Record-breaking housing sales shut doors to new renters

IDAHO FALLS, Idaho (KIFI) - It's been a record-breaking two months for the Idaho housing market. But not everybody is happy about it.

For many new neighbors finding housing is a real challenge right now.

"Just a few years ago, it used to be that if you had good credit, made really good money, everything else, you purchased a home," commercial driver Mike Currall said. "If you weren't in that situation yet, you had to work on your credit, you had to save some money. That means you rent it. And now it's like, what's the third option now?"

Housing prices have gone up 23% in the mountain region of the United States. Most apartments go first come, first served.

“Inflation obviously is a huge thing, southeast Idaho is just a really desirable market right now," property manager Angelique Smith said. "A lot of people move here from out of state, cost of living used to be pretty low around here. It’s catching up with the rest of the country.”

Even those who found affordable housing had no guarantees. Most apartments fill in less than a day.

“Most rental places are not willing to sit on a place for a week while you come up with the deposit money. You're not immune because maybe you don't come up with that and then they just lost a whole week that they could have rented it to somebody else," Smith said.

Experts say be ready to jump on the first listing you see.

"So in this competitive market, yeah, you just got to have that stuff, those ducks in a row and that money ready to put down on a place if you want to," said Smith.

Not everyone can sit on a deposit while wait-listed for an apartment. Some recent graduates and newlyweds have had to settle for whatever they could get.

"Before I got here, me and my wife we were living in somebody's attic is like a shed," apartment manager Michael Pascavage said. "She modified it so like kind of an apartment, but it was definitely a small studio setup. That was the only thing we could find for less than a thousand bucks a month."

Experts expect housing and apartment prices to continue to rise in the coming months.

285 homes were sold in Idaho throughout January 2022. 257 were sold in February.