Best Places to Buy Rental Property in Idaho (2026)
Nine Idaho cities ranked by asking rental yield, from 5.0 percent in Post Falls to 3.9 percent in Coeur D Alene, using tracked home sales and rental listings; geographic coverage explained below.
Idaho shows a 1.1-point spread in gross asking rental yield, from 3.9 percent in Coeur D Alene to 5.0 percent in Post Falls. Read the ratio as a screen and weigh it with purchase price, expenses and demand before ranking any of these markets against another. Second is Idaho Falls: 4.9 percent gross, $358,000 to buy, $1,475 a month to rent. The rental mix matters. In Boise the house median asking rent is $2,300 against $1,850 for all listings. That gap belongs in a house-to-house comparison, house rent against house sale prices, not on top of the mixed-sale ratio in the table. Coeur D Alene, the busiest market on the list with about 106 closings a month, sits last at 3.9 percent.
The ranking
| # | City | Gross yield | Median asking rent | Rentals (12 mo) | Median closed price | Closings | Sales window | Confirmed-close median |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Post Falls | 5.0% | $2,200 | 536 | $525,000 | 480 | 6 months | n/a |
| 2 | Idaho Falls | 4.9% | $1,475 | 1,227 | $358,000 | 337 | 6 months | n/a |
| 3 | Meridian | 4.9% | $2,300 | 1,783 | $568,913 | 486 | 6 months | n/a |
| 4 | Rathdrum | 4.7% | $2,100 | 139 | $540,624 | 206 | 6 months | n/a |
| 5 | Sandpoint | 4.6% | $2,100 | 169 | $548,500 | 182 | 12 months | n/a |
| 6 | Nampa | 4.6% | $1,595 | 1,368 | $419,900 | 398 | 6 months | n/a |
| 7 | Boise | 4.2% | $1,850 | 3,715 | $524,900 | 604 | 6 months | n/a |
| 8 | Pocatello | 3.9% | $1,099 | 817 | $334,900 | 193 | 6 months | n/a |
| 9 | Coeur D Alene | 3.9% | $1,997 | 928 | $615,000 | 636 | 6 months | n/a |
City by city
1. Post Falls, 5.0 percent gross
Rent is what puts Post Falls first here; on price alone it would sit fifth of 9. At $525,000 to buy and $2,200 a month to rent, Post Falls yields 5.0 percent gross on 480 tracked closings. Full detail is on the Post Falls market page.
2. Idaho Falls, 4.9 percent gross
At $358,000 to buy and $1,475 a month to rent, Idaho Falls yields 4.9 percent gross on 337 tracked closings. Houses there closed at about $167 per square foot. The Idaho Falls market page carries the monthly figures.
3. Meridian, 4.9 percent gross
Rent is what puts Meridian third here; on price alone it would sit eighth of 9. The numbers: $568,913 median closed price across 486 closings, $2,300 median asking rent across 1,783 listings, 4.9 percent gross. The Meridian market page carries the monthly figures.
4. Rathdrum, 4.7 percent gross
Homes in Rathdrum closed at a median of $540,624 over the last six months and the median asking rent in the last twelve months was $2,100, a gross yield of 4.7 percent. Full detail is on the Rathdrum market page.
5. Sandpoint, 4.6 percent gross
Homes in Sandpoint closed at a median of $548,500 over the last twelve months and the median asking rent in the last twelve months was $2,100, a gross yield of 4.6 percent. See the Sandpoint page for the property mix and the price band.
6. Nampa, 4.6 percent gross
The numbers: $419,900 median closed price across 398 closings, $1,595 median asking rent across 1,368 listings, 4.6 percent gross. The Nampa market page carries the monthly figures.
7. Boise, 4.2 percent gross
At $524,900 to buy and $1,850 a month to rent, Boise yields 4.2 percent gross on 604 tracked closings. The Boise market page carries the monthly figures.
8. Pocatello, 3.9 percent gross
A low entry price does not carry Pocatello far: it is first cheapest on this list and eighth on yield, with rent of $1,099 against a $334,900 median price. At $334,900 to buy and $1,099 a month to rent, Pocatello yields 3.9 percent gross on 193 tracked closings. Full detail is on the Pocatello market page.
9. Coeur D Alene, 3.9 percent gross
The numbers: $615,000 median closed price across 636 closings, $1,997 median asking rent across 928 listings, 3.9 percent gross. The Coeur D Alene market page carries the monthly figures.
How this ranking is built
- •Cities: every Idaho city where Resideline tracked at least 100 closings inside the municipal boundary in its reporting window (six or twelve months) and at least 50 rental listings under the city's name since September 10, 2025: 9 cities qualify.
- •Prices: the median price homes closed at inside the city limits, from Resideline's tracked closings; the state comparison uses the statewide median of $515,500 across 5,813 closings.
- •Rents: the median advertised rent on rental listings Resideline tracked in the last twelve months, all property types, measured on the listings that carry the city's name (a postal footprint, wider than the city line in some places).
- •Confirmed-close medians: Observed rent blends two kinds of record: confirmed lease closes extracted from property records, and the final asking rent on listings that left Resideline tracking without a recorded close. Where a city has at least 30 confirmed closes in the window, their median is printed beside the asking figure; in the last twelve months about a quarter of Resideline's close episodes are confirmed closes. The asking and confirmed-close samples are separate, not paired, so a difference between their medians is not a measured gap on the same listings.
- •What is missing: taxes, insurance, vacancy, management and repairs, which turn a gross yield into a net one, and the unit mix, which differs between what sells and what rents.
Sources and related pages
- •Resideline tracked closings inside city limits (window per city, updated September 10, 2026) and rental listings since September 10, 2025; confirmed lease closes extracted from property records.
- •More Idaho rankings: Cheapest cities to buy a house in Idaho ranks the same kind of list with each city's price per square foot for houses, realized appreciation and days to contract beside the median, and Cap Rate by City ranks the Idaho cities Resideline tracks by gross rental yield. The Idaho housing market hub carries the statewide figures and the largest Idaho markets by closings.
- •Asking rent vs observed rent compares live asking rents with final asking rents under that study's own definition; it says nothing about confirmed lease closes.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which Idaho city has the highest asking rental yield?
Post Falls, at 5.0 percent: a median asking rent of $2,200 against a median closed price of $525,000, on 480 closings and 536 rental listings. Rents and sales are separate samples, so the ratio is a screen rather than a guaranteed return on a given home.
Does the cheapest Idaho city also have the highest asking rental yield?
No. Pocatello is the cheapest at $334,900 but ranks eighth on the ratio; Post Falls leads because its asking rent is high relative to its price. The ratio is a screen, not a matched property yield.
Are these asking rents or confirmed lease closes?
The yield column uses the median asking rent on tracked listings. Where a city has at least 30 confirmed lease closes in the window, the table also shows their median, so you can see how far asking sits from closes there. Resideline's close records blend confirmed closes with final asking rents on listings that left tracking, and about a quarter of the last twelve months are confirmed closes.
How many Idaho cities qualify?
Nine, each with at least 100 tracked closings inside the city limits and 50 rental listings in the last twelve months.
About the author
Jeffrey Batista
Jeffrey Batista is the founder of Resideline, a real estate technology company building institutional grade valuation and investment analysis tools for real estate investors.
A software engineer with more than 10 years of experience, Jeffrey has worked across full stack development, infrastructure, data engineering, machine learning, and large scale systems. He left his engineering career to build Resideline full time.
Jeffrey is also a real estate investor with nearly a decade of hands on experience buying, renovating, managing, and analyzing residential properties. His experience on both sides of the industry, as an engineer and an investor, led him to build Resideline after seeing how fragmented and outdated many of the tools available to individual investors were.
Today, he leads the development of Resideline's proprietary data infrastructure, automated valuation models, rental analytics, and investment underwriting technology.
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