All Forum Posts by: Jason Bohling

This is from a non-landlord point of view, but an answer to your question nonetheless.  You’ve got some great answers from a legal/landlord point of view, but as to your question about whether “high levels of anxiety” qualifies as a disability from an anecdotal standpoint, yes, it absolutely does.  I’m a veteran and I can tell you anxiety and/or panic attacks can be debilitating to the point of being a near medical crisis.  If you’ve received documentation as to the animals I would take it seriously.  I’m also of the mind that ‘emotional support’ animals is a concept used and abused to no end, but I’ve known many veterans who have service animals and/or companion animals for legitimate reasons related to anxiety.

I don’t know anything about MF, but for SF one that I keep hearing mentioned a lot is Kuna, Idaho. It’s a rural but growing suburb about 20-30 minutes outside of Boise in Ada County, so your property taxes won’t be quite as high as Canyon County (not that they’re too high in Canyon County, it’s just Ada is lower). There’s roughly 18,000 people, lower prices than Boise, and growing.  One of the things that makes it attractive is that some of the large/larger devolopers are looking to build multiple developments there and leaders there are projecting the population to double in the next 10-15 years.  Meridian and Eagle are the suburbs of choice, especially Eagle, but with Kuna it’s on the other side of the freeway from Meridian so similarish commute times into Boise.  It has good schools (my nephew and niece graduated out of there and my sister-in-law was pleased with their education), and an x-factor that you’ll find in a good amount of Idaho towns is a strong sense of community.  If you can get into Eagle, go for it.  Eagle is a highly desirable town, great schools (I’m in Eagle and both my kids just graduated/graduating out of there), strong appreciation.  Another to look into is Star, Idaho. It’s by Eagle, about 5 minutes, but lower priced, and like everywhere here, booming.

This place is ripe for large developments because there’s a lot of farm land.  Many farmers are reaching retirement age and there’s just not much of the younger generation who want to continue it so a lot of farmers are willing to sell to fund their retirement.  Plus a lot aren’t profitable so they are open to sell so they don’t lose it.  I mention this because The developers know this, city planners know this, so if you’re looking for long-term buy and hold, many small towns aren’t going to stay small towns so getting in now while it builds up around you could definitely go in your favor depending on what your timeframe is.  

Boise  is an interesting locale.  You can be downtown in some amazing restaurants that will rival and hold their own with ones from L.A., drive 30 minutes and you can be camping in peace and quiet, run into your neighbors while out shopping, and then walk by the Capitol to find yourself talking to Bruce Willis on the Capitol steps about protecting Idaho’s lands-not kidding.  

I live in the Boise, Idaho market, and while I'm brand new to REI, I pay lots of attention to the housing market, go to open houses, etc. The market here is going through a squeezing situation. We have an extreme housing shortage in the Treasure Valley aka the Boise Metro area. We currently have less than 1 month inventory of SFH and prices have skyrocketed and still climbing. We're having a MASSIVE influx of people from California, Washington, Colorado and New Jersey/New York. The Boise Metro is about 750,000 people and is projected to grow to 900,000 in 2025. There was already a shortage for the people that lived here and the influx has driven prices way up and priced many out of buying even their personal homes, let alone investments/rentals. Rents have also skyrocketed to a level that many native Idahoans can't afford. On the news a few minutes ago they were talking about this very issue, and how the average home price since 2012 has doubled from around $150k to $300k.

 For example, I talked to an agent recently and he said what he’s seeing as of now is about 7 out of 10 buyers are from out of state and 5 of those are all cash.

Now residence properties are different animals than potential rentals, but it's not easy finding any SFH with the goal of adding value now. A buddy of mine in NorCal who buys in Caldwell (a town about 40 minutes from Boise) said he and his partners have stopped buying here for now.

This isn’t to say there’s nothing, there definitely is, it’s just going to take some work and a rock solid team on the ground.  If you do find something it can work out pretty well.  I have no idea how multi family is.  I hope this helps and if you or anybody needs anything by all means please let me know.

 Hi Jeffery, good to meet you!  Same boat as you in regards to the meet ups, hope to see you at one.

Hi, everyone!  A friend and I were having a discussion about the correlation (if there is one) between being a financially successful agent and population size.  I figured asking professionals on BiggerPockets was the best place to get some accurate perspectives.

My question for the agents and brokers is this:  Is there a correlation between population size and income amount?  For example, do you think a typical income for an agent in Tacoma, Washington or Ann Arbor, Michigan will be proportionally higher than an agent in Missoula, MT, in regards to population size (for this discussion’s purposes the benchmark was an annual income of $48k and up)?  While an agents skills most definitely affect their ‘success’ I was just wondering about how much the local population plays a part.

Thanks everybody, and take care!

Very accurate.  I go to open houses in the area to see what people are looking for, because it’s fun to me, and to talk with the agents to get their opinions on things.  I attended a couple back in August, and both agents said what they’re seeing in their respective agencies is in Ada County which is the ‘epicenter’ of the Boise metro area and which holds some of the largest/fastest growing towns such as Boise, Meridian, and Eagle was their stats were showing 7 out of 10 buyers were from out of state, 5 of those California specifically, most were all cash purchases, and they were seeing increasing numbers from the Seattle, Denver, and New York City/North New Jersey metros.  

A buddy of mine who’s family have been residential and commercial contractors in the valley for more than 40 years said what’s happening is when the market collapsed in 2008 residential construction came to a complete halt.  The population was growing still which created a housing shortage.  For nearly 3 years almost no new homes were built.  Then the influx of out of state buyers began which created a bigger shortage and it just kept accelerating.  So now we have a massive housing shortage and there’s not even enough construction crews or contractors to the point we’re seeing some coming in from out of state, and they couldn’t keep up with the demand for those who already lived here to begin with.

A notable amount of people who work in the tech sector who work remotely are coming in as well.  Boise has always had a small but growing tech sector with Micron being from Boise, facilities from Hewlett-Packard, and now Amazon is supposed to be putting in a nearly 1 million sq ft distribution center in Nampa (a town 30 minutes South of Boise) which will employ in excess of 3,000 people.  The Boise metro area has grown from about 465,000 in 2000 to around 715,000 today.  

Hope this gives you some perspective on the area.  If you have any questions just let me know.  Happy to help anyway I can.  Oh, and I could also tell that this place was growing because now when I say y’all people don’t look at me funny anymore and sweet tea is fairly common in restaurants now!

Thanks everyone for the sound advice, I learned long ago that trusting your gut is important but listening to the knowledgeable and experienced advice of others can be worth it’s weight in gold.  After continuing to run the numbers and listening to both, I’m moving on from this location.  Thanks again for your perspectives!

@Matthew McNeil I  just wanted to make sure to say that if there’s anything down the road I can do to help you out and repay the advice please let me know.