39 Priest Lake lots sold at auction

PRIEST LAKE — The Idaho Department of Lands auctioned 39 lots at Priest Lake for deeded ownership at a public auction in Coeur d’Alene Saturday.

The land sales generated $18.9 million for the Public School Endowment.

All of the leased lots in today’s auction have cabins on them and are under lease. The land is owned by the state of Idaho and the cabins and other improvements on the land are owned by the leaseholders as personal property. The current leaseholders applied to participate in the auction.

Of the 41 leased lots offered at auction, 38 were sold to current lessees. One lot — appraised at $740,000 — had a competitive bid and was purchased by a non-lessee for $1.1 million. The winning bidder must also pay the former lessee the appraised value for the cabin.

Two lots did not receive any bids at Saturday’s auction.

All the lots are lakefront properties. The state can accept no less than the appraised value of the endowment lands that are auctioned.

The total acreage of the land that sold at Saturday’s auction was approximately 45 acres.

In February 2016, the Land Board approved the auction of 334 leased lots at Priest Lake and Payette Lake by the end of 2019.

Additionally, IDL will be auctioning unleased lots at both lakes over the next few years.

In 2010 the Land Board approved a plan to divest the state’s ownership of most of the cottage sites at both lakes over time in order to reinvest the proceeds into assets that generate higher returns than the rent from the lots.

Including today’s auction, 228 cottage site lots have sold — 141 lots at Priest Lake and 87 lots at Payette Lake for a total — of approximately $97.7 million for the endowments.

The funds from the land sales will be deposited in the “Land Bank” and used to purchase other lands in Idaho, such as timber lands, or they may go into a Permanent Fund. The Idaho Constitution requires a public auction for the disposal of state endowment trust lands.

In May 2016, The Land Board approved the Strategic Reinvestment Plan, which means they will consider strategic acquisitions of timberland and, on a more limited basis, farmland with the proceeds from the sale of residential cottage sites and commercial properties.

If all present and future sale proceeds from cottage sites and commercial were reinvested in timber and farm lands, the endowments would regain approximately 10 percent of the acreage previously sold.

IDL, under the direction of the Land Board, manages 2.4 million acres of State endowment trust land under a constitutional mandate to maximize long term financial returns.