The Columbia Falls City limits sales represented 5.4 percent of the overall residential market with 90 home sales, which is the most that have ever sold in the city limits. This is a 34.3 percent increase in the number of sale from what it was in 2014. One of the likely reasons is that as Whitefish becomes more and more unaffordable, buyers are shifting to Columbia Falls and Kalispell. Prices had large increases in Columbia Falls from 2012 through 2014 and have now appeared to stabilize with only a 1.8 percent increase in 2015.
This January, there were 31 homes on the market within the city limits compared to 32 in January 2015 and 37 in January 2014. With 31 current listings, this represents 4.1 months of inventory compared 7.6 months of inventory in Flathead County. Last year at this time there were 5.8 months inventory in Columbia Falls.
In January 2016 there were seven sales inside the Columbia Falls city limits, compared to four in January 2015.
Foreclosure and distressed sales have decrease substantially and are now only a small part of the Columbia Falls market.
In 1981, Jim started Kelley Appraisal in Kalispell and has since built an extensive database 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.