Real Estate Information

Busy weekend at the ranch. We hosted a Kathleen Lindley clinic over the weekend. 6 riders came together to work on what ever need work. From ground work to riding, we saw it all. Kathleen will be back next year to the Flathead Valley  for a longer clinic. John's Angels brought lunch each day and appetizers at the end of the clinic, LOVED their food! The Hofstad goats added some stimulation to a couple of the horses and provided a great training opportunity.

Our weather is not helping the plowing crews in the park. Rain in the valley means snow in the mountains. Continued colder weather than this weekend warm may bring avalanches. Here are links to the plowing photos and status of the Going to the Sun Road opening now projected to be June 17. It is currently open to Avalanche campground. 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/glaciernps

http://home.nps.gov/applications/glac/gttsroadplow/gttsroadplowstatus.cfm

The second link helps with information for hiking and biking and shows where the plows are working on a map.

while horses cannot smile, we are all happy to see Spring!

The first 3 day weekend is upon us in the Flathead Valley. Hotels and resorts are reporting an increase in bookings for this summer. Last year was way up and this year might even surpass it. If you plan on staying in a historic Glacier Park Lodge this summer, be aware that my favorite: Many Glacier Lodge is at 1/2 capacity due to renovations. Click on http://www.glacierparkinc.com/ for information and reservations. This company is located in Columbia Falls and employs local residents so you will get a great deal of information and assistance from them. Lingering snowpack is effecting some of the lodgings and the opening of the Going to the Sun Road. http://www.nps.gov/applications/glac/roadstatus/roadstatus.cfm for road information and updates in the park. We drove up to Fish Creek Campground and picnic area last weekend. Here is a photo:

Spring is sprung. Trees are leafing out, green all around. If you are reading this from a different part of the country, it may seem late to you for me to be talking about Springs arrival. It was a snowy winter and everything is at least 3 weeks behind. You better believe we are all thrilled with the 70 degree weather and sunshine though!

The down side of record snow and Spring's arrival is flooding. The Stillwater river has flooded. The worst is yet to come when the high mountain snow starts to melt. A few 80+ degree days and we could see a big impact as the rivers struggle to hold in all the liquid snow. There have been only minor impacts as workers are hard at it to clear log jams to keep the water moving downstream into Flathead Lake. Whitewater activities should be very extreme for a couple of months!

I made a discovery about the Daily Interlake this week, e-edition right to my computer. Since our paper is delivered 1.25 miles away, this is the way to go. I actually prefer reading the paper online. It is exactly like the print edition. We will still get the Sunday paper delivered to keep with the long tradition of coffee and the paper on Sunday mornings. It does help to be a Kindle book reader to adapt to an electronic version of the paper. It is also appealing to not be filling up my recycling bins with newspaper with some sections unread.

   I had a listing for almost 4 years when I convinced the sellers who recently moved away, to rent the house and take it off the market. They had come on the market originally just when things were slowing down and in the past 4 years did price reductions but were always behind the market. They "needed" the greater proceeds for retirement so were unwilling to lower the price to where it needed to be in the current market. After a month and not being able to rent the house, I emailed them and suggested they price it where it would sell and be done with it. They discussed it and agreed to list it for $270k, down $100k from the most recent list price. This is an old home moved onto a foundation many years ago on an incredible 10 acres. I was driving around last week and thought "I have a buyer for that house"! I had been working with a buyer from Las Vegas all year. She made a backup offer on one house that didn't fly, another offer fell apart just 2 weeks ago as a result of a dismal inspection. I called her and emailed her the past listing and virtual tour and she was very interested. So interested, that she got in her car after work on Friday and drove straight through to see this house on Saturday. We wrote an offer and got it accepted. It was listed right at her maximum for financing. The sellers are thrilled, the buyer is thrilled, and of course I am thrilled. I truly believe God put the whole plan together for the benefit of all 3 of us. I take a reduced commission when I sell my own listing so that helps out the seller. I had been driving around singing "turn your eyes upon Jesus.....and the things of earth will go strangely dim" when this all came together.

   Road construction: it must be Spring. Just when Hwy 93 north of Kalispell is at 4 lanes and moving along nicely, a new project appears. A tunnel under the highway from the community college to the Kids Sport complex and an annex for the busy college. Tourists will fall easily into the traffic trap but locals are going way out of their way to have a speedier trip to their destination. It doesn't sound like it will be a long project so the hassle should be over in a couple of months. Many out of state and Canadian license plats showing up around the valley. Still huge amounts of snow in Glacier National Park so that will not be open all the way anytime soon. 25 ft snow drifts at the Two Medicine campground on the east side of the park!

   Potential flooding is in the news this week. Record snow pack, slow warm up and then this week in the 70's could set the stage for the perfect conditions for flooding. Rivers I have driven over this week are seemingly at the top of their banks. Early release of water from the Hungry Horse dam is expected to help control the melt and ensuing runoff somewhat.

Happy Good Friday! It seems somehow appropriate that we have a winter storm warning until noon on Good Friday. Looking forward to Good Friday service at the Majestic Valley Arena on Sunday at 10am. Should be amazing! Titled "All Will Rise".

City of Kalispell has been proposing a "transaction fee". This would be a 5 cent tax added to each and every purchase in the city. This is not going over well with businesses or customers. Whitefish has a resort tax that does not cover basic needs but makes more sense as it is a percentage. As the Daily Interlake stated; "the 5 cent tax would be the same on a can of soda or a $30k new car". How does this make sense? My NV client this week commented on the city and schools budget shortfalls of 1/2 a million and said Las Vegas has a $4 million dollar shortfall!

You will find many global warming skeptics in the Flathead Valley. We have consistently been at least 10 degrees below normal the whole last month. Farmers are at least 3 weeks behind their spring planting schedule.

I had a great time with an out of state client this week looking for that perfect family get away from the summer NV heat. Made an offer on a log cabin that had been improved and added on to and sits on a great 13 acre piece. We also saw an awesome log house on Foothill Rd with a creek behind it. Our search took us from Lakeside to Whitefish to Bigfork to Kalispell. Even with all the listings out there sometimes it is hard to find the right property. I have had many showings on listings the last 2 weeks. When the weather warms up that should really start people getting out there and buying homes.

Kalispell City Council is proposing to limit hens in the city limits to 15. That seems like a lot. Most cities apparently allow 6. Roosters will be banned which is totally logical. I live in the country and only have 9 hens, I don't know why someone would need 15 hens producing potentially 15 eggs a day! Murdocks farm store was selling multitudes of baby chicks the last few times I have been in there. Sometimes I wonder if they are worth the price of feed for the eggs I get. The yolks are nice and yellow and I know what the hens are eating but still, eggs are pretty inexpensive in the store.

Just like most parts of the country, the economy and slow down in construction is impacting the tax base and school levies. Last week it appeared Kalispell would lose 7 firefighters. I am happy to say that the union and the city worked hard together to re-structure man hours and it looks like this number of lost jobs is not going to happen. Kalispell Dist. 5 schools: the activity directors of both Flathead and Glacier High have gotten together and squeezed out another $100k in cuts to their budget.

The season of 5K runs has begun. The Summit Health Club is hosting one on Sunday and there is a fun run at Foys to Blacktail on Saturday.

We attended the Flathead bee club meeting in Columbia Falls on Wednesday. We lost 2 of our 3 hives this winter. Always learn something from some very seasoned beekeepers in the valley.There is a huge movement here to increase the bee population and go towards natural bee keeping in hopes of developing strains that can survive our climate. Lots of talk of having the bees stay smaller in size to resist disease so no medications would be necessary.