winter - Explore Big Sky

section 2:
business, health and environMent
real estate
explorebigsky.com
explorebigsky.com
Big Sky Weekly
Dec. 14 - 27, 2012
Volume 3 // Issue No. 25
housing market beginning to turn the corner
sales up in big sky, gallatin valley
by josePh t. o'Connor
big sky weekly editor
bIG SKY, bOZEMAN – Reports of
growth on the national housing market
are reflecting a local trend in big
Sky and the greater Gallatin Valley.
while overall gains are modest, some
local real estate authorities are feeling
optimistic.
big Sky local Jamie Daugaard, the
principal architect for Centre Sky Architecture
since 1998, has witnessed
the housing rollercoaster “from the
front seat” in the last decade, he said,
watching the real estate world go
from 60 to zero.
“It was like [the market] ran a marathon
from 2002 to 2008,” Daugaard
said. “Then in 2009 [in big Sky], it
just stopped running.”
Much of the country felt the recession’s
effects a year earlier, in 2008,
after sub-prime mortgages crippled
the u.S. market, putting homeowners,
real estate agents, builders and
supply companies on their collective
ear.
Subsequent federal bailouts failed
to right the economy, forcing widespread
foreclosures and leading the
country, indeed the world, into the
Great Recession and the greatest economic
downturn since the Depression
of the 1930s.
“Now, in 2012, water is flowing
again,” said Daugaard, who moved
to big Sky from Denver 10 years ago.
“I’m feeling good about the market.”
beginning this spring, more people
called Daugaard to move forward
with building on recently purchased
land. Compared to 2010, when only
10 percent of inquiring clients actually
hired Centre Sky to design their
future home, a recent upswing in
contracts has him looking forward.
“Since April or May, 50 to 60 percent
[of potential clients] are committed.”
The architect sees a number of reasons
for this positive trend, including
a change in family dynamics. People
are tired of waiting for the market to
show them it’s okay to invest again.
They want to own a house, he says,
even if that means cutting a few
corners.
single family residences - gallatin county
sales through oct. 31, 2012
“The majority of people [we’re seeing]
want quality spaces,” Daugaard
said. “but are thinking, ‘how can we
make it smaller.:
“Maybe they’re not asking for [us
to design] an 8,000 or even 6,000
square-foot house,” he added. “They
might not need a media room or a
second dining room. They’re trying
to be more frugal with their construction
dollars.”
Others in the industry are seeing
similar trends in the low to middlecost
housing market, as well. Peter
Lee, president and owner of Teton
Heritage, a custom home construction
company with offices in
Jackson, wyo., as well as Gallatin
Gateway, has watched the area market
fluctuate based on differences in
housing costs.
“The high end of the Gallatin Valley
is still looking pretty soft,” said Lee,
referring to the excess of supply over
demand. “but the low end (under
$700,000) is doing okay.”
In bozeman, Tom Simkins, part
owner of Simkins-Hallin, one of the
largest building supply companies
in the state, took note of a slightly
improved market over the last year.
“It’s getting better,” said Simkins.
“The rental market is saturated,
and there is a noticeable increase
in middle income and starter-type
homes.”
Some of this success, Simkins said, is
due to the bakken oil boom in the williston
basin, N.D., part of which spills
into Montana. bozeman construction
workers, out once plentiful work,
joined the boom in droves, driving
seven hours to williston for work.
Every boomtown undergoes a transformation
requiring services from contractors
and workers, and williston
was no different. In 2000, its population
was 12,512. by the 2010 census,
the number had risen to 14,716;
however, estimates including workers
living in temporary housing put
the population closer to 30,000. Some
claim it’s now as high as 50,000.
“It kept a lot of people alive during the
Recession,” Simkins said, indicating
Montana construction workers could
drive to the bakken, work two weeks
straight, then return home to their
families, and increasingly their new
homes. “They can make $100,000 a
year driving a truck.”
Oil and natural gas extraction account
for 35 percent of the town’s job
market.
Those who found work in the Gallatin
Valley during the recession stayed
Courtesy of gallatin assoCiation of realtors
put, many roofing homes after a string
of strong hailstorms in 2010 damaged
houses around the Gallatin Valley.
These storms also allowed Simkins-
Hallin, which opened its doors in
1946, to weather the housing squall,
Simkins said. Other construction
supply companies incurred massive
losses.
Simkins contends that the uptick he
sees in bozeman’s low to mid-range
housing market is due mainly to
this export of Montana carpenters,
laborers and contractors to fulfill the
surging need for apartments and commercial
buildings around williston.
Eric Ossorio, a broker for Prudential/
Ossorio Real Estate in big Sky thinks
this demographic may be pulling up
bozeman’s housing market.
Ossorio, who has lived in big Sky for
30 years, says the real estate market
in the area reflects the national trend
in a less convincing manner – people
are buying smaller homes in generally
busier hubs, closer to essential
needs such as groceries.
“People are coming back to the center
of the market,” he said. “If you live
Continued on p. 18
dec. 14 - 27, 2012 17