Living in Nampa

So you're thinking of moving to Nampa Idaho here in the Treasure Valley, and you want to know everything there is to know about Living in Nampa? We're going to get after that right now!

Nampa is a really, really popular place to live now here in Treasure Valley. In fact, it's actually the 3rd largest City in Idaho and it's growing really rapidly. We are sitting here in Nampa, just over a 100,000 people in 2020. That's what it was. It's probably about 110,000 people or so right now, and continuing to grow quite rapidly.

I absolutely love Nampa. It is surrounded by farm fields. As you drive into Nampa, you're driving through two lane country roads through farm fields, and you have a really interesting mix of homes here with older homes and newer homes with brand new subdivisions dropped right into farm fields. It's quite the mix that you've got going on in Nampa.

Where is Nampa located in the Boise Area

Nampa is on the west side of Treasure Valley, only about 15 minutes or so from Meridian, depending on where you are trying to get from Nampa to Meridian or vice versa, you're going be 15 minutes to maybe 30 minutes, depending on how far apart you are from Meridian to Nampa.

To get from Nampa to Eagle, you're looking at about 30 minutes and from Nampa into Boise, you're looking at about 20 minutes. From Downtown Nampa to the Boise airport, you're looking at right around 25 minutes or so. And you've got the 84 and that is running east to west. And that's going to take you right into Nampa. And from there, you can get into the different parts of Nampa that I'm going to divide up here as the North Nampa, Central Nampa and South Nampa.

North Nampa

This is essentially located north of Interstate 84 (I-84) and is going to be tending to be the more affordable part of Nampa, although not a whole lot of dissimilarity between the newer homes, as far as what you can afford but a little bit more affordable. A lot more direct access to the freeway, which is going to get you to Meridian and to Boise a lot quicker as well.

And it's going to be near all the major shopping in Nampa, such as your Costco and Target and Fred Meyer and all the different kind of more major shopping that you're going to be looking for in Nampa. That's a really fantastic feature of North Nampa. And there's a wide mix of homes that you're going to find here in North Nampa, including older homes on some acreage lots, as well as brand new homes that are being built.

An interesting fact about Boise is that a lot of people complain that there's a smell. That rumor really originated from here in North Nampa. And that's because of the Amalgamated Sugar Beet factory. It really is isolated to North Nampa. On really windy days, you can smell it elsewhere, but for the most part, it's going to be here and it's something you just kind of get used to. And it's not that common. That's something that people complain about, not really a big deal, but if that's a problem for you, maybe stay away from North Nampa.

And the homes in North Nampa, they're going to range depending on what you're getting anywhere from the high $300,000s for much older homes, not updated into the high $800,000s for sure, for some of the newer homes.

Central Nampa

This is where the downtown area of Nampa is. A lot of your major shopping, your hospitals, a lot of parks. And of course, homes. A wide mix of older homes and newer homes as well. A lot of homes built in the 1990s, early 2000s, and it has a really, really beautiful revitalized downtown area right on 1st. There's a fantastic little local brewery here called 2C Family Brewing. There's also Holy Cow, which is a really great burger place and it has really good fish and chips as well.

The homes you're going to find here, these are going to range again anywhere from the high $300,000-$800,000 range. You're going to get a wide mix of homes here, homes on Anchorage, as well as some newer homes. 

South Nampa

This is where a lot of the new construction is occurring right now. And depending on which side of Nampa, whether you're on the east side of South Nampa or west side of South Nampa, it's going to dictate how close you are to the lake. You're going to be very close to Lake Lowell if you're on the west side of Nampa, and you're going to have homes here that are going to be larger as well, potentially lake views, or even waterfront as well. Those are some really fantastic homes you're going to find here.

And something that I really, really love and not a lot of people love in this area is the big RV garages. These are boat bays or RV bays, or just giant workshops. And you're going to find these in much of the newer builds throughout Treasure Valley, Nampa, being one of them. You're going to find these in areas such as Summit Ridge and Carriage Hill.

Top Subdivisions in Nampa

Summit Ridge has  a lot of custom, semi-custom homes, as well as some homes that are on larger lots as well, but mostly tract homes, just highly semi-custom but high, very high quality construction.

And then you have Carriage Hill, which is a Toll Brothers Community built by various high-end builders as well. And you're going to find a lot of these RV bays. That's a really, really popular product. That's you're finding throughout Treasure Valley. You're going to find them also in Caldwell and Eagle quite a bit as well and Star.

And in fact, in Star, you're going to find a number of homes that have double RV garage, which is super, super cool. But in Nampa for a little bit more affordability than what you're going to get in Star, you can find some homes with these RV garages.

The homes here, they're going to range in price quite a bit, depending on what you're looking for. About $500,000 on the low end, maybe high $400,000 on up to about $800,000-$900,000 but then for the, some of the much higher end homes, especially to get into acreage, then you're looking more in the $1 million range.

If you're looking for affordability and how much bang for the buck you can get, Nampa is probably going to be the place for you depending on the type of home. Even for the high-end homes or the more kind of attract homes, you're just going to get more for your money. Then you're going to get really elsewhere in Treasure Valley, except for probably Caldwell.

That's going to be another great option for you as well as Caldwell, a lot of similarity with Caldwell and Nampa. But Nampa is just a little bit closer to Boise so you have the country feel, but a little bit closer to the city.

Things To Do in Nampa

You might think there's not a lot to do in Nampa, being slightly rural, but there actually is. One of the top things is the Ford Center, and this is a fantastic venue. This is where most of the performing artists come to perform when they're coming to Treasure Valley.

Your music venue is certainly going to be here and it's the home of the Snake River Stampede. It's a top 10 rodeo in the country, a lot of fun to take your family to. And of course we have Lake Lowell here. This is the lake here in Treasure Valley. And there's all kinds of things to do here at Lake Lowell. You can boat, you can fish, you can swim. It's absolutely fantastic. People love coming here.  And again, if you live in South Nampa, you're going to be very, very close to Lake Lowell.

There are also tons of parks here in Nampa; about 27 parks. Nampa has its own park and recreation department. They're adding more parks, there's splash pads, there's playgrounds. And it has a really fantastic rec center with 5 indoor pools and 2 outdoor pools. That's absolutely a blast to take the kids to.

And if you'd like to golf, there's three golf courses here: you've got Red Hawk, Ridgecrest and Centennial. If you prefer wineries and just unwinding and relaxing a bit you're right next to wine country in Caldwell. And there are about 15 wineries and growing there right in the wine country here in the Treasure Valley.

And finally there is the Warhawk Air Museum, and this is the home to the air show as well. You have absolutely fantastic use of the air show when that's happening.

Let's touch on schools here. We've got 8 public high schools, 9 middle schools, 20 elementary schools, a handful of charter and private schools as well. There's also Western Idaho Community College and Northwest Nazarene University (NMU) which is certainly the major university here in Nampa.

For the type of shopping that we have here in Nampa, we do have a Costco here. There's also a Target. You got Fred Meyer so a lot of your major shopping is certainly going to be here. But if you're looking for more of that boutique shopping experience that you're going to find in a place like The Village, you're going to head over to Meridian for that, which is an absolutely fantastic place to go with a family.

You can walk around, there's the water fountains, there's ice skating in the winter. So that's, you have to go into town for that. Also there's no Trader Joe's currently in Nampa. If you're looking for Trader Joe's, I love the little Reese's peanut butter cups and they have really good cheap wine at Trader Joe's, you got to head over to Meridian for that as well.

And for healthcare here, we've got St Luke's, St. Alphonsus, Saltzer Health, and we certainly have our mix of urgent care and a specialty doctors as well. If you are looking for more highly specialized care and surgeries, and that's actually going to be over in Boise, of course. And it's also separate, close to the VA Hospital in Caldwell.

That's a complete overview of living in Nampa and the types of homes you can get, the schools, and things to do.

Curtis Chism, Realtor
208-510-0427 | Mobile
boise@chismteam.com 
Chism Team | NRDS# SP56593
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