Real Estate Information

Saturdays from 9am to 12 is the Kalispell Farmers Market located now at FVCC (Flathead Valley Community College). Gotta be there right at 9 to get a place to park and a chance to buy the best stuff! Got all my tomato plants, herbs and some annuals to put in my garden. This is a much better location than the mall parking lot, lots more visible to those driving by all the sports fields and box stores on Saturday mornings.

My hubby joined me at Crossfit Flathead for some tire flipping and sled dragging this morning. He starts the prelim classes Monday night. Such a great group of people and so much variety in the workouts from Coach Buf.

Foys to Blacktail Trail had their fundraiser dinner tonight. Fun to see some familiar faces and eat Farm to Market cooked pig out on the lawn at Herron Park while listening to music. The trail system and acquisition of lands to extend the trails is a great value to our life style here in the valley. If you hike, walk your dog, mountain bike, or ride horses, you are just 10 min from town with all these trails at your fingertips.

We are currently drowning in goat milk. We got a freshened dairy goat to provide milk for our grandson who doesn't do well on cows milk. Some friends are using it too for their kids. So goat milk everything: yogurt, ice cream, cheese, etc. 1 goat can put out almost 2 gallons a day so it adds up!

Helped 2 great families yesterday. One sold their home and another bought it. It wasn't even listed yet but I had the perfect buyers so sold it is. 2 families moving this weekend and getting on with their lives.

Many choices of things to do this weekend.

Alpine Theater Project http://atpwhitefish.org/ is opening Les Miserables School Edition this weekend in Whitefish. Taking students from area schools and having them act in a well known play. We went to a school edition play a couple of years ago and were very impressed!

http://www.conradmansion.com/DeathByChocolate.html Conrad Mansion is a historical home in Kalispell. This fund raiser is great fun. A mystery play performed throughout the mansion with the guests participating.

I just signed up to volunteer at the Spartan Race which will take place overlooking Flathead Lake on May 11. http://www.spartanrace.com/ I have many crossfit friends signed up to participate. It is supposed to be the most vertical course ever done and is a great event to have in the Flathead Valley.

I participated in a cow working horse riding clinic yesterday. Dave Gamble has worked with Buck Branaman for many years, so his techniques are very similar. I learned a LOT and found some holes in my mare's training that I am going to work on with Dave next week. It was a 71 degree, sunny day, to herd cows and try to cut one from the herd. I found it much harder than it looked since neither me nor my horse had ever done it.

Out to work in the yard on this very warm last weekend in April.

Lots going on in the valley for future road changes and developments. A developer got a closer to final approval for a 27 acre water ski lake development with surrounding home sites. The developer was given some changes but the Flathead County Planning Board to his original plan. This sort of subdivision is done in other areas and frankly, I don't see the point here in our valley. We have an abundance of lakes for water skiing on, unlike E. Montana or Arizona. Also, the season for water skiing is short. We will see how this concept flies.

The north end of the Kalispell Bypass is being talked about again. The south end has been open for a couple of years now. The north end would connect with W. Reserve. That would leave the middle section seemingly non-existent and waiting for some time in the future. Apparently there are some funds available and the MT DOT has informed the valley to have plans ready to go just in case the dollars do come to fruition.

Flathead Community College announced a vision for the future in today's Daily Interlake newspaper. Fun to watch the college grow into a regional educational location. Plans for housing will really help the college since students come from various states as well as all over Montana. 

Fresh Life Church will be having Easter at the Majestic Arena for the 3rd year. Skull Church will be the evening of Good Friday with Thousand Foot Krutch as the featured band. Phil Wickham will be the featured musician on Easter. Get there VERY early if you have hopes of getting through the doors. Super packed from year 1. http://www.freshlifechurch.org/easter/ for locations around the state.

I had a listing appointment on Monday and preparing the CMA for the sellers was eye opening. The same thing happened when I was showing homes this past weekend to an out of state buyer. There are very few homes listed currently. Buyers are losing out on homes they like if they hesitate to act. Prices are not yet rising, but they will simply because of supply and demand. Pre-sale homes to be built are selling quickly since there are no already built options.

USA Today had an article about the scarcity of home sellers in today's edition. Nationwide the supply of existing homes for sale has fallen for seven straight months. The absorption rate, months to absorb the homes currently on the market, has fallen dramatically.

I receive weekly, the current foreclosure report. There are very few additions to that any more. I tell my sellers and buyers that those who had to sell their homes have either sold or lost their home already. Many sellers do not have equity so are sitting tight until the prices start to rise.

So, while the real estate market has picked up a great deal, this presents other challenges. If I have a buyer, it is going to be darn hard to find them what they want, there will be compromises or they will not buy. If I have a seller, it is a challenge to get them the highest price possible while not pricing too high and missing out on a buyer.

What fun! We went to one of the playoff games last night. When did high schoolers start looking like they were 12 years old?? :) Kalispell has 2 high schools and this is the one in our district, also the best basketball team, dare I say. The game was very fun and the cheering section of students even more fun. Some of the guys were in shorts and fur coats leading the gang. Spinning a large beach ball when there were free throws from the Missoula team. The cheerleaders were tiny girls who did a number of acrobatic lifts and throws, impressive.

All in all, a fun way to spend a Friday night in the Flathead Valley for $5 a piece.

Interesting "winter". The other day the weatherman said that Kalispell has had no below 0 temperature days this entire winter. The average is 11. Bozeman on the other hand has had 17 below 0 days. We went skiing 2x this week. The second time was so spring like. The lifties didn't have coats on, I got very warm with minimal layers. The snow was soft, visibility great. Hoping for some more snow this weekend! Tuesday we stayed on chair 2 and had some excellent runs. It was snowing and the clouds made for lack of visibility higher up. 

In the valley it is the season of thaw and mud. My gravel road is frozen in the morning and sloppy in the afternoon. I might actually have to wash my car before showing houses this morning. Most days it hardly seems worth it with all the mud around. 

An offer came in this week on another listing, still in negotiations. It is crazy with setting up showings, buyer calls, feels good to be busy again.

Horse riding is around the corner and I can hardly wait to start working with the horses again! My garden seeds arrived this week, soon to be started in preparation of a great garden.

Last weekend was a children's ministry training at Fresh Life Church. I will be substituting in the nursery and have my first scheduled time this weekend. I am very impressed with the training and application process involved with helping in that area. So good to know that precautions are in place for the safety of our children. I workout at Crossfit Libertas with the head of Whitefish security for the church. Lots of former military young men doing that job.

2 interesting business updates that just came out in the Daily Interlake newspaper. The old hospital building in Whitefish which had been bank owned after a previous buyer defaulted, has been sold to a firm planning on using the building for a 4 year college. We have Flathead Valley Community college in the valley that serves a wide population and some 4 year degrees are possible through that school. In fact FVCC has nearly completed a medical building for nursing students and surgical techs.

Depratu Ford and Volkswagen in Whitefish will be building a new Volkswagen dealership at the south end of Kalispell. Their VW sales were up 34% last year so they want to have a VW sales office set apart from their Ford dealership.

It is so encouraging that after 4-5 years of businesses surviving through the recession that there is now opportunities for growth again in the valley.

A friend owns a guest ranch in the valley. She remarked yesterday that her bookings are way up after the Bachelor show was aired Monday night. Filming was in Whitefish and Glacier National Park. Not a fan of the show, but good for the valley!

Wow are things picking up! Showings, offers, phone calls. Good to have so much to do again. I have a house listed priced at $185k. I did a competing search of MLS yesterday and there are only 14 like homes on the market and 4 of those have accepted offers. Another seller has had a contingent offer on a home and their house just went under contract over the weekend. Buyers will soon learn that the market has shifted and they may not be able to be so picky or hesitant or there won't be anything for them to buy.

I am a Certified Residential Specialist (CRS). In reading the latest magazine this morning, some interesting market projections for 2013. Real estate is local so these are generalized national projections:

1) NAR (National Association of Realtors) projects a 6% increase in national median existing-home prices and another 5.1% in 2013 to $185,000

2) Existing home sales were forecast to rise 9% in 2012 to 4.64 million followed by a 8.7% increase to 5.05 million in 2013

3) Distressed sales were expected to decline from a 25% market share in 2012 to 8% in 2014

4) Housing starts were forecast to rise up to 776,000 in 2012 from 612,000 in 2011 and reach 1.13 million in 2013

5) New-home sales were expected to increase to 368,000 in 2012 from a record low of 301,000 in 2011, then grow to 575,000 in 2013

So, if you are a buyer, don't hesitate when you find a great house to buy, if you are a seller, things are finally looking up!

The weather man said tonight that we are past the date when we could get very cold weather. It has been a very mild winter actually. Little valley snow, no big storms are real cold weather. Supposed to be in the 40's again in a couple of days. I enjoyed x-country skiing in my fields a few days ago. Sun, good snow, great view. Whitefish Mountain Resort has received 29 INCHES in the last 7 days! Wow. It was time. Some great powder in the sun yesterday.

Coming back from Crossfit Libertas at 8am this morning, there was a lot of construction activity happening in the former Borders book store. Natural Grocers is hiring and will be soon opening. I personally love Mountain Valley Foods for produce, great service and everything I purchase to cook good, clean meals and stay healthy. Easy to get to and you don't have to hike through a huge parking lot and store. Never thought I would see myself writing such a thing. When we moved to the Flathead Valley in 1995, there was no such thing as box stores or big parking lots. Not so any more.

Lots of hiring going on and for good jobs. Things seem a lot perkier in the economic areas going into this new year. A lot of activity in real estate. Good news for those of us who have stuck it out through 5 very challenging years. The ND oil fields and Canadian tourists have kept the Flathead Valley alive and for that we are thankful!

It is the beginning of the yearly Whitefish Carnival season. Yesterday, was the first day of skijoring a competition where a rider on horseback pulls a skier or snowboarder around a course with curves and jumps. Sometimes a little unnerving to watch but also fun! http://www.whitefishskijoring.com/schedule.php

In addition to listing and selling real estate, I am a food coach for genesistransformation.com. 4 years ago I totally changed how I ate. Increasing calories in the fueling stage with my coach, pulling out gluten, dairy, and processed food. I ended up losing 35 lbs and becoming fit and healthy. As a result, I went through training so I could be a food coach and help others achieve healthy fat loss by eating good, clean food. 6 years ago I had a test done that showed my adrenals were totally burned out. It was at the height of the crazy real estate market. That test started me on the journey to change. This week I had the same test done and my adrenals have fully healed! A testament to eating clean and taking care of myself. There is a lot of "head" work in this process of change. I consciously reduced my stress by opening my own company and working from home. I take fun breaks and working out is on my calendar most days of the week. 

I still take great care of my clients in real estate, but also know when to cut a seller or buyer loose if we just aren't going to accomplish their goals. I have turned down listings if the seller will not deal with what is going on in the current market. I make sure buyers are pre-qualified before showing property to them and inconveincing the seller. Yes, I have lost a couple of buyers who were insulted when I asked if they were pre-qualified, or they just wanted to check out the market in case they wanted to move to Montana in 5-10 years, but that is okay. Taking care of myself first has paid off in having more to give to my clients, I urge you to do the same!