GALLATIN COUNTY — You might be hearing it on social media or possibly by word of mouth. Lots of people are buying homes in Gallatin County.
So what’s really happening in the housing market, and what are experts saying?
“It’s just a quality of life that people perhaps aren’t getting in other parts of the country so that makes it very attractive, makes it so people want to move here,” said Adam Greenberg, Montana Real Estate Consultant’s Team, Coldwell Banker Distinctive Properties.
The numbers are in: the inventory of single-family homes is down 60% in the Gallatin Valley compared to September of 2019.
And the median sales price is up almost 19% from last year at this time to $550,000.
“Because single-family homes prices have increased so much, we are seeing a huge demand for the townhomes and the condos, so the prices of those have also started coming up a lot,” said Greenberg.
The Gallatin Association of Realtors report says the median sale prices in the condo/townhouse market increased by 1.5%, from $321,250 to $326,000.
The report also says the inventory of available condos/townhouses market has decreased from last year in September by 61.5%.
And it’s not just real estate agents keeping busy as the market shows little sign of slowing down.
“One of our last processes that we do is we enter real estate transfer information into our Platt books here that reflects the various changes of title for every single piece of property in the county,” said Eric Semerad with the Gallatin County Clerk and Recorder’s Office.
Gallatin County Clerk and Recorder’s Office says during an election year, the staff is usually busy helping the Elections Office.
Not this year, there’s too much work to do.
“Any time you record a document with us, there’s a fee. And those fees that we receive for recording documents are about 50% over last year,” said Semerad.
While there are plenty of people moving from the Midwest and Coastal areas right now, agents are seeing most of the purchasing happening in-state.
But those rumors of out-of-staters buying homes in the Gallatin Valley sight-unseen, that’s definitely happening.
“Definitely lately because of COVID we’re getting a lot of that. I would say around 3 out of 10 of my buyers are buying sight unseen,” said Greenberg.
