All Forum Posts by: Keith Miller

Yup, that's a pretty no-brainer financial decision, there's been a lot of people doing that. I think there's going to be more and more people doing that in the future. 

This is an incredible report, very eye opening. "In 2020, Missoula, MT had the highest rate of net migration in the country, with more than seven times the inbound vs outbound moves." For every one person that left Missoula, seven people moved here. That's super high!

Then, in 2021, Montana was the number #1 state in the nation for the number of people moving here per capita. Missoula decreased to 4 people moving here for every one person that left, but that's still crazy high. More likely would have moved here if there was housing for them.

This shows the massive number of people moving here, the trend seems to be slowing down, but the effect of this in-migration will be felt for years to come, housing for all of these people just can't be built fast enough.

https://www.movebuddha.com/blo...

Hello All!

I managed to get the author Charles Marohn to come to Missoula to speak on February 1st! I first heard of him from one of my favorite Real Estate podcasts, Coach Carson, on episode 168, linked here. He spoke passionately about what makes a strong town, where the best investment opportunities are, what hidden financial problems many towns are facing, and how you can make a difference in your town as a concerned citizen and small real estate investor. When I reached out to his organization, Strong Towns, they said he happened to be traveling to Helena on February 2nd, and could make a stop in Missoula the night before. I'm psyched to learn from him!

We won't be meeting at Highlander like usual, because he needs a TV for some visuals. So we're meeting in a conference room at Free Cycle. If you're interested, RSVP at the bottom of this email, space is limited. Info is below.

Charles Marohn Presentation- Strong Towns

Details: 2/1/22 from 5:30-7:30, at Free Cycle, 732 S 1st St W, Missoula, MT 59801.
Description: Charles will be giving a combination of his Confessions of a Recovering Engineer presentation, as well as the steps needed to make Missoula a Strong Town.

Marohn will show how the values of engineers and other transportation professionals are applied in the design process, and how those priorities differ from the values of the general public. By showing how transportation investments are a means to an end and not an end unto themselves, Marohn reveals how the standard approach to issues like fighting congestion, addressing speeding, and designing intersections only makes transportation problems worse, at great cost in terms of both safety and resources.

By contrast, the Strong Towns approach to transportation focuses on bottom-up techniques for spending less and getting higher returns, all while improving quality of life for residents of a community.

Contact: [email protected] with any questions.

Please just RSVP at the following link if you haven't already: https://forms.gle/xgPMRBmL4uGhTzKb9

We had another great turnout at the Missoula Real Estate Meetup on Tuesday, and our presenter was amazing. Paul Burow shared a ton of great updated information about the Missoula Market. There were a ton of requests from people who couldn’t make it to get a summary, so here’s a scan of his handout, and my takeaways:

1. Median sales price in the city of Missoula rose 28% this year. That’s a huge increase, which is good news if you own property, bad news if you don’t.

2. Inventory is extremely low, there were only 37 new listings in December, which is 27% lower than last year.

3. The same basic numbers are true for Missoula County and surrounding counties. There aren’t any pockets of affordability nearby.

4. Butte has historically been much more affordable than Missoula, but their median sales price is up over 38%.

5. The rental vacancy rate continues to plummet year over year. The average vacancy rate for 2021 was 1.4%. A healthy range is between 5-7%.

6. Two bedroom units are currently the most in-demand type.

7. Despite the popular narrative, out-of-state buyers didn’t increase very significantly. The number of out-of-state buyers increased from roughly 12% to 18% from 2019 to 2021.

8. California and Washington were the two states that sent the highest number of out-of-state purchasers.

9. Demand for housing remains very strong, and the pace of building simply hasn’t kept pace since before 2007. There is a steady stream of migration into Missoula, 1,100 people moved to Missoula last year. There is simply not enough available contractors and land for Missoula to build enough units to meet demand anytime in the next few years, so expect demand to stay high.

The link to his handout is here. Hope to see everyone at the next meetup on February 15th, message me for an invite. 

Welcome McKenna! If you want to attend a meetup and talk with fellow investors, I run one in Missoula the third Tuesday of every month, and there's also one in Kalispell if you're closer to there!

Hello All,

I'm launching a wholesaling company in two weeks in Missoula MT, and I'm wondering what your opinions are about whether it is worth it to pursue pre-foreclosures. I know they've traditionally been a great source of deals, but I've been reading how foreclosures are at record lows, and Montana is 44th out of 50 states in the percentage of foreclosures. Our main targets will absentee owners, and we're trying to decide whether we should expand our focus to include pre-foreclosures. 

Any advice is appreciated,

Keith

@Mercedes Wiebelhaus I've found the same thing Mercedes! As costly as it is to build right now, it's still a lot cheaper than buying the same property. The tricky part is finding the land for a multifamily, that's what I would love to find. I'm starting a wholesaling company in the next two weeks to try and find off-market deals, and the long-term goal is to find land and build a large multifamily. 

I got a few more options for you all, updated chart is attached.

Want to access your home's equity in Missoula? My favorite way is to get a HELOC, so I recently called around to local banks to figure out the best rates. These are all for owner occupied HELOCs, I figured I'd share with the group to save you the time from having to call yourself.

Welcome Ashley! There's a real estate meetup in Kalispell run by Kendal Lamb, if I was in your shoes I'd start out by reaching out to her and starting to attend those. You'll learn so much more by meeting in person with fellow investors. Best of luck, let me know if there's anything I can do to support from down here in Missoula.