A good indicator of the overall demand for properties is to look at the number of sales that occur and compare those sold numbers to the new listings coming on the market. There have been 1,843 new residential listings that have come on the market in Flathead County in 2017 and a total of 1,029 sales. This means that 55.8 percent of the new listings that came on the market in 2017 have sold. By comparison, in 2016 there were 2,727 new listings and 61.6 percent were sold, however only 50 percent had sold as of this same time in 2016.
Over the last 17 years, the highest percentage was in 2000 when 1,398 new listings came on the market and there were 1,400 sales that year. The low was in 2008 when there were 3,548 new residential listings and only 985 sales, representing 27.8 percent of the new listings.
Although only 55.8 percent of new listings have sold in 2017, it should also be noted that over the last seven years around 54 percent of the total number of sales have occurred in the second half of the year. If this pattern continues through 2017, it is likely that the percentage of new listing that sell will be in the 60 percent to 65 percent range.