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lauretaylor
Laure & Steve
Sr. Vice President/Broker

    GRI: Graduate REALTOR® Institute
    27 Years Experience

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Billings, MT Housing Market Statistics

Tuesday, September 29th, 2009

Here are the market statistics for the Billings area.  The activity is still below last year but not by quite as large of a percentage.  Our average sales price has dropped by 2.91% from last year.  Not bad considering other parts of the country.

MLS Statistics August 2009

MLS Area Charts August 2009

Handout August 2009

http://www.billings.org/

Step by Step to a New Home, Part 2

Tuesday, May 5th, 2009

4. You have found the perfect home and are now ready to make an offer. Your Realtor will give you comparable properties that have recently sold so you can compare the sold prices with the asking price on the home you want to buy. Your Realtor will also find out if there are any other offers coming in on the home. If there are no other offers in the wind than your Realtor can advise you on what you should offer. (We are using the assumption that your Billings Realtor is working for you as a Buyer’s Broker). If there are other offers coming in than you will need to make your best offer your first offer.

In the past multiple offers were extremely common. Since our market has slowed a bit and become more of a buyer’s market we haven’t seen as many multiple offers. However, recently there have been more multiple offers especially on properties in the most popular price range of $101,000 to $200,000. Once you have established what price you want to offer, your Realtor will prepare the paperwork and go over the terms and conditions with you. You will give your Realtor an earnest money check made out to the listing real estate company. Your Billings Realtor will then take the buy sell and any addendums you may be using, a copy of the earnest money check and your loan pre-approval to the listing agent. You may have your Realtor present your offer directly to the sellers, if the sellers are willing, or to the listing agent and the listing agent will present your offer to the sellers.

The sellers will generally do one of two things, accept your offer or make a counter offer. If the sellers give you a counter offer, your Realtor will counsel you on how to respond, helping you decide whether to make another counter offer or accept the seller’s counter offer. Your Realtor will negotiate for you and work back and forth until an offer is reached that is acceptable to all parties. If the seller takes your first offer than you can continue with the next step.

Step By Step To Buying A New Home, Part 1

Tuesday, April 28th, 2009
  1. Select a lender and make a loan application. Your lender will tell you what loan amount you qualify for and what you will need for down payment and closing costs. You may not want to buy as much house as you qualify for and now you have the information to decide what price range you want to look in for a new home. If you want to interview more than one lender you should obtain a “good faith estimate” from each lender you interview. The “good faith estimate” is the only accurate way to compare each lender’s products. Once you have settled on a lender they will prepare a pre-qualification letter for you. Before the pre-qualification letter is issued the lender will have verified your employment, credit, income, debt and cash to close.
  2. Select a Realtor. You may already have a Realtor in mind or you may want to interview more than one. Once you find a Realtor you are comfortable with and feel confident that he/she will work with you to find the home you are looking for you will sign a “buyer broker contract”.
  3. You will work with your Realtor to choose the criteria that is important to you in a new home. Your Realtor will search the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) to find homes that match your criteria. Sometimes the perfect home is out there just waiting for you and you will find it as you go with your Realtor to view the homes that match your criteria. Sometimes the perfect home is not on the market at the time you start to look. In that case your Realtor will set up a search in his/her MLS system so that you and your Realtor will be notified as soon as a home that matches your criteria becomes available. Once you find the home you wish to purchase it is time for the offer. We will get to that in Part 2.
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Market Recap

  • Avg. Sales Price: $193,580

  • Avg. Days on Market: 74

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