Some Boiseans on Reddit have been reflecting on the state of apartment renting in Boise after a recent article from the Idaho Statesman showed that developers are putting off multi family home projects.
Though that’s true — there were 4,739 units planned in the Boise metro area in 2022 and only 596 in the first four months of 2023 — the news is still raising some eyebrows.
“Dwindling? Last I checked they were going up everywhere.”
Apartment buildings certainly are still going up everywhere, especially downtown. But the process of going from a permit to a livable building takes a long time, so we can expect that in a year or so, the supply of these apartments will get tighter — or maybe just reach a sort of balance.
Developers who are putting off projects or backing out entirely are responding to a decrease in demand, or at least a threshold where the demand for apartments of a certain price have been met.
As one poster pointed out, “Moving out of a newer apartment complex next week and more than half the units are empty and they are desperate for new tenants!”
I can corroborate that last one: My landlord is offering significant incentive packages to new tenants — but my rent also just increased, which is something Redditors and plenty of people I know can testify to.
Boise rent rates have gone down 6.9% from this time last year, and fell 1.2% in just the last month, according to Apartment List. With home prices still far out of reach for much of the city, however, the tightening of supply we can expect over the next couple of years won’t make things much easier for renters.
One hope, however, is that the city’s new zoning code will incentivize new structures and developments other than large apartment complexes, but that remains to be seen.
