Boise, ID Investing

[Account Closed]

Hello!

My husband and I are in the process of evaluating a job offer in Boise, ID  and we are trying to assess the market there. We have been successful flipping in northern CA and if we stayed here we were going to move into rentals and multi family but the market is so expensive right now. We know people in the Boise area who have been successful flipping in the <300K market which sounds great but we are not sure if we want to continue with the flipping  ( we have 2 small kids). Instead we were  wondering about doing more land purchasing and subdividing and taking this angle of investing or buy and hold but that doesn't seem like it would be as profitable there... I don't know. My husband is a civil engineer so he has a skill set that we think might be useful if we take that angle but it's just hard to tell what the market is like. Any thoughts or suggestions are appreciated.

Thank you in advance!

Jenn

[Michael Key]

Being on the ground now, most of the land subdividing is going to be west of Boise, Meridian, Nampa, Caldwell. These three other cities are blending into each other, forming a Boise metro area. The expansion is heading west also towards Caldwell which is the furthest out. But there are no signs of a slowdown in population growth. But the market is tough and competitive. CA investors are coming here in droves. Not surprising, as there is a housing shortage overall and a 2.8% vacancy rate. There is a lot of new construction taking place in Meridian, so it's hard to know when supply will match demand or out pace. I haven't made those connections personally yet.

It does seem to be a bit of a sellers market right now, so hunting deals is tougher. You're not finding them on the MLS. You'll have to make connections on the ground to locate them. But there are distressed properties. It's just that people are saking nutty prices for them. And the margins are narrow.

If you do come to Boise, there are several investor groups that meet regularly.