Boise rivals the Bay Area in rental rate increases this year, with monthly prices rising at a pace not seen since the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic boom.
Median rent in Idaho’s capital has risen 7.9% over the past 12 months and 13.2% since the start of 2026, according to an August report compiled by ApartmentList.com, an online rental-market clearinghouse. That comes on the heels of a 2.3% jump from June to July; only San Francisco and Oakland, California, saw bigger month-over-month bumps among large American cities in that span.
Boise’s rise runs counter to the national trend. Overall, rental costs are down about 1.1% this year countrywide, according to the report. That continues a long-term slide: On balance, median rents across America have fallen year-over-year for 36 straight months, according to Jiayi Xu and Danielle Hale, economists at Realtor.com. That means in real terms you’d be paying less to pick up a mid-market place now than in July 2023.
Not so in Boise, which appears to have bucked a brief post-COVID lull. The 13.2% jump since January is the fastest annualized increase since 2020 (14.2% year-over-year) and 2021 (20.2%)…