Living in Boise Idaho - Everything You Need to Know

You're moving to the Boise and Treasure Valley area, and you want to know everything there is to know about living here. We're going to go over every little detail about the Treasure Valley and help you get the lay of land to know where everything is in this video and blog post.

We are going to be covering everything there is to know about Boise and the Treasure Valley area so that you become a local expert yourself. I’m going to help you get the lay of the land so that you become the local expert when you move here. And so you know exactly which area you should be moving to depending on price points and populations and how much land do you want.

This will help you find the exact neighborhood that's best for you, depending on what you're looking for in the type of house, the price point, type of home, the land, depending on all those different factors, that's really going to determine where you're going to end up.

Location of Boise and Treasure Valley Area

These are all the things that I'd want to know when I was moving to this area, I want to get oriented and figure out where it is in relation to everything. And what's around me and then diving into the neighborhoods and some areas that you will want to consider moving to, depending on what you're looking for, specifically your price points and amenities, size of home, that sort of thing.

Here's a big overview of the geography of Boise, what's around it. And then the high level overview of the different cities. And in other videos, we dive into each specific city and what you can get for your money in those areas.

When people refer to Boise or the Treasure Valley, they're essentially interchangeable as far as if they're moving to that area.

This is the major population center of Idaho. Idaho has about 1.7 million people in the entire state and Boise, Treasure Valley area has about 800,000 and rapidly growing. It is one of the fastest growing states in America right now. And for comparison's sake to California, which is where I moved from, we had a population or have a population of roughly 40 million people.

Now, Idaho has a land area of 83,000 square miles. And California has a land area of 163,000 square miles. So more mileage, far, far more people, over 20 times more people. The thing about Idaho, which is really interesting that about 63% of the land is actually federal land. Homes will never rebuild in 63% of the state.

There's obviously pros and cons to that. A lot of it's going to keep it super, super natural and usable. A lot of it's simply it's very difficult to build on, of course, because it's so mountainous, but that's also over time going to restrict the amount of supply that ultimately can get built here in Idaho, which will continue to support home prices.

Diving in a bit more on Boise. The main freeway through Boise is Interstate 84 (I-84) and it is going to connect you from Portland into Boise over to the 15 to get you down to the Salt Lake City. That's going to be one of the primary freeways running through here, and then it's surrounded by of course, mountains to the north, into the east. And that's the Foothills leaning into the Boise National Forest.

Not too far away, you've got Bogus Basin, which is about 40 minutes from Boise or about an hour from Nampa. Not too far away and Bogus Basin offers fantastic skiing, snowboarding, mountain biking during the summer months.

And then just up the way a little bit more here, you have Lake Cascade. And just beyond that is McCall with Payette Lake. Both of these are resort areas; McCall in particular is a resort area, lots of skiing opportunities, lots of camping down here around Lake Cascade. And it's only again about 1.5 hours-2 hours. And then McCall is about 2 ½ hours or so away. Not too long of a drive and you're into some beautiful, beautiful skiing and camping opportunities.

Boise itself has a population of right around 240,000 people. It is mostly built out at this time. There is some construction going on, of course, but certainly far more built out than the surrounding communities around it.

Boise, Idaho

A lot of people when they are moving to Boise, they're very interested in two particular areas: one is called the Boise Bench, it is very near the Boise Airport and the other area is the North End. And the North End is right up here. And it's a really cool neighborhood. A lot of older homes, craftsman style homes are going to find here built in the 1920s, 1930s, 1940s about that kind of timeframe, a cool little downtown right there on 13th street as well.

A lot of really cool pubs and restaurants. That's kind of where a lot of people think of as Boise. And this is certainly going to be your more expensive neighborhood of Boise, certainly in the million dollar price range for a lot of those homes.

Meridian, Idaho

Meridian is a really popular neighborhood or city just outside of Boise. Boise has about 250,000 people. Meridian has a population sitting right around 130,000 people right now. And it is the second largest city in the state of Idaho next to Boise.

It's a very popular neighborhood, mostly subdivisions. It's been around for a while, of course, but it was sort of discovered when the village at the Meridian went in. Again, I will dive into Meridian in more specific video, but once the village was built right around 2005 or so then Meridian really took off. And a lot of development occurred.

That being said, there are a lot of homes were built 1990s, but a lot in the 2000s,  early 2010s, Not a whole lot of new construction occurring right now in Meridian.

Quite a bit of it is built out, but there is some new construction still occurring. These homes are still very affordable, but are certainly going to be more expensive than areas such as Nampa. However, a more expensive area is going to be Eagle. 

Eagle, Idaho

Eagle which is divided from Meridian by Chinden or 26. That's going to be the Northern part of Treasure Valley. And this is certainly going to be your much more higher end, luxury homes that you're going to be finding here.

Eagle, you're going to be finding homes between $1-$2.5 million but these are going to be very, very large homes in the 3,000-5,000 square foot range. Eagle is not too far from Boise. It is about 20-25 minutes from Boise as you traveled down state street or Chinden here.

State street is this road going through here in Chinden is this road here taking you down into Boise. From Meridian if you're right on Chinden and you cross the street, you were heading straight into Eagle and the main road into Eagle is Eagle Road.from The Village to Downtown Eagle, you're looking at probably about 15 minutes, potentially much more, depending on traffic.

Traffic can get really bad on Eagle road. That's a really common complaint around here is traffic. Then it's going to take you certainly much longer. To get from Meridian or from Eagle out to Star, so Star is kind of becoming Eagle West, Star is certainly not nearly as built out as Eagle at this point, but a lot of similar homes are going in and the median prices are certainly pushing up the Eagle.

Eagle has a median price around a $1million right now. And Star is just sitting under that around $850,000-$890,000 as a median price. A lot of people, if they're feeling the Eagle has built that built up too much, then they're moving out to Star. And Star from downtown Eagle to downtown Star is about 20 minutes away.

In Eagle, there are some absolutely incredible subdivisions that have been built here. You've got Lakemoor and Two Rivers, which are a couple of really fantastic ones, but if that's not kind of your style, because you want a little bit more space then Star might be another option.

Nampa, Idaho

Moving out to a little more affordable areas, then you got Nampa. On the map, Nampa looks far away, but it's really not that far. From the airport of Boise, you're looking at about 20 minutes or so to get from the airport to getting up to an off ramp and Nampa, depending on where you're located, actually in Nampa for getting into kind of the Downtown area of Nampa or around there, that was more like 25-30 minutes from Meridian.

Again, you're only maybe 10 minutes down the freeway, maybe even less, maybe like 7 minutes, but  from a neighborhood in Meridian into a neighborhood of Nampa it's probably about 20-25 minutes to get there. But it is certainly much more affordable with the price point being around a $100,00-$150,000, less than Meridian. Your homes are going to be larger for the same amount of money that you'd be buying in Meridian. 

From Nampa and maybe 5 minutes out from Nampa, you're into farmland and it's just 2 lane country roads. And it's, it's pretty cool. It's super relaxing to drive around.I come from Southern California, just freeways and concrete, absolutely everywhere.

And you don't realize that they're just under a lot of stress just from the vehicular traffic and driving around, but out here just in the country, it's pretty cool. Nampa is a really special place, it's really blowing up right now. It's the third largest city in Idaho sitting just over a 110,000 people population.

Right now the median price in Nampa is about $525,000 versus Meridian which is right around $650,000. And it's sitting right up against Lake Lowell, which is of course this huge, huge recreational lake. And you can do boating, wakeboarding, skiing, fishing, kayaking. It's a really fun lake to visit, just right up there.

And of course within all these cities as well, and you take step back, talk about, we say there are parks everywhere. That's something that's really special about Idaho that I absolutely love is that there a parks kind of wherever you go. I have very young children and they love to play. I really enjoy the parks, especially with the splash pads and that kind of thing.

Caldwell, Idaho

Moving up into Caldwell. Caldwell is certainly even more rural than Nampa at this point. You're going to again, get even more for your money and something that's really popular in both Caldwell and Nampa are these homes that are built with RV garages or RV bays or boat base.

The RV garages are massively oversized garages, you can pull your trailer or RV into it. They're a deep, they're very tall and they're very wide and they're super popular. You're going to find a lot of this in Nampa and Caldwell, not as much in Meridian, you will find these also an Eagle in some of the newer develops. This is kind of a new feature. That's being added a lot of homes.

Obviously they're going to be a bit more expensive, but you're going to find these in these neighborhoods. And in Caldwell, you're going to be finding them out a little bit more of a discount because it is more rural. It's a little bit further removed from everything. You're looking from Nampa to Caldwell, it's 10 minutes on the freeway;  Downtown Nampa to Caldwell about 15 minutes.

But if you're trying to get from Caldwell out to Boise, then you're looking more about 35-40 minutes that further out that's actually why we chose Nampa versus Caldwell.

We wanted to be a little bit closer to the airport because I do travel quite a bit back to California for business and to visit family.

Again, Caldwell is going to have a lot of farmland as well, but certainly it's going to be a bit more affordable. People kind of have mixed reviews on Caldwell. They think it's so rural. It's so out there, but it's a really awesome city as well. And as much smaller, 63,000 people, definitely a good option depending on again, what you're looking for and how much home you're looking to get for your money.

Kuna, Idaho

Moving down into Kuna. It is a really, really desirable little city now. And Kuna is super small, 27,000 people. A medium price is technically less for whatever reason than Nampa at a $522,000, but you get a little bit less for your money in Kuna versus Nampa. You have to be careful when you just look at median prices, you have to look at what you're buying for that as well

You're going to get a good-sized houses certainly for that price you're going to be in the 2,000 square foot range about. But in Nampa you might be in the 2,500-2,500 sq ft. More square footage for a little bit less money, but Kuno's super, super desirable, very rural of course, great schools down here.

But what happened is there was kind of a big supply issue because there was so much demand to move in Kuna and they just were not prepared for that influx of people. They really kind of put a halt on a lot of development for awhile while they kind of caught up. They are starting to pick that up again, but that's helping to drive prices in Kuna quite a bit.

That's a complete overview of Treasure Valley and the Boise area. It's a lot of things that I wish I knew when I was moving here and things I had to research on my own to figure out to hopefully that helped you get a great overview of all the different cities and the geography and where Boise is in relation to everything else around it.

Curtis Chism, Realtor
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boise@chismteam.com 
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