What does the spring hold for the Billings Real Estate market

It’s been a pretty interesting 6 months since the economic “downturn” started to impact real estate sales in Billings. While all of the statistics I’ve read suggest that prices have held their own in Billings, I can tell you that my bank account says that the number of transactions has decreased by around 40%. A pretty significant number given that there haven’t been significant layoffs in Billings, interest rates have been at their lowest level in years, and sellers are motivated to sell and have priced their homes reasonably. The $8000 tax credit for first-time home buyers should also be a motivator for buyers.

That being said, there has been a fairly significant increase in “activity”, that being phone calls from potential buyers, open house traffic, and an uptick in transaction. Let’s hope that this is the beginning of a recovery in real estate in Billings. Honestly, for first-time home buyers, I can’t think of a better time in my 15 years in this industry to buy a home. And the tax credit ends in November, so I’m expecting a lot of lower-end home traffic in the next several months.

With the increased activity in first-time home buyers, I think this also presents a time for those homeowners who have homes under $200K to consider selling their homes at a fair value. And it’s a great time to move up.. I have 9 homes currently listed for sale, of those, 4 are under $200K, 3 of which are pending sales. None of those over $200K have sold. Sounds like under $200K is where the buyers are.

Here’s to hoping the remainder of the year proves to be productive for both home buyers and home sellers alike.

Billings Montana is a great place to live and raise a family!

Best Life Magazine (I’d never heard of it before, but apparently it is published by the folks who bring us Men’s Health) came out with its list of the best, and worst, places to raise a family. I usually don’t place a lot of importance in these lists, but if a community is consistently listed highly, you’ve got to think there may be something to it.

Out of 257 cities rated, Billings ranked number “3″ this year just behind Honolulu (hard to argue that one) and Virginia Beach, VA, and just ahead of Columbus, GA and San Diego. The cities were rated based upon categories ranging from favorable student-teacher ratios and school budgets to parks and pediatricians.

I’ve always loved Billings and have felt blessed to be able to raise my kids here, and I tell everyone I can about it. I suppose it’s nice to have studies like this validate what I’m thinking. Just another reason that I think Billings will continue to grow and that our real estate market will perform very well in the next 10 years.

Original article is located here.

Baseball in the snow

I help coach my 16 year old son’s Senior League baseball team. Last night we played in what could have been the worst weather I’ve ever seen baseball played in.. 38 degrees, 25 mile an hour winds, and rain/ snow. Unbelievably miserable.

And we lost 1-0.

So, how is the Billings real estate market??

I’m asked this question quite often.. most everyone I meet who knows I’m a real estate agent wonders how Billings is holding up given all the negative press real estate gets (and rightly so, in many parts of the country).  I’ll usually give it a laugh and tell them to quit paying attention to national news and keep an eye on what they see happening locally.

Based upon my experience and the stats provided by the Billings Association of Realtors, our market is nothing less than solid.  A November 29, 2007 article on MSN Money ranked Billings the 10th best real estate market nationally (population over 100,000) for the preceding 12 month period. Recent statistics show a slowing market over the same period last year, with average prices holding up, but the number of sales and percentage of homes sold/ listed declining. Not necessarily a surprise as election years tend to cause buyers to stand on the sidelines to watch a bit. In addition, I do think the negativity in the press regarding the national market and the mortgage market (do any of these talking heads even know what a “subprime” loan looks like?) have had ann effect on buyers. My recent experience is that buyers in the upper end of the market, over $300,000, are more confident about the future than those in the lower end and are more likely to be aggressive in their home search.

Here’s what I do know… Billings is a growing community. Population just topped 100,000, and statistics show that once a city reaches 100,000, population growth accelerates it quickly to 200,000. I’ve read economists estimates that Billings will reach 200,000 people by 2020. I’ve spoken with several commercial bankers in town who have told me that upcoming construction lending is at numbers we’ve never seen.. billions of dollars in new loans. In addition, many large national retailers, restaurants, hotels, etc. are setting up shop in Billings. They include Sam’s Club, Cabelas, Chilis, Kohls, Macaroni Grill, and others. These companies are successful because they’re smart, and they spend millions of dollars a year evaluating new locations and their viability.

I don’t want to sound irrational with regards to the growth potential of Billings and the Billings real estate market, but I do think that homebuyers in Billings will be nicely rewarded in the next 10 years with the value of their real estate. If you are considering buying a home in the Billings area, buy it if it’s right for you.

So I’m blogging, eh?

A good friend of mine assists me with my Billings, Montana real estate website, and suggested that I start “blogging”. Now I’m certainly not a techie, but I’m no imbecile either as it comes to the internet and it’s usefulness, so I decided to take his advice and go where it takes me.

I’m a real estate professional with Century 21 Hometown Brokers in Billings, so my goal with this blog is to provide useful information about real estate, particularly as it relates to the Billings, Montana market. I’ll hope to update on a regular basis with information on the broader real estate merket, new construction trends and opportunities, home inspections, title insurance regulations (now that sounds interesting), the mortgage market, appraisals, and anything else that I think might be of interest to readers.

Those of you who know me know that I can be a little verbose…. I’ll try to be interesting and useful. Please let me know what you’d like to hear about and I’ll do my best to accomodate you.

Off to baseball!