According to the news today.... (Billings, Missoula: sales, 2009, foreclosure)

[jimj]

Five Montana cities are in the top 25 for housing appreciation right now. I wonder how that translates to the rest of the state.
Here we're seeing sales in the gutter and pretty much all that's selling are highly motivated sellers aka giving 'em away.

[urhere]

Which 5 cities? I'm in Helena and plan to sell in the spring. Would like to relocate to Flathead Lake area or Ravalli County. Haven't been paying too much attention recently, but last I looked it seemed like Helena was holding pretty steady although with fewer sales and the other two areas were still ridiculously inflated.

[acwhite96]

#3 Billings, #9 Bozeman, #13 Great Falls, #14 Livingston, and #16 Missoula. I tried to copy and past the list, but here is the link I found with the cities.

Top 25 Forecast Housing Markets in 2009

[AQHA]

Did they mention Muley?

[Gman2007]

Originally Posted by AQHA

Did they mention Muley?

I was sure it would have made the list!

[seven of nine]

Nope, no houses just barns.

[rangerider]

There is a talk radio station here that gives numerous local guests airtime during the course of a programming week, among them two different realtors. Up until about a month ago both were saying sales were up and things were looking good. Now both are saying things are a little off but not bad. That pretty much tells the story on that lot.

I have had two friends get real bargains on homes in this last three months, and we're starting to see significant foreclosure numbers. Actually, not so much bargains as a closer to reality price - off almost 30% from listed price.

A flyer came in the mail the other day with foreclosure listings from $189,000 to 1.3 million. The curious thing is, I haven't seen published asking prices drop all that much. Doesn't take much thinking to figure out what's going on there.

I would be real interested to see how outflow business is with the moving companies; there are a lot of people who were way out there on monthly obligations for homes and toys.

I believe we'll fare a bit better here than a lot of places. But making a living is going to be tough for awhile.

[AQHA]

Now would sure be the time to buy a home. Land is still high but I have seen some homes that look like good deals. I feel sorry for those trying to sell right now.

[jimj]

Originally Posted by AQHA

Now would sure be the time to buy a home. Land is still high but I have seen some homes that look like good deals. I feel sorry for those trying to sell right now.

We gave up trying to sell a few months ago but our neighbor just sold a house (forced by divorce) that's brand new (never lived in) and would have fetched $500k a year and a half ago sold for $395k. He said he took a $10k loss on it.

[truckingbronco]

Give it another year. Things will get worse before they get better, and once they do get better, it will be a slower appreciation (sp?) than we're used to. Remember that it's always better to buy on the way up rather than on the way down; if a house drops 5% in value it will need to appreciate approx 7% in order to be back at the same value.