Why Are Hordes Of Wealthy People Hitting The Escape Button And Heading To Montana?
Francesco Abbruzzino, The Uncensored Report, LLC
Why have thousands upon thousands of very wealthy people suddenly felt an overwhelming urge to buy a home in Montana? At this moment, Montana is one of the hottest real estate markets in the entire country. When a desirable house is put on the market, it can often spark a wild bidding war. Of course the vast majority of the potential buyers involved in these bidding wars do not actually have any roots in Montana at all. Vast hordes of wealthy individuals from Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York and other major cities are flooding into the state, and there is only a limited amount of housing to accommodate them. As a result, home prices are being pushed to absolutely absurd levels.
In the Flathead Valley, home builders have been working incredibly hard to construct houses for the new arrivals. The following comes from a New York Post article entitled “Montana, the sold-out state New Yorkers can’t get enough of”…
All around the Lodge, along Montana Highway 35, from Kalispell to Whitefish, are what the locals call “COVID homes,” prefabricated track houses that line up along what used to be a timber farm — all of which were built last year and sold at around $550,000.
“Most were bought sight unseen for cash deals,” said Doug Averill.
$550,000 may have seemed like a hefty price when those homes originally went up, but today $550,000 would be considered a bargain price.
That is because the average selling price of a home in Flathead County has now risen to more than $638,000…
In May 2020, the average sale price for a home in Flathead County was $447,387 — a year later it had increased to $638,992. The average number of days a property stayed on the market has been cut almost in half, from 77 days in May 2020 to 41 days in May 2021.
The Flathead Valley possesses great natural beauty, and Whitefish in particular has become an extremely popular tourist destination.