Bargains? Maybe not. But the latest news is good for Boise-area apartment hunters

After rents hit record highs following the COVID-19 pandemic, Boise may finally be seeing some lower-cost apartment leases, especially as the colder months arrive.

Rental prices are usually higher nationally in the summer months and lower in the winter, according to Rob Warnock, a senior research associate at Apartment List.

“November is usually when rents fall the fastest,” Warnock wrote in an email. “This year is no exception; prices nationwide dropped 1% this month, capping a second consecutive slow winter for the rental market.”

Vacancies are harder to fill during the holidays, and this helps give renters more sway in lease negotiations, Warnock said. In places like Austin, Atlanta and San Francisco, renters are able to find new leases for sometimes over 5% less than if they’d signed in the summer.

In Boise, Warnock said the rental market is squarely in the winter slow season with rents falling 2.7% since their summer peak.

Today the median monthly rent in Boise is $1,066 for a one-bedroom apartment and $1,258 for a two-bedroom apartment, according to Warnock.

“If historical seasonal patterns hold, rent growth should heat up once again in early 2024, but a strong supply of new units coming online next year should moderate prices a bit,” he said.

Boise’s median rent fell 0.4% in November to $1,281, and it’s down 3.3% in the past 12 months, according to Apartment List’s December 2023 market report. Boise’s median is 4.4% lower than the median for the 100 largest U.S. cities, $1,340.

Rents have decreased 3.9% across Idaho and 1.1% across the country.

Boise is the 66th most expensive large city in the United States with a median rent of $1,281, according to Apartment List. The national median rent stands at $1,340.

Another apartment-rental listing service, Zumper, on Tuesday pegged the median monthly rental price of a one-bedroom apartment in Boise at $1,330 and a two-bedroom apartment at $1,450. The one-bedroom median has fallen 7.6% in the past year and 1.5% in the past month.

Zumper and Apartment List use different methods for reporting rents.

Apartment List gathers statistics from the Census Bureau and uses a growth rate from its own listing data to attempt to figure out median rents actually paid by renters, not list prices for units that remain vacant.

The Zumper National Rent Report uses aggregated monthly data from over a million of its own active listings and third-party listings, which tend to produce higher figures than Apartment List.

Local listings on Tuesday included a one-bedroom, 523-square-foot apartment in The Vanguard, at 600 W. Front St. downtown, for $1,469, and a two-bedroom, 852-square-foot unit in the Old Town Lofts, at 703 N. Main St. in Meridian, for $1,643.

Comparing renting to owning

Hopeful home buyers might be thinking twice about putting pen to paper.

According to Zumper’s National Rent Report, it is now more expensive across the country to buy a home than to rent — by a whopping 52%.

“National (median rents) for both one- and two-bedroom homes are down for the second month in a row,” according to the report.

Zumper’s research found that rents in half the cities on its top 100 cities, which are chosen by population and migration patterns, are down year-over-year. States in the Sun Belt have seen steeper declines than the national median.

“As inflation eases, migrations slow and a record number of multifamily buildings come online, renters find themselves in a much less stressful situation than a year ago,” according to the report. “Prices continue to soften in many markets.”

Zumper reported that many of the price increases from the pandemic are normalizing across the country.

“We’re seeing most major markets settle into their new resting heart rates,” according to Anthemos Georgiades, CEO of Zumper.

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