The library

Articles & guides

Everything we've written about living, buying, selling and investing in Boise and the Treasure Valley, in one place. The long guides are evergreen; the neighborhood pages carry real, cited data; new articles land here as we publish them.

The in-depth guides

Long-form, evergreen playbooks — the advice we give clients, written down.

The seller's playbookSelling for Top Dollar

How to sell a Boise home for the strongest net: pricing to today's market, the prep that pays, timing, marketing and negotiation.

8 min read The investor's guide · Shannon's specialtyInvesting in the Treasure Valley

How real-estate investing actually pencils in the Treasure Valley: single-family to fourplex, house-hacking, financing and where investors look.

5 min read The relocation guideRelocating to the Treasure Valley

An honest orientation for moving to Boise: neighborhoods, cost of living, schools, the four seasons, and how to buy a home from out of state.

5 min read

The design series

Our own architecture studies on real Treasure Valley lots — what a place could become, drawn and rendered by us. Every image is labeled as a design proposal, not a photograph.

Design study No. 1 · an empty lot, taken seriouslyWhat could stand on half an acre in southwest Boise?

One real lot, one concept house designed for it — a low-slung plan in the language of Wright's Usonians, checked against the real R-1A zoning envelope — rendered in four directions: wood pavilion, dark steel in a fern garden, rough stone with an indoor pool, a pool pavilion in a park.

Concept renders & lot facts

Articles

Shorter, current pieces on the Treasure Valley market.

SellingThe Best Time to Sell a Home in Boise — and Why Our Own Numbers Disagree With the Advice

Everyone says spring. Our own closings cluster in autumn. Here is what the seasons actually do to a Boise sale, and how to decide which one is yours.

7 min read How our listing media worksHow a Listing Video Is Really Made in 2026 — and What It Costs

Most listing video is a videographer with a gimbal, or AI that invents a house. We do a third thing: a camera move generated between two real photos.

11 min read SellingHow Long It Takes to Sell a House in Boise — Every One of Our Own Sales, Not an Average

Most answers quote a national average. Here are all 22 of our own Boise-area sales, fastest to slowest, and what a single number hides.

8 min read How the market worksWhat Did That House Sell For? In Idaho, Nobody Has to Tell You

Idaho does not require anyone to disclose what a home sold for. Here is what Zillow and Redfin show instead, checked on Boise sales that closed this week.

9 min read Who we work withThe Yard Is the First Room — Designing a Landscape in the High Desert

Boise sits in a high desert with real fire risk on its edges. That changes what a yard should be — and it is the one part of a house most people plan last.

7 min read The buyer's field guideHow to Read a Boise Lot Before You Buy It

A Boise lot tells you what you can build, whether you can split it, and what it's worth — if you know where to read. A worked example, parcel by parcel.

11 min read The design seriesWhy Wright and the Case Study Houses fit the high desert of Boise

These read as California houses that can't take an Idaho winter. Boise's dry, swinging high-desert climate makes the opposite true.

13 min read The buyer's field guideWhat a Listing Price Actually Tells You

An asking price is a claim, not a measurement. How to read one against assessed value, days on market and price-per-square-foot — with real Boise examples.

9 min read How our listing media worksHow to Show a House That Doesn't Exist — Without Lying About It

A render of a house that isn't there sounds like the most dishonest image of all. Done a certain way it's the most honest — if you do three things.

12 min read About usTwenty Years of Boise Closings — All 46 of Them, by Year and by City

Most agent bios quote a career total and stop. Here is the whole record: 46 closings from 2006 to 2026, which years were thin, and where they were.

7 min read How our listing media worksVirtual Staging Is Allowed — What You Have to Say, and What Happens If You Don't

Virtual staging is legal and everywhere. What gets agents in trouble isn't the staging — it's not disclosing it, or disclosing it too quietly to count.

12 min read BuyingWhat $385,000 Buys in the Treasure Valley — the Median Home in Our Own Book

Our 22 listings run from $43,500 to $749,500. The median is $385,000, and it is a real house: three bedrooms, two baths, about 1,325 square feet.

7 min read The buyer's field guideWhat Boise's Neighborhoods Actually Cost

Median home prices across eleven Treasure Valley neighborhoods, from $439,550 to $750,000 — and how to read a small-market number without fooling yourself.

12 min read The design seriesWhat it costs to build the Hollandale house — and why the lot is the dealbreaker

You can build this house in Boise. All in, it runs $2.35–3.2M — and the number that breaks the math isn't the construction. It's the land.

13 min read SellingWhy Some Boise Homes Sit for Months — Our Own Six Slowest Sales

Agents publish their fast sales. Here are our slow ones — 60 to 161 days — what they had in common, and what we would do differently.

8 min read

Neighborhood guides

Eleven deep-dives with cited market data, demographics, schools and real drive times.

Boise North EndNeighborhood guide Boise BenchNeighborhood guide Downtown BoiseNeighborhood guide Southeast BoiseNeighborhood guide West BoiseNeighborhood guide Southwest BoiseNeighborhood guide Garden CityNeighborhood guide EagleNeighborhood guide MeridianNeighborhood guide StarNeighborhood guide KunaNeighborhood guide NampaNeighborhood guide CaldwellNeighborhood guide

Can't find the answer you need?

Ask us directly — if enough people ask, it becomes the next guide.

Talk to Alyssa & Shannon →