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Sold Waterfront Listings
Flathead Lake is enjoying beautiful winter days of 20-30 degrees for the first week of 2014 as the rest of the country is surviving a polar vortex with temperatures in Atlanta dropping to single digits! Time to experience the “banana belt” weather of western Montana. December was a colder month weather-wise and for Flathead Lake real estate sales as well. There were no reported sales in MLS for the month. The year-end totals are summarized in the table below. Transactions and volume both decreased slightly compared to 2013 by about 7-8%.
While sales have slowed somewhat, the average price per foot of Flathead Lake real estate continued to inch upwards.
The sales and price trending graphs show significant spikes in sales in the third quarters of the past two years. This trend was typical in the years before the last downturn, but was lost during the recession. It is reflective of buyers scouting homes during their summer vacations, and closing in the third quarter of the year.
Annual Sales Data:
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| Sales by Area
In addition to the total sales volume for Flathead Lake real estate holding relatively steady in 2013, the geographical distribution of those sales also mirrored 2013 more so than previous years.
As reported in the table below, Bigfork was the only area on the lake that posted a growth in sales over the previous year. The ranking of each area remained constant.
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Active Waterfront Listings
Flathead Lake real estate listings dropped off a bit from December to January as it is typical for listing agreements to expire at the end of the year. However, the number of residential waterfront listings on the market is up 31% from the same time last year. Land listings are down slightly with 7% fewer land listings than last year at this time. Median prices for homes and land have held relatively steady over the past 12 months – $600-650k range for land listings, and the $900-$1.0M range for homes. I believe waterfront sellers are more realistic about the market value of their properties based on sufficient data provided by comparable sales.
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