It was a big, coffee-craving crowd.

About 900 people got up early Wednesday to hear a blend of predictions, pleas and appraisals at the Boise Metro Chamber of Commerce’s annual Economic Outlook Forum.

The predictions came largely from Gerald Hunter, president and executive director of the Idaho Housing and Finance Association.

Hunter thinks 2009 might bring a turnaround in the local housing market. He thinks home prices could keep sinking into early 2009, but he also sees signs of emerging stability in falling inventory and days-on-market data. He said a survey of local industry leaders in the last couple of weeks found that more than four in five expect home prices to hold flat or increase modestly next year. While Hunter characterized that as “a very optimistic response,” he concluded: “2009 is going to be a very challenging year, but hopefully it will be a year of turnaround.”

The pleas and appraisals came from the other speakers.

Glen Hiemstra, a futurist from Kirkland, Wash. (and a Canyon County native) who owns Futurist.com, argued that the U.S. must put more of its citizens through college and cover more of them with health insurance to keep up with the rest of the industrialized world. He said the wealthiest Americans have grown wealthier in the past 29 years, while the middle class has been “hollowed out.” And he said Americans’ half-century movement toward bigger houses — MUCH bigger houses — is unsustainable.

Paul Kjellander, administrator of the Idaho Office of Energy Resources, said new electrical transmission lines — the big ones that stretch across states — will be built all over the West in years to come. We’ll pay for that in our electric rates, he said. He said Idaho is considering creating renewable-energy enterprise zones to attract development of biomass, wind, geothermal and other energy.

And Mark Bader-Hellstrom, senior vice president of infrastructure for URS’ Washington Division (formerly Washington Group International), urged folks to get behind efforts by Gov. Butch Otter and Congress to pump more money into highways, bridges and other infrastructure.

Read business reporter Bill Roberts’ report in Thursday’s Statesman.

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If you didn’t catch it, Monday’s Wall Street Journal carried a story about the collapse of DBSI, the Meridian real-estate investment company whose demise the Statesman chronicled last week (Nov. 11). Here are links to the Journal and Statesman stories. We’re interested in hearing from any local DBSI investors with stories to tell. (DBSI hasn’t been talking, buf if President Douglas L. Swenson changes his mind, we’d like to tell his story, too). Reach reporter Brad Talbutt at btalbutt@idahostatesman.com or 672-6737.

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This entry marks my return to blogging after an absence forced by the election season (I oversee our political coverage as well as business) and other editing demands. Statesman staff changes in the past few weeks included some beat changes that have brought Bill Roberts and Brad Talbutt to the business reporting team. Roberts continues to cover higher education, too.

This blog is a place to tell some stories or offer angles that don’t make it elsewhere in the Statesman print or online editions, and to direct you to Idaho business stories elsewhere that might be of interest. If there’s something you’d like featured, e-mail me at dstaats@idahostatesman.com.