorage residents moved to the Mat-Valley while only 1,517 Mat-Su residents moved to Anchorage. Over the past two decades the Mat-Su has had the most positive gain in population of any area of the state while Anchorage falls into the negative category of lost movers.

I am not an economist nor a well-educated city planner. My degree is an MFA in poetry but I know in my heart that we need to do better as a community. We have a downtown that hanging flower baskets can no longer hide its decay. We have continued controversies over a school site, a homeless shelter and, yes, a mixed density residential development in Girdwood. Our remaining land supply grows smaller every year. We are surrounded by water, mountains, parks and military land. We need to come together to make the best of what land we have left.

As always thank you for your many referrals. Read my next column on Wednesday, May 30 after enjoying the long Memorial Day weekend with family and friends. If you want to discuss the real estate market, feel free to give me a call/text 907-229-2703.