CHeap houses??? (Miles City: real estate, mortgages, price)

[MontanaGuy]

Getting back to the cost of housing we've been seeing huge increases in property values all over the western US. Salt Lake is still a red hot real estate market and prices have just soared. A friend of mine is Denver just managed to transfer back to her home town of Salt Lake and she said if she would have waited much longer she couldn't have afforded a house at all. Boise prices have also gotten ridiculous. Where I live in Phoenix we had the largest increase in prices during a one year period in the nation which was 47%. Now they've leveled off and dropped somewhat because it was just too much. My friends in Missoula say the same thing. If a young person is just starting out I don't know how they'll ever be able to buy their own home. Of course home prices are a result of the market and they really can't be controlled. It's a matter of supply and demand and how much money people are willing to spend. If you want to live in a scenic area that has desireable property it's going to be expensive.

[decembergirl]

The cost of living pretty much across the US is going up. In Montana, the space between the cost of living and what people get paid is becoming bigger and bigger. The jump in the housing market is really only half the problem. The other half is our pathetic wages.

[JoeJoeMan]

yes decembergirl.....the disparity of home prices and wages in montana is much more extreme than other parts of the country....
These extremely elevated prices could never be support by the local economies, so what is supporting it ?...........we all know ? outside money, ie people coming in, it's not rocket science or even complicated economics.
So people just don't want to beleive it because it makes them feel uncomfortable, no one wants to feel bad about moving here, knowing they are creating hardship for the locals. But that is exactly what is happening, does it mean they are bad people who want to move here - of course not, do the locals have a valid grip.....sure, are they bad people - of course not. It's just the dilema we are in.

[decembergirl]

Yeah Joe, I wonder if people were going to make our cruddy wages would they still be as willing to move here? I know it isn't the Californaians fault our ecomony is like this, but Joe has a point about the affect they have on our housing market. It is making worse an already bad thing. Yeah, it may not be bad for you and your pursuit of happiness but it deprives others of their chance in a way. And again, its the few that are ruining it for us all. Its not the average Mr & Mrs CA. They are in the same boat we are only 50 years in the future. Do you honestly blame people for not looking forward to this change? You don't like it yourselves, is it fair to ask us to accept its coming? All those things you have been talking about...drugs, not parking campers in your driveway...they are here. You just aren't seeing it. Montana has a major meth problem. We have a high poverty rate in our counties. We have a high teen suicide. If you are going to look to Montana for a solution to your states problems, then all I ask is that you realize they are here too. And the way to stop it isn't to just run away from it, its to become involved in your community. So go ahead and move here, but be prepared to help make some positive changes to this state. Help us move in the right direction. Your home state already screwed it up. Learn from those mistakes and lets make different choices here. If we don't start helping each other instead of helping ourselves MT is just gonna be another CA.

[JoeJoeMan]

decembergirl.........I don't blame anyone for trying to make things better for themselves. "Money it the root of all evil" when was the last time you heard that one.
Another thought, the scope of people able to move to montana is becoming less and less, by that I mean, because as house prices increase here fewer and fewer people can afford to sell their house where they are and come here to buy a house. Only the people living in the most inflated housing markets in the country can do the transition now......for example if you live in Bumchuck Missouri, you ain't gonna sell your 100k house to come here, but if you live in the Calif Bay area........that's another story, so the people that can make that transition are coming from those areas, I think we are seeing proof of that in that we don't see the down home types form middle american coming here much anymore, they can't, but what we are seeing are the more and more affulant types, from the need I say where, and of course the rich from where ever. So I guess in a way, my heart really isn't bleeding for anyone who is wanting to escaping a bad situation, they must certainly be in better finacial wherewithall then me if they can afford to move here when we are having trouble staying here. Life goes on.

[GiftShoppeGuy]

I don't see this lasting at all....

What we are getting is folks that are older..... 45 to 65 years on average.... who either aren't interested in kids or who's kids are grown and gone.....

I can see the writing on the wall..... we've got a bunch of overly inflated priced properties and houses, and in 20 or so years, the folks that moved here will be kicking the bucket..... with no one to fill the void.

It's goin to bankrupt us as sure as I'm writing this today.

Our economy "can't" survive on OPM (other peoples money)..... when they go (kick the bucket) the money goes too......

Kids grow to become part of our economic base.... without them, there isn't a future at all.
Kid's will, stabilize just about any market that's out there.

We don't need retirees, we need families with kids..... Kids will level any economic playing field. Without them, the cycle of true economic growth ends.

We're aren't interested in those who would want to just live for the moment..... we want folks who would consider the future...... folks who are willing to raise their kids here....

In 20 to 30 years, all we are going to have, are a bunch of houses that nobody can afford, sitting empty.... because the folks that lived there before never considered anyone but themselves when they came here.
They were so wrapped up in the "presumed beauty" of it all, that they never gave a second thought as to it's preservation.

If Montana were to ever get serious about "genuine" economic growth, they would market to "families" and not "retirees"......

Experience is a rather merciless teacher, and in this case, when Montana falls, it's going to fall hard..... The money being brought into the state by those who would wish to retire here, gives many a false sense of security.
There are no central industries here, and when the migration ends, as surely it is soon to do, all of the puffed up folks in places like Missoula will run off to Nevada or Arizona, where the real money is made just to survive.

Still, we are a bunch of tough old coots..... we'll take it on the chin, just like we always do, pick ourselves up, brush the dust off, and run right out to court the next big economic disaster that presents itself to us.

[JoeJoeMan]

giftshopguy......that's actually good news, when all the retirees start kicking the buck and the economy hopefully goes in the dumper, their house prices will go down and our kids will be able to afford them, sounds like a good economy to me.
And I'm not so sure moving families (with kids) in would be such a good idea, even if you could socially engineer it, what would the kids do for work ? MT's blessing and curse has always been the lack of jobs. Will still don't have real jobs, it's just the outside money coming in and creating this false economy...like you are saying.
Actaully, the countries economy is kinda' weird, shaky, house of cards, whatever you wanna call it. Much of our economy now is just based on shuffeling money around, not really producing goods and even less and less services. I think if one were to look into it they would find that the reason the unemployment rate (govenment figures) is so low, is not because lots of people are employed and employed in good jobs, one reason the unemployment rate is low is because employers have learned how to avoid having their employees go onto to unemployment(as they have to pay for part of it), like hiring 3 part-time workers instead one full-time one, to avoid unemployment benifits they'd have to pay out. Also with so many minimum pay jobs many people don't stick on the jobs long enough to collect benefits, plus the unemployment figures aren't calculated like they used to be, they are pretty well cooked to make them look like the government wants them to look, that's not my opinion, it's the way they do it, if you read up on it......anyway I've digressed again.
Lots of economist think this economy is on very shaky legs, I won't even go into consumer debt issues. People seem to be living more more for the day, have you noticed on here how people talking about moving always make the priority...a nice place to live......getting a job there is an afterthought.....

[be_a_light]

Originally Posted by McCallister

Yeah I figured as much. Do any of you live in small towns? How do you all make a living then? The whole reason for me wanting to move is to live in a smaller town, but still have an opportunity for a job. I think my best bet may be a mid size town then maybe in the range of 10,000 people?? Any input on places like Anaconda, Kalispell areas for cost of living?? I want to be within about an hour of divide, so eastern is not an option.

We have lived in small towns within an hour of Kalispell and Missoula. Making a living is a challenge. What you deal with is the cost of commuting vs. the cost of housing. My husband and I are fortunate that we both have full-time jobs but we don't make the wages we did when we lived in the Midwest. Tradeoffs? Less property tax, no sales tax, no mosquitos, no tornados or humidity, less traffic (though that is changing quickly). Our biggest concern right now is the cost of driving/fuel. We are thinking of moving closer to one of the Montana cities, maybe Butte or Billings. They seem to have a more reasonable cost of living than some of the other MT cities.

[be_a_light]

Originally Posted by McCallister

I am assuming you all are talking about the more populated areas like Bozeman, Missoula, etc.... that have outrageous prices? Or is it more based on if the community is located in the mountain areas? It would be really disappointing if I could not find a affordable place to move in the mountian areas & still make a decent living.

Either way, I'd likely have to rent for a couple years or so until I settled in. I would likley have to start in a larger area for the sake of job opportunities, but with size, usually comes crime.. What is the crime like in the larger areas?

Mountains make a difference. You will pay more for housing in the mountainous west than you will in the more-plainslike east. Get a job, rent first, and keep exploring all of the possibilities.

[drawbar]

Originally Posted by be_a_light

We have lived in small towns within an hour of Kalispell and Missoula. Making a living is a challenge. What you deal with is the cost of commuting vs. the cost of housing. My husband and I are fortunate that we both have full-time jobs but we don't make the wages we did when we lived in the Midwest. Tradeoffs? Less property tax, no sales tax, no mosquitos, no tornados or humidity, less traffic (though that is changing quickly). Our biggest concern right now is the cost of driving/fuel. We are thinking of moving closer to one of the Montana cities, maybe Butte or Billings. They seem to have a more reasonable cost of living than some of the other MT cities.

Whats the current price of gas per gallon in Montana??