By Nathan Boddy
The Bitterroot Valley is not the only place in the west experiencing a real estate ‘perfect storm,’ but that doesn’t help anyone who is looking to relocate within, or from outside of the valley.
“It isn’t anything anyone in my office has experienced before. Not at this level.” Hannah Jessop, Property Manager with Cardinal Properties in Hamilton https://www.loc8nearme.com/montana/hamilton/cardinal-properties-inc/6350662/, refers to the scarcity of homes available to rent within the area. She says that, during a normal summer, they would expect to maintain anywhere between 10 and 20 places for rent at any time. This summer, however, a prospective tenant is lucky to find one. “We list them for a day or two, then we take them down because we have a lot of applications for them.”
Pinning down specifics for the housing shortage can be tricky, with very few sources giving the whole picture. Census data available for 2020 shows a predictable increase in population (45,002 for Ravalli County), but forces in play during 2020 have only gained more steam in 2021. A global pandemic, a booming interest in rural and small town living, and an increasing ability to work from home, may just be the tip of the iceberg.
One contributing factor is that a lot of renters in the area would normally be expected to change locations during the summer months, but Jessop says that isn’t happening now. “Some of (the shortage) is because people who currently have a property didn’t move this year,” she says. “We’ve had way fewer of our current tenants move because they were afraid they wouldn’t be able to find housing if they moved.” Jessop adds that fear of moving isn’t the only reason for a low inventory.
“We’ve been losing a lot of properties because owners have been selling. It’s a very aggressive sellers’ market right now.”
Anecdotally, it’s not hard to feel as though the Bitterroot Valley is filling up with new arrivals. Out of state plates, new faces, new demands for services, all seem to point to the reason for a housing shortage. Although new arrivals do add to the shortage, the real reasons are likely far more complex.
Naomi Gary, an agent with Berkshire Hathaway in Hamilton, recently gave a presentation wherein she likened the dizzying housing market to a recipe for “Bananas Real Estate,” with ingredients such as: decreased new construction, pent up buying power of the “millennial” generation, remote work and low interest rates, among others. The recipe, while certainly providing a grin for the reader, does end up being hard to swallow for anyone looking to relocate. Gary is well aware of this situation, saying, “Sellers are over the moon and buyers are frustrated. We are seeing multiple offer competitions for almost every home that comes on the market if it is decently priced and doesn’t have too many flaws.”
Of course, even with such a wide set of ingredients, Gary, herself, sees the trend of new arrivals and investment property being sold. “Personally, I have not had one sale this year in which a buyer or a seller was making a local move. They have been moving into or out of the valley, or selling an investment property to take advantage of the market.”
While Naomi Gary feels as though things have slowed a bit in the last few weeks from their frenzy earlier in the year, there is still a tremendous shortage of inventory. The Bitterroot Valley Chamber of Commerce has felt that shortage as people come looking to them for housing ideas. Jodi Wright, Office Manager at the Bitterroot Valley Chamber of Commerce, says that, in the past, most of the visitors to their Main Street location were visitors on vacation. Now, she and Chamber Director, Al Mitchell, estimate that, “Sixty-five percent, or maybe two-thirds of the people who walk through the door are actually here looking for a place to live, or feeling it out because they want to relocate.” Whether that is bad or good, the folks at the Chamber can only help prospective arrivals so much due to the extremely tight housing market. Says Wright, “We give all of our resources out, and then it’s almost just who you know.”
‘Who you know,’ might just be the way a lot of people end up solving their housing situation. People living in cars and RVs are not unheard of, nor are informal arrangements for renting rooms within homes. Also increasing are the stories about people whose intent has been to come to the Bitterroot Valley for one of the many available jobs, only to abort when they learn that housing is difficult to find.
Whatever the final outcome, the pinch has led some people to turn to a Facebook page called, “Find me a home in the Bitterroot Valley,” which has a substantial 9,000 members. Despite the name, however, the site isn’t intended for those who are looking to arrive from the outside. The page’s Administrator makes it clear in the rules, “if your profile says you live out of Montana you will not be accepted to this group. This group is for Montana/Bitterroot residents only.”