BOISE, Idaho — Cody Draper stood exterior his Boise Bench warehouse on a chilly February afternoon and watched as a crane truck, flooding the world with the odor of diesel, lifted a home into the sky.
Staff fastidiously positioned the house out of the best way, then slid inexperienced straps over a second house to carry. These properties, says Draper, might be an answer to Idaho’s painful housing scarcity: a house that may be prepared in two to 6 weeks for a fraction of the traditional value of a brand new home.
Draper is the founder and CEO of a Boise firm referred to as Mountain Modular. The startup builds sturdy, steel-framed properties in its two warehouses that it might truck and carry into Treasure Valley backyards as accent dwelling models, or ADUs.
“Basically, you get your property delivered like a pizza,” Draper stated. “We simply do all of the on-site work, and in per week you’re dwelling in a house watching soccer.”
Mountain Modular’s plan so as to add properties to the Treasure Valley’s housing market comes as residents are leaping to construct ADUs of their backyards for the reason that metropolis of Boise loosened restrictions throughout an overhaul of its zoning code in 2023. The corporate is drawing consideration from native leaders with visits from the staffs of Boise Mayor Lauren McLean and Meridian Mayor Robert Simison.
The enterprise will not be the primary within the Boise space to construct ADUs. A number of builders supply the prospect of a house for aged or different members of the family, an area for work or a spot for visitors, and the possibility to earn supplemental earnings from tenants. Fashions vary from placing customized properties with large home windows to cheap buildings resembling yard sheds. (Like most different such builders, Mountain Modular builds bigger homes too.)
ADUs, Draper stated, might assist alleviate a number of the ache from the housing disaster as the value to purchase stays excessive.
ADUs are properties that comprise a kitchen, a full toilet, and dwelling and sleeping areas however aren’t the primary construction on the property, based on the town of Boise. ADUs are normally smaller than the primary house and usually constructed on-site.
In contrast to cellular properties or manufactured properties constructed on chassis, Mountain Modular’s properties are constructed to worldwide requirements, qualify for conventional financing, and are inspected and delivered in sequence with the patrons’ foundations and constructing permits, Draper stated. The corporate is a “one cease store.”
“We aren’t a tiny house, we’re not a cellular house,” Draper stated in an interview. “We are literally an actual house that’s simply inbuilt a warehouse.”
The corporate has blueprints for a number of varieties of garages, ADUs and bigger properties with studio to three-bedroom models starting from about $100,000 to $300,000, although Draper stated the last word value is determined by how far Mountain Modular must take a unit. The properties are trendy with vaulted living-room ceilings, and so they vary from 450 sq. toes to almost 2,500 sq. toes, with choices for as much as two loos and a two-car storage, a patio and a lined porch.
Alley Properties, a conventional stick-built ADU builder in Boise, estimated that the typical complete value for an ADU in Boise was $150,000 to $325,000 in 2024.
Based on Marc McConnell, a accomplice at Mountain Modular, the associated fee might lower as the corporate grows and it finds methods to construct extra effectively. The corporate nonetheless subcontracts some work out however is planning to start out bending its personal metal frames and doing its personal insulation work.
Nonetheless, the associated fee is low in contrast with historic house costs that noticed quick progress after the Nice Recession then lurched additional skyward through the COVID-19 pandemic.
The median value to purchase a house in 2025 was $415,000 in Canyon County and $540,000 in Ada County, based on Intermountain A number of Itemizing Service knowledge. Since 2019, that’s a value improve of over 67% for Canyon County, 56.5% for Ada County.
In distant Valley County, the place Draper acquired his begin in improvement, the numbers are worse. The median house value in 2025 was an eye-watering $776,000 — a virtually 82% improve since 2019.
“Reasonably priced housing in Valley County doesn’t exist,” Draper stated. “And (in) 95% of Idaho.”
Fixing Valley County’s housing scarcity
Draper began his improvement profession with a 20-acre subdivision in Lake Fork, about 7.5 miles south of McCall, however struggled with the remoteness, journey and lodging prices, visitors and shutdowns on Idaho 55 and the seasonal nature of homebuilding within the space.
“Whenever you work out of city, your charges are excessive,” Draper stated. “It’s simply a type of (issues) that now we have to face and say ‘look, we have to give up attempting to reinvent the wheel of constructing in Valley County, and throw that within the rubbish and give you a brand new concept and a brand new system.”
Draper stated he wished a greater approach to ship his personal reasonably priced developments and realized constructing in a warehouse took out a lot of the variables and let employees construct yr spherical. He began Mountain Modular in 2023, aiming for distant and hard-to-get-to areas.
McConnell stated their imaginative and prescient is to place properties all through the state together with areas like Challis or Solar Valley, which have struggled with housing affordability. Draper stated that whereas it might usually value $700,000 for a two-bed in Ketchum or Solar Valley, they might put one in every of their fashions down for about $250,000.
“The dynamic in all of Idaho is lifeless,” Draper stated. “There’s no approach to do it. That is the answer.”
A hope for housing in Boise?
Based on a presentation in February to the Boise Metropolis Council by Deanna Dupuy, a planner with Planning and Improvement Companies, 130 ADUs have been permitted in 2024, up from a mean of 61 in earlier years.
“(ADUs have) type of change into the star of the zoning code,” Dupuy stated. They “type of stole the present of the primary yr of the zoning code.”
ADUs are primarily going up within the North and East Ends, which Dupuy stated is per previous traits. However extra are cropping up within the Central and West Bench neighborhoods and in Southeast Boise for the reason that code rewrite.
Mountain Modular is attempting to get a slice of this market, and Draper stated they have been lucky that Boise and Meridian enable individuals to position a second properties of their backyards.
“We didn’t begin this for the ADUs,” Draper stated. “It type of popped up proper as we have been unfolding.”
The necessity is excessive. To maintain up with the demand for housing, Boise must construct 2,700 properties per yr till 2032, based on a 2022 evaluation. Of that demand, 77% is for housing that’s reasonably priced for these incomes 80% or much less of the world median earnings.
In Boise in 2025, 80% of the world median earnings was $54,000 for a single individual family and $78,400 for a four-person family. Based on Zillow’s mortgage calculator, in case your family earns $78,400 per yr, you have got $0 in debt and make a $20,000 down fee, you can doubtless afford a $290,000 house.
Of the practically 8,000 properties bought in Ada County in 2024, simply 46 have been bought for $299,999 or underneath, based on Intermountain A number of Itemizing Service knowledge. That’s about 0.006% of all house gross sales.
McConnell stated he’s obtained calls from Wyoming, Montana and Nevada with individuals who can’t discover workforce housing. In McCall, he stated the native Albertsons has struggled to search out checkers since few can afford to stay there.
“We get it,” McConnell stated. “It’s not only a Treasure Valley downside. It’s a nationwide downside.”
The corporate is increasing to satisfy the necessity. Draper lately opened a second warehouse, needs a 3rd and hopes to broaden into Reno, Nevada, and some different states which have struggled with reasonably priced housing.
“Our mission is to ship hundreds of properties to the Northwest,” Draper stated. “We’re properly on our manner with our personal developments.”
