Page 32 - Flathead Beacon // 5.27.2015

32 | MAY 27, 2015 BUSINESS MONTHLY FLATHEADBEACON.COM Real Estate Market Looking Solid in 2015
Residential sales could prove to have the best year in valley’s history if they continue apace
By MOLLY PRIDDY of the Beacon
The real estate market continues to improve as the Flathead Valley nears the middle of 2015, building on the stability and strong foundation from 2014.
That’s the message from Jim Kelley, owner and operator of Kelley Appraisals, who has tracked the valley’s real estate ups and downs for decades. Kelley said the valley is on track to post a banner year for real estate sales, which would be a major boost to buyer and seller confi- dence coming out of the recession.
“Year to date, residential sales are up about 16 percent over what they were a year ago at this time,” Kelley said. “Basically at that rate, if you proj- ect that out through the end of the year, then we could have a higher number of sales than we ever had in the Flathead Valley’s history.”
According to Kelley’s 2014 review, there were 1,507 residential sales in the county in 2014. That represents about a 2 percent decrease in overall sales com- pared to 2013, which had 1,539 total residential sales, but the median house price in 2014 increased by 3.3 percent over 2013 at $295,780.
The most expensive property sold in 2014 was $6,246,500, and the least expensive was $30,000. Listing prices continued to have a wide range, from $58,000 to $22 million.
Of the overall residential sales in 2014, 29.3 percent were within Ka- lispell’s city limits, 12.1 percent were in Whitefish’s city limits, and 4.4 percent were in Columbia Falls’ city limits. An- other 47.4 percent of the total residen- tial property sales were made within 3.5 mile of Kalispell’s city limits.
Of the 1,507 overall sales in Flat- head County in 2014, only 7.9 percent were bank-owned properties and only
“THE INCREASED SALES ARE MARKET SALES, NOT FORCED SALES AS THE FORECLOSURES AND THE SHORT SALES WERE.” Jim Kelley
BEACON FILE PHOTO
market for long.
“There’s a lot of people who, in all
reality, would rather be renting,” Kel- ley said, though the prices of rentals have increased significantly with the lack of supply.
Land sales have thus far stayed on track with 2014’s numbers, he said, with only about a 3 percent increase. In 2014, there were 1,170 residential land sales, a 6.1 percent increase from the year prior.
The median land price in 2014 was $244,896,upnearly10percentfrom2013. As the state’s unemployment num- bers keep falling – in March, it was at its lowest since before the recession, coming in at 4.1 percent statewide – and the real estate market continues to sta- bilize, more buyers and sellers will gain
confidence, Kelley said.
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1.9 percent were short sales. Kelley said that is a strong indicator that the mar- ket is righting itself, and a good sign for the 2015 market.
“The increased sales are market sales, not forced sales as the foreclosures and the short sales were,” he said.
He said he hadn’t crunched the num- bers on this year’s non-forced sales, but also that he wouldn’t be surprised if non-forced sales were up by 30 percent
this year, given how tight the residen- tial market is.
Vacancies in the current rental mar- ket are basically nonexistent, Kelley not- ed, and the first-time homebuyer mar- ket, usually focusing on homes in the $175,000 to $225,000 range, is also slim.
Higher-priced tiers of the mar- ket, such as $400,000 and above, still have plenty of stock, Kelley said, but the lower-priced homes are not on the
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