Back on top: Boise ranks first in the U.S. for apartment rent increases
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Nationwide rent growth has fallen stagnant, but that’s not the case in Boise
- Boise rents increased 1.5% over the month of July and 1.2% since last year.
- Boise rent growth is expected to increase as industries expand, brining in more jobs.
Nationwide, rent growth has fallen stagnant. Not so in Boise. Our residential market is as hot as July — and in that month, Boise had the highest rate of rent growth among the nation’s 100 largest cities, according to a listing service.
Apartment List, an online marketplace that also conducts market research, found that Boise rents went up 1.5% during the month to a median rent of $1,306. Nationally, the rent growth rate was at negative 0.8%.
“Rent prices in Boise went up a percentage point and a half, which is on paper a fairly small number, but in terms of movement within a single month, it’s quite large,” Rob Warnock, Apartment List senior research associate, told the Idaho Statesman.
“Boise’s kind of rising to the top a little bit, because it’s relative to a broader rental market that’s kind of quiet at the moment,” Warnock said by phone. “But it’s a really busy summer season for Boise.”
Looking at longer-term trends, Boise’s rent-growth rate is much lower than it was during the red-hot pandemic market of 2021, but not as low as the cooldown of 2023. Year-over-year growth rate is at 1.2%, up from 0.8% this time last year.
In 2021, Boise ranked first in the nation in rent growth with a 6.6% increase in May, Apartment List reported then. The cost of Boise rents had gone up for six straight months, leading to an increase of 30.8% in the previous 12 months — also the nation’s highest.
Usually, rent growth increases during the summer months as people move during the warm weather, Warnock said.
Boise State School of Public Policy Associate Research Professor Venessa Fry said university students coming back for the school year and moving into apartments may have an impact on the rate increase. The university has over 26,000 students, most of whom live off campus.
Boise-area housing construction fell behind and stayed there
Boise’s rental vacancy rate is also an indicator of rising prices, Fry said. Around 2015, the vacancy rate started to look concerning, sitting at below 2% at times, Fry said, meaning renting and owning became harder, especially for affordable housing.
Boise’s vacancy rate continues to be concerning, according to Fry. But it sits much higher at 6.5%, which Warnock said is in line with the national average.
Fry said that as Boise’s population grew at an astonishing rate, the housing market could not keep up, and the supply of housing is still behind what it should be.
“It started during the Great Recession in 2008 and 2009 in the greater Treasure Valley, and really Idaho at large, and never made up for the deficit that was created,” Fry said. “Then when we had this incredible influx of in-migration into Idaho from other parts of the country, we saw the numbers get even more scarce.”
Outlook: Another population influx as Micron expands
Warnock said he expects Boise’s rent-growth rate to continue to go up for another month or two and then start to plateau as the months grow colder. But Fry said Boise is still a hot spot for people from other states to move to. As Micron builds two new memory-chip factories expected to bring at least 15,000 new jobs, that is only going to increase, Fry said.
“We know we are going to have an influx in population,” she said. “Not just typical, but really double that with Micron, and I think we are going to see the market react. There continues to be a supply that’s coming, but it’s still not keeping up with demand.”
She added that finding affordable housing will remain a challenge for low-wage earners, families on fixed incomes and students looking for off-campus housing for the school year.
“Renters, in general, are just a little bit more vulnerable, but low-income renters are even more vulnerable, than homeowners,” Fry said.
But rapid rent increases don’t tell the whole story. Among those same 100 cities, Boise ranks 69th in median overall rent. The city is $96 below the national median of $1,402, with rents similar to those in Phoenix or Columbus, Ohio.
Irvine, California, ranks No. 1, with a median rent of $3,055. Seattle is 15th at $2,140. Portland is 37th at $1,583. Spokane is 82nd at $1,173.
Apartment List calculates rent changes by using a model that estimates the median rent across new leases signed in a month and figures out the month-by-month changes.
The model relies in part on apartments that use its website, which Warnock said are mainly larger, more expensive apartment buildings. To offset that, he said, Apartment List uses the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey data.
Business and Local Government Editor David Staats contributed.
This story was originally published August 12, 2025 at 4:00 AM.
