Could you get a house delivered like a pizza? This Boise company thinks so. What to know
BOISE, Idaho – Cody Draper stood outside his Boise Bench warehouse on a cold February afternoon and watched as a crane truck, flooding the area with the smell of diesel, lifted a house into the sky.
Workers carefully placed the home out of the way, then slid green straps over a second home to lift. Those homes, says Draper, could be a solution to Idaho’s painful housing shortage: a home that can be ready in two to six weeks for a fraction of the normal cost of a new house.
Draper is the founder and CEO of a Boise company called Mountain Modular. The startup builds sturdy, steel-framed homes in its two warehouses that it can truck and lift into Treasure Valley backyards as accessory dwelling units, or ADUs.
“Essentially, you get your home delivered like a pizza,” Draper said. “We just do all the on-site work, and in a week you’re living in a home watching football.”
Mountain Modular’s plan to add homes to the Treasure Valley’s housing market comes as residents are jumping to build ADUs in their backyards since the city of Boise loosened restrictions during an overhaul of its zoning code in 2023. The company is drawing attention from local leaders with visits from the staffs of Boise Mayor Lauren McLean and Meridian Mayor Robert Simison.
The business is not the first in the Boise area to build ADUs. Multiple builders offer the prospect of a home for elderly or other family members, a space for work or a place for guests, and the chance to earn supplemental income from tenants. Models range from striking custom homes with big windows to inexpensive structures resembling backyard sheds. (Like most other such builders, Mountain Modular builds larger houses too.)
ADUs, Draper said, could help alleviate some of the pain from the housing crisis as the price to buy remains high.
ADUs are homes that contain a kitchen, a full bathroom, and living and sleeping areas but are not the main structure on the property, according to the city of Boise. ADUs are usually smaller than the main home and normally built on-site.
Unlike mobile homes or manufactured homes built on chassis, Mountain Modular’s homes are built to international standards, qualify for traditional financing, and are inspected and delivered in sequence with the buyers’ foundations and building permits, Draper said. The company is a “one stop shop.”
“We are not a tiny home, we are not a mobile home,” Draper said in an interview. “We are actually a real home that is just built in a warehouse.”
The company has blueprints for several types of garages, ADUs and larger homes with studio to three-bedroom units ranging from about $100,000 to $300,000, though Draper said the ultimate price depends on how far Mountain Modular needs to take a unit. The homes are modern with vaulted living-room ceilings, and they range from 450 square feet to nearly 2,500 square feet, with options for up to two bathrooms and a two-car garage, a patio and a covered porch.
Alley Homes, a traditional stick-built ADU builder in Boise, estimated that the average total cost for an ADU in Boise was $150,000 to $325,000 in 2024.
According to Marc McConnell, a partner at Mountain Modular, the cost could decrease as the company grows and it finds ways to build more efficiently. The company still subcontracts some work out but is planning to start bending its own steel frames and doing its own insulation work.
Still, the cost is low compared with historical home prices that saw fast growth after the Great Recession then lurched further skyward during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The median price to buy a home in 2025 was $415,000 in Canyon County and $540,000 in Ada County, according to Intermountain Multiple Listing Service data. Since 2019, that’s a price increase of more than 67% for Canyon County, 56.5% for Ada County.
In remote Valley County, where Draper got his start in development, the numbers are worse. The median home price in 2025 was an eye-watering $776,000 – a nearly 82% increase since 2019.
“Affordable housing in Valley County doesn’t exist,” Draper said. “And (in) 95% of Idaho.”
McConnell said their vision is to put homes throughout the state including areas like Challis or Sun Valley, which have struggled with housing affordability. Draper said that while it could normally cost $700,000 for a two-bed in Ketchum or Sun Valley, they could put one of their models down for about $250,000.
“The dynamic in all of Idaho is dead,” Draper said. “There’s no way to do it. This is the solution.”
McConnell said he’s received calls from Wyoming, Montana and Nevada with people who can’t find workforce housing. In McCall, he said the local Albertsons has struggled to find checkers since few can afford to live there.
“We get it,” McConnell said. “It’s not just a Treasure Valley problem. It’s a national problem.”
The company is expanding to meet the need. Draper recently opened a second warehouse, wants a third and hopes to expand into Reno, Nevada, and a few other states that have struggled with affordable housing.
“Our mission is to deliver thousands of homes to the Northwest,” Draper said. “We’re well on our way with our own developments.”