All Forum Posts by: Keith Miller

We had another great turnout at the Missoula Real Estate Meetup on Tuesday, and our presenter was amazing. Paul Burow shared a ton of great updated information about the Missoula Market. There were a ton of requests from people who couldn’t make it to get a summary, so here’s a scan of his handout, and my takeaways:

1. Median sales price in the city of Missoula rose 28% this year. That’s a huge increase, which is good news if you own property, bad news if you don’t.

2. Inventory is extremely low, there were only 37 new listings in December, which is 27% lower than last year.

3. The same basic numbers are true for Missoula County and surrounding counties. There aren’t any pockets of affordability nearby.

4. Butte has historically been much more affordable than Missoula, but their median sales price is up over 38%.

5. The rental vacancy rate continues to plummet year over year. The average vacancy rate for 2021 was 1.4%. A healthy range is between 5-7%.

6. Two bedroom units are currently the most in-demand type.

7. Despite the popular narrative, out-of-state buyers didn’t increase very significantly. The number of out-of-state buyers increased from roughly 12% to 18% from 2019 to 2021.

8. California and Washington were the two states that sent the highest number of out-of-state purchasers.

9. Demand for housing remains very strong, and the pace of building simply hasn’t kept pace since before 2007. There is a steady stream of migration into Missoula, 1,100 people moved to Missoula last year. There is simply not enough available contractors and land for Missoula to build enough units to meet demand anytime in the next few years, so expect demand to stay high.

The link to his handout is here. Hope to see everyone at the next meetup on February 15th, message me for an invite. 

Welcome McKenna! If you want to attend a meetup and talk with fellow investors, I run one in Missoula the third Tuesday of every month, and there's also one in Kalispell if you're closer to there!

Hello All,

I'm launching a wholesaling company in two weeks in Missoula MT, and I'm wondering what your opinions are about whether it is worth it to pursue pre-foreclosures. I know they've traditionally been a great source of deals, but I've been reading how foreclosures are at record lows, and Montana is 44th out of 50 states in the percentage of foreclosures. Our main targets will absentee owners, and we're trying to decide whether we should expand our focus to include pre-foreclosures. 

Any advice is appreciated,

Keith

@Mercedes Wiebelhaus I've found the same thing Mercedes! As costly as it is to build right now, it's still a lot cheaper than buying the same property. The tricky part is finding the land for a multifamily, that's what I would love to find. I'm starting a wholesaling company in the next two weeks to try and find off-market deals, and the long-term goal is to find land and build a large multifamily. 

I got a few more options for you all, updated chart is attached.

Want to access your home's equity in Missoula? My favorite way is to get a HELOC, so I recently called around to local banks to figure out the best rates. These are all for owner occupied HELOCs, I figured I'd share with the group to save you the time from having to call yourself.

Welcome Ashley! There's a real estate meetup in Kalispell run by Kendal Lamb, if I was in your shoes I'd start out by reaching out to her and starting to attend those. You'll learn so much more by meeting in person with fellow investors. Best of luck, let me know if there's anything I can do to support from down here in Missoula. 

I'd personally pull out as much cash as you can while you still live there using a cash-out refi, then have it professionally managed as a STR. The numbers of visitors to Glacier is only going up and up, I'd personally want to hang onto this property for long-term appreciation.

I agree with your guy's love of this beautiful state, that's why I live in Missoula! I was born and raised in Missoula, and now invest here. I'm looking for multifamily to buy as well, and in the meantime I've been focused on infill development and building my own small multifamilies, I'm in the middle of building two backyard townhouses. I'd definitely be interested in chatting about the opportunities here and how to find and assess properties. Welcome to the community!

Hey Kade,

Thanks for reaching out, welcome to the Missoula Real Estate Community! I'm not sure I understand your question. Do you want to know the laws about wholesaling because you're interested in becoming a wholesaler? Or are you wondering about the laws because you want to buy a wholesaled property? 

Either way, you'd be a great fit for the Missoula Real Estate Meetup, we meet on the 18th this month, learn more here: https://missoularealestatemeet...