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Kelley’s Market Trends: Land Market Comparison

The largest demand in the land market is for small residential building sites

By Jim Kelley

Where’s the land market and how does Flathead County compare to other counties in Western Montana?

The largest demand in the land market is for small residential building sites. In Flathead County, small building lots make up 28 percent of the market, compared to 39 percent in Missoula County and 18 percent in Lake County. This makes since because Missoula County has a much larger urban area that Flathead or Lake County. One half to three-acre lots make up 31 percent of the market in Flathead County, compared to 24 percent in Missoula County and 35 percent in Lake County.

On a broader scale, 82 percent of the land sales in Flathead County are smaller than 10 acres. In Missoula County, 81 percent of land sales are 10-acres or less and 75 percent in Lake County are in that same category.

As to supply, there is 28 months inventory half acre or less lots in Flathead County, compared to 22 months in Missoula County and 70 months inventory in Lake County. In the 3.1- to five-acre category, there are 29 months inventory in Flathead County, 25 months inventory in Missoula County and 42 months inventory in Lake County.

Considering all classes and sizes of land, there are 32 months inventory in Flathead County, 27 months in Missoula County and 48 months inventory in Lake County.

In raw numbers, there were 559 land sales in the last 12 months in Flathead County compared to 262 in Missoula County and 130 in Lake County.   Although there were only half as many land sales in Missoula County as Flathead County, there is also substantially less inventory of land that is on the market.

Some might find it surprising that Flathead County has more land inventory and land sales than Missoula County, however Flathead County does have the largest number of privately owned vacant tracts of land in Montana.   According to the Montana Department of Revenue’s property database, there are 16,373 tracts of vacant land in Flathead County. This compares to 4,164 in Missoula County, 4,303 in Lake County, 7,031 in Gallatin County, 4049 in Ravalli County, and 7291 in Yellowstone County. Overall, there are 103,282 tracts of vacant land in the State of Montana and 16 percent of them are in Flathead County.