We're just a few weeks away from the mid-way point in our markets and Missoula (much like other areas around our region) has had a very strong second quarter so far.  In fact when I prepared stats for the Missoula Organization of REALTORS(R) I knew the numbers would look good, however I didn't think they'd look this solid.    Now with the info below you can take this two ways.  On one side there's the lower/normal supply rates in many segments suggesting a healthy market (range of 3 to 9 months absorption rate).  This is good for sellers and our market in general suggesting something we've not seen in almost 5 years.  On the other hand for buyers, while rates remain stupid-low, opportunities and availability is dwindling.  I can speak personally of a few clients who would make a move on... 06/18/2012

I'M NOT SURE if downtown Missoula is booming, but it sure is building. Construction is all around the downtown area with investors betting that owning space in Missoula is going to pay off. In the past it has proven to be a safe bet. Our community has a long history of supporting a vibrant downtown area. So when buildings began closing their doors several years ago, the question was asked: "What are we to do about it?" Apparently that question has been answered. Investors are doubling down on downtown - and I'm just one of the Missoula residents thinking their wagers will pay off in a big way - for all of us. Nowhere is the work being welcomed with more enthusiasm than at the home of a former department store at the corner of Higgins Avenue and Front Street: The most obvious sign of rec... 06/18/2012

FOLLOWING IN THE FOOTSTEPS of a famous activity in a Columbian town, Missoulians shut down a main street on Sunday, got out of their cars and enjoyed a street carnival. For the third time in as many years, downtown's Higgins Avenue became closed to cars for Sunday Street Missoula. Downtown became ultra pedestrian friendly as Higgins Street was turned into a venue for adults and children. Seven blocks of Higgins became crowded with walkers and cyclists taking advantage of the event. Along with chalk drawing, gymnastics and massive tug of war contests, the kids were treated to ice cream or took advantage of lessons to learn how to properly ride a bicycle. Adults drank coffee, received massages, window shopped and enjoyed leisurely strolls down the middle of the street. Nearby skateboarder... 06/03/2012

  I'm just finishing up some broken apart reports by zip code for the greater Missoula and Lolo area as well as some city and county-wide stats.  I should have them up this afternoon and tomorrow!  Blog overload soon to come! 05/21/2012

Missoula's good news with sales volume continues to roll in.  Right now (5/14) within just our valley and not looking at further out communities Missoula is up 32 residential sales compared to this time last year which represents a nearly 14.6% increase in volume sold.  Buyers are flooding the market with increased purchasing power and some more favorable conventional loan programs sneaking back into the scene.    We're still 45 days out from the end of the 2nd quarter however if you tally up the sold homes so far in the MLS plus what is pending sale we could be looking at a 2nd quarter of 2012 that's 15% - 17% better than last year at the same time.  Our median price is still slipping, as it probably should be, but it's not as drastic as it was earlier in the year.    Fresh off some ex... 05/14/2012

It's a cool and raining morning so while having a cup of coffee while the kiddos watch a few cartoons I figured I'd take a look at how Missoula is doing statistically so far this year.  This is looking 1/1 - 5/5 in the given year. For 2012: - 231 homes sold YTD with a median sales price of $201,000,   In 2011: - 199 homes sold with a median sales price of $204,000   In 2010: (keep in mind 1st time buyer tax credit influenced market): - 257 homes sold with a median sales price of $195,000   In 2009: - 209 homes sold with a median sales price of $222,500   In 2008: - 282 homes sold with a median sales price of $208,650   ----------- If you look back at my earlier blog posts in the first few months I had some growing concerns about some massive de-valuation in our market with median sales ... 05/05/2012

SOMETIMES IT PAYS to leave the car at home. And if you live in Missoula Montana, sometimes it really pays to leave the car at home. That time is now. Bike Walk Bus Week begins Saturday, April 28 and runs through May 5. For the next seven days in Missoula, those who opt to bike, walk or ride the bus are being rewarded by businesses throughout the community. And area organizations have plenty of fun planned along the way for those who stay out of their car. Local businesses have been encouraging sustainable transportation through the weeklong event for the past 20 years. Once again they have joined forces to offer Missoulians plenty of reasons to resort to healthy transportation. For the entire week, Mountain Line Buses will be free to all riders on all routes, blue bikes are free for the... 04/27/2012

THE NAME of the event is a bit misleading but the bottom line remains true - you can get something for nothing. In this case, what people are receiving for free are books, lots of books, new books, popular books, and they are being given away throughout cities today. The giveaway here in the United States continues a freebie effort that spread through several other countries Sunday night. It's called World Book Night and is marked by thousands of volunteeers giving away new books to whoever might want one. Last night (Sunday p.m.)/Monday a.m.), those volunteers gave away novels in Britain, Ireland and Germany. Today volunteers are doing the same in an estimated 5,800 U.S. cities. In Britain an estimated million books were given away. The goal here in the United States is for 25,000 volu... 04/23/2012

A RIVER still runs through the city of Missoula, Montana and folks here are once again preparing to spend a day making sure that while it's running it doesn't do so through litter and debris.  For the ninth spring in a row, Missoulians will gather along the river to spend a morning picking littler from its banks. In return, the workers will get free coffee, a sense of community pride and clean river banks. Judging from the turnout every year, there are hundreds of city residents who feel they are adequately compensated for their efforts. The Clark Fork River flows through the heart of Missoula and is the focus of much fun during the summer season. Concerts are held along it, floaters, kayakers, anglers and even an occasional surfer play on it and the walking paths following its route of... 04/19/2012

Yesterday was a beautiful day in the valley, highs near 60 degrees and lots of sunshine.  In my almost 13 years in the business I've seen that many times when the sun starts shining and it begins to warm up, buyer activity seems to increase as well.  With the spring market starting to arrive I thought I'd put together a quick look at the last 30 days absorption rates to see where Missoula's inventory levels are sitting in early March. As a quick refresher, the absorption rate represents the total amount of supply currently listed for sale in our market.  I break it down by price range to give a more detailed look at where supply is heavy (and light).  This is a much improved measure of market activity as compared to looking at the average days on market of similar sales because it takes... 03/04/2012

I've been keeping a sharp eye on foreclosures in our area and how they're impacting our overall market.  This year it is projected that the biggest wave of the shadow inventory will start to hit the market as the "robo-signing" delays in the release of foreclosed properties is now behind us.  From my earlier posts this year my concerns are that 2012 will have a negative effect on the median home values, and the large cause could be foreclosures coming up for sale.  I'll explore more into the median home value impact at the end of the 1st quarter when I've got a good sample of data to look over and compare with. Today I thought I'd take a quick snapshot of the % of sales have been distressed (REO or short sale).  Based upon what I'm seeing the demand in our market quite possibly outweigh... 03/03/2012

IT IS the first Friday of the month and here in Missoula that means locals will be heading downtown for another First Friday celebration of the arts. Between 15 to 20 galleries, museums and other downtown businesses will be open from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. to give Missoulians an opportunity to check out new exhibits, visit with artists and business owners and to enjoy another busy evening downtown.  Along with all of the art to be viewed, there will be music to listen to, appetizers and drink to indulge in and a chance to run into friends, family and co-workers. This month's First Friday is to feature more venues than in the past and with temperatures expected to be in the 20s, organizers expect a large turnout. To find the event, head downtown. From there, it will be hard to miss. A few of t... 03/01/2012

Volume in Missoula continues to do well, today is Februrary 24th (77 residential sales in the Missoula Valley YTD / 177 total sales in the MLS YTD).  Missoula as well as the entire MLS have not out-paced our quicker start in volume of sales since 2008... that's right pre "bubble" considering it was the start of 2008.  I went back and looked at volume of 1/1 - 2/24 going all the way back to 2003, you can see the "ramp-up" and the cool down, and now the slow and steady volume recovery.  I'm very encouraged to see that volume is continuing to notch up, especially considering it's out-pacing 2010 when that market 2 years ago propped up with the 1st time home buyer tax credit.   Here's a chart showing the volume trends over the same date range going back 9 years now.     So volume is slowly ... 02/24/2012

It's bee a time of reflection for me, just about 1 year ago my mother decided to close down the local RE/MAX franchise that she'd owned for 16 years.  As a group most of our office joined up with the local Windermere office and we've loved it.  The Missoula market was very choppy at that time, our early winter/spring was the worst we'd seen in terms of volume.  We came out of the winter with a solid summer market but the lasting effects of a down winter wound up putting Missoula's volume of sales at another decline compared to the years before.   So it got me to thinking about 2012 so far and the market leading into it.  This year we're finally comparing "apples to apples" as we look at 2011's market to 2012's.  I've been interested in seeing how our market is doing this year and so I'v... 02/11/2012

I had a nice opportunity to do a little interview with our local NBC affiliate.  The only thing I wish I would've done better was notice my tie!  It's all I see when I watch this, should've not worn it or tightened it, haha.  http://www.nbcmontana.com/news/30355875/detail.html    Brint Wahlberg REALTOR® Windermere Real Estate 406-529-4663   While the Missoula Organization of Realtors (MOR) releases a much more comprehensive market report that won’t occur until the early spring.   All of the data I’m providing I retrieved from the MOR multiple listing service. Numbers for just Missoula (does not include Lolo, Frenchtown, or Bonner and further east)   - 776 residential sales in 2011. (a 6.5% decrease in activity from 2010) - 830 residential sales in 2010.   - median sales price of $205,25... 02/02/2012

This video has been making the rounds on facebook and via email.  THis was put together by a local student here in town that stiched together this animation that consists of many of the familiar sights you see around town. It's pretty cool, I thought it'd be fun to share!   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDpabLDK83E 01/18/2012

So now that we've done single re-caps of the segmented neighborhoods and surrounding communities of Missoula, lets put this data together in some easy to understand charts and data.   First off, looking at how each area did from 2010 to 2011 in terms of their median sales price.  You'll see in the chart below that we're looking at most areas still are experiencing a negative affect on their median values over the course of 2010 to 2011.  I had speculated that some areas could see a bit of median recovery in 2011 due to the exit of the overwhelming presence of first time home buyers.  That speculation was largely wrong with the exception of the Mullan Road area which was highly influenced by 1st time home buyers.     Moving on, now we take a look at the DOM or days on market.  This is fo... 01/10/2012

Grant Creek, the Goodan/Keil roads, and Butler Creek make up the more northwestern area of Missoula, a little more isolated from the rest of town these areas feature a few pocket-subdivisions that consist of mostly higher-end homes and then a mix of newer housing that sits of good sized parcels of land.  Many of which of these properties you'll still find barns, pastures, and horses on!   Starting with 2010 we saw just 18 sales with a median sales price at $305,250.  The average days on market for these 18 sales was 189 days.  The median listing price was at $314,900, suggesting that these homes sold for 97% of their original listing price.  There was just 1 foreclosure sale in 2010 for this area.   Moving ahead to 2011 the amount of sales jumped up to 36, with a median sales price of $... 01/09/2012

The western side of town that encompasses the dreaded "North Reserve" commercial area is the part of town that has been experiencing the most growth that I've seen over the last decade.  This area features many large-scale higher density neighborhoods with homes on lot sizes that range from 3,000 to 7,000 square feet.  As Mullan Road heads further west the area opens up into many larger home neighborhoods with houses on 1 or more acres as well.   In 2010 there were 174 residential properties sold in this area, largely driven by the 1st time home buyers tax credit, and the median sales price was $192,000.  The average time on market was a little longer at 142, but that's largely due to a lot of new construction being sold which will expand days on market of a listing.  The median listing... 01/05/2012

The western and southern side of our valley features areas that are a heavy mix of rural properties peppered with some developments as well as streets featuring rows of homes that sit on 1 to 5 acres.  The Big Flat area is largely still ranch and open space with some very large homes and higher-end subdivisions as well.  Missoula's growth in this direction has slowed a bit over the course of the recession but as our valley continues to run out of space watch for Target Range to continue to struggle with maintaining their rural identity while growth returns to their area.   First off is 2010, just 54 total sales with a median sales price of $277,500.  The average time on market for these sales came back at 122 days on market.  The median listing price for the same properties was at $299,... 01/05/2012