Apartment, house rents leap as vacancies shrivel

It’s a good year to be a Treasure Valley landlord.

Few property owners are struggling to fill their units with renters, with an average of just 3 percent of all housing units vacant at the end of the first quarter in Ada and Canyon counties, according to the Southwest Idaho Chapter of the National Association of Rental Property Managers.

The lack of rentals has driven up the lease prices for houses and apartments of almost every size.

Vacant three-bedroom houses for rent in both Ada and Canyon counties have average listing prices of 19.6 percent more than one year ago. In Ada, two-bedroom apartments average $682 per month, a 20 percent increase. In Canyon they average $553 a month, a 7 percent increase.

“Rents are on the rise across the board in Ada and Canyon counties, even more than we’d expect,” said Danny Harlow, president of the local property managers association. “They’ve really moved up in the past 12 to 15 months.”

Of a handful of factors leading to the price increases, the biggest is the construction shut-down that followed the burst of the housing bubble in 2008, Harlow said.

“Building pretty much stopped, but the demand didn’t,” Harlow said. “It probably increased. We will continue to see rental rates continue to rise until that evens out.”