Real Estate
For Some, the Building Boom Still Booms
Demand Still High for Skilled Tradesmen
Ongoing commercial construction has kept skilled tradesmen busy, despite a slowdown in residential housing and word that some developers have fallen behind in their bill-paying to area contractors.
"We just put out word for more carpenters," said Dennis Daneke, head of Local 28 of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters.
"Commercial construction is still booming, and, right now, we're booming," he said.
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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.
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Real Estate News
Missoula’s Market: Worse Than You Think
If you're thinking the housing bubble in Missoula, and Montana, will somehow remain full of air, think again. The situation is probably worse than you think. Median home prices, as recorded by real estate organizations, have been relatively stable, but some indicators suggest a downturn could be just around the corner.
Why? Because homes have been sitting on the market for months and months, while sellers have begun to slowly lower their asking prices. A rash of foreclosures may force prices down, which will greatly increase the downward pressure on all home prices.
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Real Estate News
Missoula Median Home Prices DropMissoula home prices are following the national downturn, according to figures from the Missoula Organization of Realtors.
In both April and May, the median sales price of Missoula homes dropped. Also, the volume of sales has continued a two-year slowing trend. This is based on prices recorded by real estate agents.
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guest column
Building a New and Sustainable Residential Model
About a year ago, a client of mine came to me and asked me to design a house that would have no energy bill -- a "Net Zero House," producing as much energy as it used. During the same year, I found that my energy bill for my own house was beginning to become much more of a burden on our family budget. These two events led me to research energy costs and how those costs are impacting the average American household. It was immediately clear from the research that energy prices are outpacing income and our current way of building houses will create energy bills that will not be sustainable for the average household. [more]
timberlands and real estate
Missoula County Asks Mark Rey to Halt Plum Creek Talks
Wednesday the Missoula County Commissioners sent a letter to Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey asking him to drop consideration of the forest road easement amendment until the documents proposed for amendment have been identified and made available to the public.
The commissioners wrote: "...the failure to identify, review, and properly reference the easements to be amended will make the proposed Easement Amendment legally void, and the process leading up to your expected approval fatally flawed."
Rey, overseer of the Forest Service, said during a meeting last week with officials from western Montana that he would not make the paperwork available and invited a lawsuit, which appears imminent.
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guest opinion: plum creek and mark rey
Backdoor Deals on Public Lands Deeply DisappointingIn Montana, we are proud of our sunshine laws that keep government actions open and responsive to the public. Unfortunately, the laws that apply to the federal government are not as enlightened, which can sometimes lead to nasty surprises from Washington—surprises that impact the clean water and open spaces we treasure on our public lands.
Montanans got just such a surprise two weeks ago, when the Missoula County Commissioners and Senator Jon Tester discovered that Undersecretary of Agriculture Mark Rey, the Bush Administration political appointee who oversees the Forest Service, has been quietly negotiating a backroom deal with real estate developer Plum Creek.
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Idaho and Washington Feel the Pain
Montana Banks Remain Remote from National CrunchAsk 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."
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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.
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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.
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