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.
Employees rigorously positioned the house out of the way in which, then slid inexperienced straps over a second residence to raise. These properties, says Draper, may very well 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 conventional 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 raise into Treasure Valley backyards as accent dwelling items, or ADUs.
“Primarily, you get your house delivered like a pizza,” Draper mentioned. “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 because the 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 isn’t the primary within the Boise space to construct ADUs. A number of builders provide the prospect of a house for aged or different members of the family, an area for work or a spot for friends, and the prospect to earn supplemental revenue from tenants. Fashions vary from hanging customized properties with huge home windows to cheap buildings resembling yard sheds. (Like most different such builders, Mountain Modular builds bigger homes too.)
ADUs, Draper mentioned, may assist alleviate a few of the ache from the housing disaster as the worth to purchase stays excessive.
ADUs are properties that include a kitchen, a full lavatory, and dwelling and sleeping areas however aren’t the principle construction on the property, in keeping with town of Boise. ADUs are often smaller than the principle residence and usually constructed on-site.
Not like 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 mentioned. The corporate is a “one cease store.”
“We’re not a tiny residence, we’re not a cellular residence,” Draper mentioned in an interview. “We are literally an actual residence that’s simply in-built a warehouse.”
The corporate has blueprints for a number of forms of garages, ADUs and bigger properties with studio to three-bedroom items starting from about $100,000 to $300,000, although Draper mentioned the final 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 just about 2,500 sq. toes, with choices for as much as two bogs and a two-car storage, a patio and a lined porch.
Alley Houses, a standard 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.
In keeping with Marc McConnell, a accomplice at Mountain Modular, the price may lower as the corporate grows and it finds methods to construct extra effectively. The corporate nonetheless subcontracts some work out however is planning to begin bending its personal metal frames and doing its personal insulation work.
Nonetheless, the price is low in contrast with historic residence costs that noticed quick development after the Nice Recession then lurched additional skyward throughout 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, in keeping with Intermountain A number of Itemizing Service information. Since 2019, that’s a value enhance of over 67% for Canyon County, 56.5% for Ada County.
In distant Valley County, the place Draper obtained his begin in improvement, the numbers are worse. The median residence value in 2025 was an eye-watering $776,000 — a virtually 82% enhance since 2019.
“Reasonably priced housing in Valley County doesn’t exist,” Draper mentioned. “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, site visitors and shutdowns on Idaho 55 and the seasonal nature of homebuilding within the space.
“Once you work out of city, your charges are excessive,” Draper mentioned. “It’s simply a kind 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 mentioned he wished a greater technique to ship his personal reasonably priced developments and realized constructing in a warehouse took out a lot of the variables and let staff construct yr spherical. He began Mountain Modular in 2023, aiming for distant and hard-to-get-to areas.
McConnell mentioned 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 mentioned that whereas it may usually value $700,000 for a two-bed in Ketchum or Solar Valley, they might put considered one of their fashions down for about $250,000.
“The dynamic in all of Idaho is useless,” Draper mentioned. “There’s no technique to do it. That is the answer.”
A hope for housing in Boise?
In keeping with a presentation in February to the Boise Metropolis Council by Deanna Dupuy, a planner with Planning and Improvement Providers, 130 ADUs have been permitted in 2024, up from a mean of 61 in earlier years.
“(ADUs have) form of turn out to be the star of the zoning code,” Dupuy mentioned. They “form 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 mentioned is in keeping with previous developments. However extra are cropping up within the Central and West Bench neighborhoods and in Southeast Boise because the code rewrite.
Mountain Modular is attempting to get a slice of this market, and Draper mentioned they have been lucky that Boise and Meridian enable folks to position a second properties of their backyards.
“We didn’t begin this for the ADUs,” Draper mentioned. “It form 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, in keeping with 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 revenue.
In Boise in 2025, 80% of the world median revenue was $54,000 for a single particular person family and $78,400 for a four-person family. In keeping with Zillow’s mortgage calculator, in case your family earns $78,400 per yr, you might have $0 in debt and make a $20,000 down cost, you might doubtless afford a $290,000 residence.
Of the practically 8,000 properties bought in Ada County in 2024, simply 46 have been bought for $299,999 or below, in keeping with Intermountain A number of Itemizing Service information. That’s about 0.006% of all residence gross sales.
McConnell mentioned he’s acquired calls from Wyoming, Montana and Nevada with individuals who can’t discover workforce housing. In McCall, he mentioned the native Albertsons has struggled to seek out checkers since few can afford to stay there.
“We get it,” McConnell mentioned. “It’s not only a Treasure Valley downside. It’s a nationwide downside.”
The corporate is increasing to satisfy the necessity. Draper just lately opened a second warehouse, desires 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 mentioned. “We’re effectively on our manner with our personal developments.”
