BOISE, Idaho — Cody Draper stood exterior his Boise Bench warehouse on a chilly February afternoon and watched as a crane truck, flooding the realm with the scent of diesel, lifted a home into the sky.
Employees fastidiously positioned the house out of the best way, then slid inexperienced straps over a second residence to elevate. These houses, says Draper, could possibly 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 houses in its two warehouses that it will probably truck and elevate into Treasure Valley backyards as accent dwelling items, or ADUs.
“Essentially, you get your home delivered like a pizza,” Draper mentioned. “We just do all the on-site work, and in a week you’re living in a home watching football.”
Mountain Modular’s plan so as to add houses 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 is just not 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 company, and the possibility to earn supplemental revenue from tenants. Fashions vary from hanging customized houses 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 number of the ache from the housing disaster as the value to purchase stays excessive.
ADUs are houses that comprise a kitchen, a full rest room, and dwelling and sleeping areas however usually are not the primary construction on the property, in response to the town of Boise. ADUs are normally smaller than the primary residence and usually constructed on-site.
In contrast to cell houses or manufactured houses constructed on chassis, Mountain Modular’s houses are constructed to worldwide requirements, qualify for conventional financing, and are inspected and delivered in sequence with the consumers’ foundations and constructing permits, Draper mentioned. The corporate is a “one stop shop.”
“We are not a tiny home, we are not a mobile home,” Draper mentioned in an interview. “We are actually a real home that is just built in a warehouse.”
The corporate has blueprints for a number of kinds of garages, ADUs and bigger houses with studio to three-bedroom items starting from about $100,000 to $300,000, although Draper mentioned the last word value depends upon how far Mountain Modular must take a unit. The houses are fashionable with vaulted living-room ceilings, they usually vary from 450 sq. ft to almost 2,500 sq. ft, with choices for as much as two bogs and a two-car storage, a patio and a lined porch.
Alley Properties, a standard stick-built ADU builder in Boise, estimated that the common whole value for an ADU in Boise was $150,000 to $325,000 in 2024.
In response to Marc McConnell, a companion 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 progress 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 response to 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 bought his begin in growth, the numbers are worse. The median residence value in 2025 was an eye-watering $776,000 — a virtually 82% improve since 2019.
“Affordable housing in Valley County doesn’t exist,” Draper mentioned. “And (in) 95% of Idaho.”
Fixing Valley County’s housing scarcity
Draper began his growth 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.
“When you work out of town, your rates are high,” Draper mentioned. “It’s just one of those (things) that we have to face and say ‘look, we need to quit trying to reinvent the wheel of building in Valley County, and throw that in the garbage and come up with a new idea and a new system.”
Draper mentioned he wished a greater technique to ship his personal inexpensive developments and realized constructing in a warehouse took out many 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 houses 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 one in all their fashions down for about $250,000.
“The dynamic in all of Idaho is dead,” Draper mentioned. “There’s no way to do it. This is the solution.”
A hope for housing in Boise?
In response to a presentation in February to the Boise Metropolis Council by Deanna Dupuy, a planner with Planning and Growth Providers, 130 ADUs had been permitted in 2024, up from a median of 61 in earlier years.
“(ADUs have) kind of become the star of the zoning code,” Dupuy mentioned. They “kind of stole the show of the first year of the zoning code.”
ADUs are primarily going up within the North and East Ends, which Dupuy mentioned is in line with 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 mentioned they had been lucky that Boise and Meridian permit individuals to position a second houses of their backyards.
“We didn’t start this for the ADUs,” Draper mentioned. “It kind of popped up right as we were unfolding.”
The necessity is excessive. To maintain up with the demand for housing, Boise must construct 2,700 houses per yr till 2032, in response to a 2022 evaluation. Of that demand, 77% is for housing that’s inexpensive for these incomes 80% or much less of the realm median revenue.
In Boise in 2025, 80% of the realm median revenue was $54,000 for a single individual family and $78,400 for a four-person family. In response to Zillow’s mortgage calculator, in case your family earns $78,400 per yr, you’ve got $0 in debt and make a $20,000 down cost, you can possible afford a $290,000 residence.
Of the almost 8,000 houses bought in Ada County in 2024, simply 46 had been bought for $299,999 or underneath, in response to Intermountain A number of Itemizing Service knowledge. That’s about 0.006% of all residence gross sales.
McConnell mentioned he’s obtained 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 dwell there.
“We get it,” McConnell mentioned. “It’s not just a Treasure Valley problem. It’s a national problem.”
The corporate is increasing to satisfy the necessity. Draper lately opened a second warehouse, desires a 3rd and hopes to broaden into Reno, Nevada, and some different states which have struggled with inexpensive housing.
“Our mission is to deliver thousands of homes to the Northwest,” Draper mentioned. “We’re well on our way with our own developments.”
