Isaac Toussie On Big Sky Land
Residential real estate in Montana goes back a long way; European pioneers encountered Plains Indians from several tribes. Today’s Montana realty is less diverse and more settled, though the national recession has made a quiet market even quieter. Fortunately, Montana had not been known as a hot real estate market for some time, and therefore did not undergo the widespread speculation that has afflicted points further east and west like California and Florida. Traditionally posting steady and sustainable growth figures, Montana realty has been rather well balanced between supply and demand.
As the cardinal rule in real estate is “location, location, location,” it should come as no surprise that most of Montana’s real estate transactions occur within its cities and their surrounding areas. In these recessionary times, however, the main activity of realtors seems to be mortgage refinancing, on account of the encouragingly low interest rates. A small but helpful interest in second homes is also helping to sustain many in an industry otherwise bereft of business. Montana realty has been rather uniformly stagnant throughout the state – which is to say, in this recession, doing fairly good, as “flat is the new up.”
In this current recessionary climate, Montana realtors have been busy mostly with refinancing and not new sales. And thanks to those same encouragingly low interest rates due to the government’s attempts at loosening lines of credit, some Montanans of otherwise modest means might feel bold enough to even purchase a second home, either for weekend getaways or as investment vehicles in anticipation of a better economy. As well, the offer of almost eight thousand dollars in federal assistance for first-time homebuyers has been helpful, though it’s an open question what will happen once this particular benefit runs out come November….
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