Follow the wealth and the advisers follow too. Idaho's boom has minted a new class of affluent households — founders who cashed out, executives relocated with equity packages, retirees who sold coastal homes at the top — and a booming wealth-management industry has grown up to serve them.
Independent advisory firms have proliferated across Boise's downtown and its affluent suburbs, and the national brokerages have expanded their local benches to match. The competition for high-net-worth clients, brokers say, is as fierce as anything on the coasts.
The clientele is distinctive. Many are transplants unfamiliar with Idaho's tax landscape and eager for guidance on everything from estate planning to agricultural land. Others are longtime residents whose modest holdings suddenly appreciated into real wealth as valuations climbed.
For advisers, it is a rare growth market. For clients, the abundance of options is its own kind of challenge — sorting the genuine fiduciaries from the salespeople in an industry that does not always make the distinction easy.
