BOISE, Idaho — Average rent costs in the Boise market, if you look over just the past 12 months, are down!
According to numbers from Apartment List, the average rental price in the Boise market is down 5.5 percent since June of last year. Rent across Idaho is down even more, 5.9 percent in that same span. It's good news for people struggling to afford rent.
But those numbers don't tell the whole story. If we go calendar year by calendar year, we've seen rent jump every single year. That includes double-digit percentage jumps in 2020 (13.4 percent) and 2021 (17 percent). And we're also up so far this calendar year (1.4 percent). The nonprofit Jesse Tree says overall, rent in Ada and Canyon has jumped by 40 percent since 2020.
All this is caused by our incredible growth. We have a huge wave of people moving into the area and not enough places to put them. Boise is especially short on affordable rentals. All the supply and demand results in people not being able to make rent and getting evicted.
We talked to Katie McInally, the Community Engagement Manager for Jesse Tree, which is a nonprofit providing emergency rental assistance to people in the Treasure Valley who are on their way to being evicted. McInally said April eviction hearings in Ada and Canyon County are almost double what they were last year, thanks to that spike in rental costs.
"Imagine if your mortgage went up 40 percent unexpectedly in one month,” McInally said. “Say, you just get a call from your bank, and they say, 'Oh, we're just going to raise your payment 40 percent.' Could you afford that? I mean, a lot of us couldn't."
And a lot of people in our area cannot. About two out of every five people in the Treasure Valley are renters, so tens of thousands of people are facing this kind of housing uncertainty.
If you are being evicted, Jesse Tree might be able to help you out; just visit the Jesse Tree website.
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