The Whitefish City limits sales represented 8.3 percent of the overall Flathead residential market with 139 home sales. This is a 23.6 percent drop in the number of sales from 2014, following an 8.1 percent drop from 2013. One of the likely reasons for two straight years of decreasing numbers is that the median home price increased by 17.3 percent in 2014 and by another 11.3 percent in 2015 to $320,000, which is nearly equal to the high of $322,000 in 2007. The combination of rapidly increasing prices and the decreasing number of sales suggest that Whitefish is pricing itself out of the market.
This January, there are 142 homes on the market within the city limits, compared to 131 in January of 2015 and 132 in January of 2014. With 142 current listings, this represents 12.3 months of inventory compared 7.6 months of inventory in Flathead County. Last year at this time there was 8.6 months of inventory in Whitefish.
In 2015 there were only five foreclosures and distressed sales, compared to seven in 2014, which represents a very small part of the Whitefish housing market.
In 1981, Jim started Kelley Appraisal in Kalispell and has since built an extensive data base of economic and real estate-related data on northwestern Montana. Over the last several years, he has published annual reports on the Flathead Real Estate Market and been a guest speaker on numerous occasions for various groups in the Flathead.