Here’s an update on the third quarter of the Montana real estate market year. Tune in to learn the latest developments.

For waterfront sales, the third quarter of 2019 was very interesting. Overall, the dollar amount has been higher in the past, but the number of transactions has also been lower. Year to date, we’ve closed 80 properties on the waterfront, as opposed to the 91 we closed during the same period in 2018.

Flathead Lake:
Flathead Lake has 95 active listings right now, and so far, we’ve closed 40 homes (the same amount as last year). Interestingly, five of those closings were for over $2 million, whereas last year, only two sold for over $2 million. This year, 11 closed for over $1 million, and last year, eight closed for over $ 1 million. Overall, the upward trend in prices is because a lot of inexpensive property has already been bought up.

There are 45 vacant lots available in Flathead Lake. There have been 11 closings so far this year, compared to 18 last year, and two pending sales. The reduction in the number of sales seems to show that people are more interested in buying homes than vacant land at the moment.

Swan Lake:
In Swan Lake, there are eight active listings. Year to date, there have been six closings, as opposed to the five closings last year. In 2018, three sold for over $1 million, and this year just two have sold for more than $1 million.

There are eight vacant properties in Swan Lake, and just one pending sale. Last year, there were two closed sales.

Echo/Blaine/Lake of the Woods:
There are three homes for sale and 10 have closed so far this year. Last year, only five homes were closed upon. Even though there aren’t many homes available, this shows that there has been a huge amount of activity in these areas.

There has been only one sale of vacant property on these lakes. Two sales have closed, and there are no pending sales. There’s a very slim selection in terms of vacant lots—last year, there were four. It seems that quite a few properties sold, but none have come back on the market.

The Lakes West of Kalispell:
All the sales here were down over last year. On the residential side, there have been seven sales so far this year, compared to last year’s 11 sales. There are 15 homes for sale and four pending sales, which suggests that sales may even out with last year.

On the vacant land side, there are 14 active listings and three have sold year to date, compared to last year’s six sales. You can likely expect a few vacant lots to be available next year. There is one pending sale for vacant land, so we can see that these areas aren’t completely inactive.

If you have any questions or need information about a particular area, please reach out to us. We’re happy to help.