Home building generates local economic impacts such as income and jobs for local residents, and revenue for local governments. It also typically imposes costs on local governments—such as the costs of providing primary and secondary education, police and fire protection, and water and sewer service. Not only do these services require annual expenditures for items such as teacher salaries, they typically also require capital investment in buildings, other structures, and equipment that local governments own and maintain.

This report presents estimates of the metro area impacts of home building in Canyon County, Idaho. The report presents estimates of the impacts of building 871 single family and 20 multifamily housing units, based on the level of construction in Canyon County during the 12 month period ending June 30, 2008.

• Executive Summary

• Detailed Tables on Single Family Construction

• Detailed Tables on Multifamily Construction

• Background and a Brief Description of the

• Model Used to Estimate the Economic Benefits

• Technical Documentation

Home building generates substantial local economic activity, including new income and jobs for residents, and additional revenue for local governments. The National Association of Home Builders has developed a model to estimate the economic benefits. The model captures the effect of the construction activity itself, the ripple impact that occurs when income earned from construction activity is spent and recycles in the local economy, and the ongoing impact that results from new homes becoming occupied by residents who pay taxes and buy locally produced goods and services. In order to fully appreciate the positive impact residential construction has on a community, it’s important to include the ripple effects and the ongoing benefits. Since the NAHB model was initially developed in 1996, it has been successfully applied to construction in over 500 projects, local jurisdictions, metropolitan areas, non-metropolitan counties, and states across the country.