Rent Trends in Boise, Eagle, Meridian & Star

Q1-2024

Single Family Homes

In general, trends are what we would expect to see in the Spring rental market in the Treasure Valley. Categorically, median rents are increasing.

We are also seeing less supply in most cities compared with Q4 2023. New properties coming on the market that are in desirable areas, in good condition, and well-priced seem to be renting quickly. We tend to see homes that are pushing prices beyond the market, or not in good condition sitting for longer periods of time.

We’re also seeing a very wide range of pricing for similar homes. This makes it especially important to work with a manager with a strong competence in analyzing pricing. Some homes we’re seeing are underpriced by hundreds (up to $500 in one instance). While they rent quickly, the error in pricing is costing the homeowner thousands annually. This is especially important as maintenance and other costs remain high.

*You may notice our formatting has changed a little. Graphs no longer include 2022 data.

BOISE

The Boise rental market saw an uptick in the new year with median home rental prices increasing each month of the quarter from $2200 in December to $2300 in March. This parallels the increase in pricing in Q1 2023, though 2024’s monthly rents are hovering slightly below the 2023 trajectory. Inventory has been steadily dropping since early October 2023 (when we began tracking it).

EAGLE

Eagle’s median rents have jumped significantly this quarter, surpassing the $3k mark. What’s driving it? First, Eagle has far fewer rentals at any given point than Boise and Meridian. A mix of luxury homes (large square footage, backing to water features, golf courses, etc.) and furnished homes are contributing to the high median rents. Unlike the other cities which have standard bell curves representing rent prices, Eagle’s is flat. At time of writing (April 4, 2024), there were 1-3 rentals available at every $100 price point between $2100 and $4200 in Eagle.

Though we don’t track specific neighborhoods, our observation is that there are fewer homes available in smaller lot subdivisions that tend to balance out the median rates.

Eagle’s days on market is also increasing notably. This could be because the market isn’t supporting these higher prices, or due to the smaller pool of potential renters for the high price-point rentals.

MERIDIAN

Like Eagle and Boise, Meridian too is seeing an uptick in rents from what was a softer Q4. Notably, Meridian median rent in December was $2,245 and hit $2,450 in March 2024. Supply in Meridian is relatively consistent compared to Boise and Eagle, while its average days on market is slowly trending upward.

STAR

Unlike its neighboring cities, Star didn’t see the same upward trend in Q1. Rents increased some in January, then dropped some in February and March. This fluctuation wasn’t drastic, and rents appear to be gaining some ground in early April. March inventory was about half as much as it was in October 2023 while days on market was about twice as long in the same period. However, days on market drastically reduced towards the end of March and into April.

Last quarter we talked about the build-to-rent neighborhood that accounted for about half of Star’s single family homes. That ratio has dropped, and the build-to-rent neighborhood now represents under 1/3 of the available rentals. This was a likely driver in the reduction of days on market in Star, as some of these build-to-rent homes that were on the market over 150+ days are no longer available. Though we can’t say whether they were rented or pulled off the market.

About the data:

We decided to publish this market data after noticing that almost all the market updates for the rental market combine both single family and multi-family datapoints. And while we’re always interested in what’s going on with our multifamily brethren, we wanted a place where single-family data can stand on its own.

The other thing we noticed is that many of the market updates lump the entire Treasure Valley into one datapoint. While helpful from a 20,000-foot view, it’s less helpful when you’re trying to understand the market dynamics for a rental property in Eagle versus a rental property in Kuna.

We created this quarterly market update for single family homes in the Treasure Valley based on publicly available Zillow listing and rental data along with our observations.

This is not investment advice and is for educational purposes only.

[SOURCE: Zillow]