Real Estate News

Condos Linger on Missoula’s Market

According to one developer's survey, almost 200 condos have entered the Missoula market over the past 18 months. Yet the only sizeable project to sell fast has been the sold-out Wilma Theater building on Higgins Avenue downtown, which had prices as low as $88,000. Small condos in the $150,000-range and larger units priced above $250,000, on the other hand, have lingered.

And more are coming onto the market.

Fuel Prices and Recreation

High Gas Slows Good Times on the Lake

Water recreation has slowed. Instead of ripping across the water, with skiers in tow, boat owners and renters are coasting and drifting to save gas and money.

Owners of RV parks, boat and boat-slip renters - and other business owners who derive their livelihood from the tourist season on Flathead Lake - also say they see fewer cars with out-of-state license plates and more Canadian license plates (due to the relative weakness of the U.S. dollar to the Canadian loon)

In The New West magazine

Montana’s Cash Cowboy

If you didn't know any better, you might think William Patrick (Bill) Foley II was just another retiring baby boomer looking for golf courses, open spaces and the chance to recapture an idealized childhood of summertimes on the family ranch. A frank man with an almost goofy charm, he speaks of his love for Montana, his concern for the landscape -- and the joy he gets bombing around the backcountry on an ATV or a snowmobile.

But the truth is, Foley isn't very good at leisure. He's got the fancy log home on Whitefish Lake, five West Coast wineries, the huge cattle ranch near Deer Lodge, and the requisite private jets, but he can't seem to help turning everything into a business.

Foley appears to be in a much better spot than most of the Wall Street moguls, Silicon Valley financiers and high-rolling property developers who see the surging "amenity economy" in the Mountain West as the next great capitalist frontier. In some ways, he's representative of the breed: a very rich man who's become enamored with the West, and whose first instinct is to buy it.

Boulder Becomes 'Smart Grid City'

The Grid Gets a Brain

If all goes as planned Boulder will become the world’s first “fully integrated Smart Grid City,” says regional utility Xcel Energy. Envisioned as the first true innovation in electricity distribution in close to a century, the Smart Grid movement is essentially developing ways to bring digital Internet-based technology to power lines, giving utilities and business and residential customers greater control and efficiency in the flow of electricity.

Ultimately, once the Smart Grid takes over a significant chunk of the existing power distribution infrastructure, utilities and governments will be able to use the power of the Web to better manipulate how electricity is generated and delivered.

In other energy news: Democrats ready populist energy legislation; Colorado eyes fine print on electricity bills; and O&G executives foresee oil-price downturn by the end of the year.

In The New West magazine

Real Ranch Living: Not Everyone is Selling Out

It's 2:30 a.m., and Bud Boyce, 75, fumbles in the dim light of the pickup cab for the controls of the mounted spotlight.

Outside, the beam cuts the blackness, illuminating clouds of warm breath and glassy eyes as it pans from left to right, then back again across a herd of more than 250 Angus-Hereford cows, all pregnant and ready to give birth.

The cattle huddle in dark masses. Bud plays the light across them, carefully watching for a cow in labor or a newborn calf. With no signs of a delivery-in-progress and no new calves since the last check three hours ago, he wheels his pickup back toward the house and lurches down the frozen drive. In three hours, he'll do it again. Then, ranch hand Mike Horst will take over.

It's a grueling schedule, part of what makes ranching a lifestyle, not a job.

Idaho and Washington Feel the Pain

Montana Banks Remain Remote from National Crunch

Ask Tom Welch, president of Pioneer Federal Savings and Loan (offices in Dillon and Deer Lodge, Mont.) about his mortgage portfolio: "Great," he says, "As good as it's been. I can't tell you the last time I've had a foreclosure."

Even as risky national lending practices and the collapse of the housing bubble have pulled the national economy into recession, lenders in Montana remain largely unaffected by mortgage losses. Banks in the state haven't been hurt much by the credit crunch, either, because few swing big leveraged financial deals, bankers say.

"Montana has some foreclosure hot spots," said Helena branch president Paul Drake of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. "But we haven't seen the kind of issues like Arizona or Nevada, not even close to it."

New West Missoula Event

The Secrets of Social Networking

If you're reading this story, you're probably Internet-savvy enough to know that the hottest thing online is "social networking." Facebook and MySpace are the kingpins of this phenomenon, but social networking happens in all kinds of ways and in all kinds of places on the Web. And if you think social networking is mostly about flirting and dating, well, you'd be surprised.

Here in Missoula, Hank Green of EcoGeek, Steven Sundheim of Modwest and Grupthink, and our very own Courtney Lowery have been at the forefront of the social networking phenomenon. In addition to the highly successful EcoGeek blog, Hank has created a hugely popular social network called Nerdfighters. Steven and his compatriots at the Web hosting company Modwest have built a unique social Web site called Grupthink. Courtney, for her part, is in charge of all things community here at NewWest.Net and has dipped her toes in almost everything new on the Web.

Please join Hank, Steven and Courtney for a discussion and, yes, networking reception on what online social networking can mean for you, your business, and your social circle. It happens May 13 at 5:00 p.m. at the Missoula Art Museum. Please call 406-829-1725 for more information, or email We look forward to seeing you there.

Another Harbinger of The Crunch

Idaho’s Village Green Development Files for Bankruptcy

The Village Green at the Valley Club, a new high-end subdivision and golf course development in Ketchum, Idaho, filed last week for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, owing more than $24 million to its creditors.

The development plan includes 43 custom homes -- valued at about $3 million each -- and a nine-hole Tom Fazio golf course, but so far only 13 homes have been completed and only seven of those have been sold, according to developer Henry Dean.

"We expected to do a lot better," Dean said. "We just fell off of our pro forma."

It's the latest in a string of bankruptcies among developments in the West, from Tamarack Resort in Idaho to Promontory Club in Utah, further evidence that the high-end real estate market in the West has been deeply affected by the credit crunch.

In The New West magazine: Project Watch

The High-End Real Estate Market: They Went Bankrupt?!?

The national real estate pullback and the credit crunch, combined with several years of sky-high construction costs, have some luxury developments in the New West on the ropes.

While bankruptcy is an imperfect prism through which to view the effects of the market slowdown, these five cases offer rich glimpses into the operations and financing problems.

More bankruptcies are undoubtedly on the way. The B-word has even been thrown around as a possibility at the vaunted Yellowstone Club, where the divorce of owners Tim and Edra Blixseth has compounded its woes.