The Missoula Real Estate Guide

Make every day a Friday

Mindy Palmer — Sat, 23 Feb 2013 16:19:11 +0000

Funny thing about Fridays…Most folks are Thanking God for them, despite or in spite of their collective belief systems. I totally GET that. Trust me, I do.

Most likely each one of you had at least one or more moments during the previous work week that “tripped you up” emotionally, physically or Spiritually. Perhaps you were hoping that nobody noticed and that you might have an opportunity come Monday to make it all “Right” again.

I GET that! MY week on this wee speck of a Planet was a Mind-Bender, a Heart Breaker and quite frankly one that’s made ME an even more compassionate Soul than I thought I already was. I’ve dealt with the surprising grief of the loss of my Dad that took place Ten Years ago. I was SO sure that I had a handle on this, until the anniversary took place. Meh. Not so much.

I’ve learned that someone I really didn’t know that well was diagnosed with Stage 4 Lung Cancer and that I am now very much a part of HIS life because he reached out to me. I shared in the grief of some dear friends who literally, just hours ago, lost their beloved Sister to the same disease.

I’ve witnessed, via Facebook, the magic of Prayer in regards to my Sister In-Law’s young niece who was hospitalized in Idaho, and have marveled at the length and breadth of Family and Friends who are lifting her up, and witnessing her recovery.

I’m now sincerely praying for someone in Texas as he continues his altogether amazing, brutal and powerful fight for his life tonight.

My friends? Yes. Thank God it’s Friday. Please do myself and yourselves a favor. Try to make EVERY Day a Friday in your World, okay?

Thank you!

God Bless Each and Every One of You!

The post Make every day a Friday appeared first on The Missoula Real Estate Guide.

It’s all about perspective

Mindy Palmer — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 04:23:28 +0000

Today’s theme in my life on this wee speck of planet is all about perspective. Mine. Yours. How we all interact and what the “take-away” is at the end of the same 24 hours we’re all gifted with.

My Dad, Art Hanson, would have turned 80 today. He died a few days short of his 70th Birthday of Stage 4 Esophageal Cancer on February 13, 2003. My family held his funeral service on what would have been his 70th Birthday.

Dad was born in 1933 in Froid, Montana, during the Great Depression. In his lifetime he owned 26 Super Markets (Independently) and moved 49 times…yours truly was along for 13 of the moves across Colorado, Texas, Montana, Alabama, Washington, and Louisiana.

To say that my Dad was complicated, restless and always searching for the Peace that so eluded him is an understatement. I will also say that he was a, dare I say, Beautiful, Fierce, Funny and Stubborn Soul that always commanded respect from his peers and his employees, and quite frankly, his family.

In his prime he was a Giant among Men, Handsome enough to make Cary Grant question his worthiness, and was also a TOUGH SOB who had NO problem showing an IRS Agent to the back door of one of his Grocery Stores by grabbing by Dude by the scruff of his neck and literally kicking the poor sap’s ass off the loading dock with his size 13 foot! Uh…Guess who got audited for the next decade?

I learned my work ethic, unintentionally, from my parents. Both of them knew how to roll up their sleeves and just HIT IT each and every time we moved to a new town…a new store..and subsequently into a house that needed LOTS of work so that my Dad could afford the next opportunity.

18 Years ago my family moved back to Cajun Country, to Jennings, LA. My Brothers are buried there, and it just made sense at the time. My Dad worked as long and as hard as he could until his poor body just wore out. He was diagnosed with his Cancer on December 13, 2002. Sixty Days later he was gone.

One of the last things he was able to say was this, “I wish I would have eaten more ice cream.”

Yeah. It’s all about perspective.

The post It’s all about perspective appeared first on The Missoula Real Estate Guide.

Missoula homes for sale by school attendance boundary

Steve Palmer — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 00:48:11 +0000

We’re thrilled to announce that we’ve recently launched a way to find homes for sale in Missoula based on their location within elementary and middle school attendance boundaries. As near as we can tell, we are the only web site on the planet that offers this feature and we think that’s pretty cool.

Even better, we’re offering you two different ways to check out homes for sale by school boundary.

The first way is to go use our advanced search tool and use the school links to filter homes by school boundary. Here’s a link that will take you there with homes filtered for the Lewis & Clark Elementary School boundary. The cool thing about this feature is that you can use the search tab to drill down and filter your search further by price, beds, baths, home type, and more.

The second way is to use one of our custom links to browse through the homes for sale in your school boundary of choice. While you won’t be able to filter by price or any other criteria, you’ll be able to sort your results by a variety of parameters, including price, home size, time on market and more. Here’s a link to homes for sale in the Lewis & Clark Elementary School boundary to get you started.

As always, if you have any questions about these or any other homes for sale in the Missoula area, please don’t hesitate to contact us. We’re here to help and we’ll respond. That’s a promise.

Learn a bit more about Missoula area schools.

The post Missoula homes for sale by school attendance boundary appeared first on The Missoula Real Estate Guide.

2012 Prudential President’s Circle

Mindy Palmer — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 15:06:59 +0000

We are thrilled to announce that we’ve just been notified that, for the fourth year in a row, we’ve been awarded the Prudential President’s circle award for 2012. This award is presented to agent teams that rank among the top agent teams in the entire Pudential real estate network.

The post 2012 Prudential President’s Circle appeared first on The Missoula Real Estate Guide.

Missoula’s Choice 2013

Steve Palmer — Wed, 05 Dec 2012 04:00:24 +0000

It’s that time of year again folks! Balloting for the annual Missoula’s Choice awards from the Missoulian Newspaper is now available.

This is a great way to show your support for local businesses and organizations. So click here and get your votes in.

While you’re at it, please enter “Mindy Palmer” when you get to that “pesky” Realtor category and “Prudential Montana Real Estate” in the Real Estate Agency category. We’d sure appreciate it.

Vote today!

The post Missoula’s Choice 2013 appeared first on The Missoula Real Estate Guide.

Vintage Montana Postcards

Mindy Palmer — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 22:50:30 +0000

We stumbled across a pretty cool collection of vintage hand-colored Montana postcards from the Boston Public Library today. There’s a total of 91 cards from all over Montana, including a couple from the Missoula area. We’ve set them up in a cool slideshow below. Enjoy.

The post Vintage Montana Postcards appeared first on The Missoula Real Estate Guide.

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month (2012)

Mindy Palmer — Thu, 04 Oct 2012 12:53:10 +0000

It’s that time of year again ladies. October is Breast Cancer awareness month and I’d like to urge you to check your “girls” today. Early detection through self-exam and mammography is critical to surviving a breast cancer diagnosis. Over 96% of women who find and treat breast cancer early will be cancer-free after five years. I am living proof of that – I am now cancer free 5+ years after my initial diagnosis and subsequent treatment in 2006-2007. And I have a full head of hair too!

Listen Everybody…I want to reassure you all that I am healthy, strong, feisty as ever! The photo above was taken in the Winter of ’07 when I was battling Breast Cancer. Yes, I was undergoing Chemo and I really did want to honor my journey and have a great photo to prove that I would NOT back down.

Given that October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, may I please impress upon ALL of my friends, loved ones to schedule yourselves for a Mammogram?

Forget the Media’s take on age appropriateness and the subsequent necessity or lack thereof. Puh-Lease! I personally know a lovely young woman in her late 20′s who was diagnosed. She caught it early. Thank God, I did, too!

I’ve also lost two dear friends in the past year to this insidious disease. Early detection is critical. If MY Bald Mug reminds you, I find that a true blessing.

Love yourself as much as you love your loved ones. DO IT!

Love,
Mindy

The post October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month (2012) appeared first on The Missoula Real Estate Guide.

City Sidewalks – Finally, some relief for Missoula home owners

Steve Palmer — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 15:47:27 +0000

Last week, after nearly a year of work and extensive public discussion, the Missoula City Council approved a new plan for funding city sidewalks.

Previously, home owners were required to pay the full cost of installing sidewalks, curbs, and driveway cuts (if needed) in front of their properties. In some cases, this led to some home owners having to pay $10,000 or more. Even worse, home owners didn’t even have a choice as to whether the sidewalks would be installed or not. When the city decides to put in sidewalks, they go in whether you like it or not. The only relief for home owners was that they didn’t have to pay for it all at once. The city would basically offer a low interest payment plan that would be added to your property taxes and paid off over time.

Under the new plan, everything remains the same except that there is now a cost share between the city and the home owner. Here’s how it will work:

The city will pay for the first $1,000
The city and home owner split 50-50 any additional cost up to $7,000
The city pays the remainder up to $15,000

So, let’s say a property owner has a large corner lot with no curbs and sidewalks and the city “decides” to put in sidewalks. If the total cost of the sidewalks came to $10,000, the cost breakdown would be like this:

Property owner pays $1,000 + $3,000 = $4,000
City pays $3,000 + $3,000 = $6,000

According to the city, the median cost of past sidewalk projects for individual properties has been $3,500 – in this case, the property owner would only have to pay $1,000 and the city would cover the rest.

While not a perfect solution, it’s a far better deal than having to pay the full cost of the sidewalks, regardless of whether the property owner pays it all at once or over time.

photo by: akeg

The post City Sidewalks – Finally, some relief for Missoula home owners appeared first on The Missoula Real Estate Guide.

Outside Magazine names Missoula as one of its “Best River Towns in America”

Mindy Palmer — Mon, 10 Sep 2012 01:13:03 +0000

Outside Magazine, in its October 2012 issue, names Missoula as one of its 12 best river towns in America. The article refers to Missoula as “The place where people who can choose to live anywhere call home” and we couldn’t agree more.

Our favorite lines from the article:

…outdoors fanatics, hippies, crazy college kids, retirees, horse-whispering cowboys, creative entrepreneurs, activists, rugged rednecks, collegiate-sports aficionados, adrenaline junkies, and everyone in-between meet downtown on Thursday nights for two-for-ones.

…and

“Residents highlight everything from tubing on the Clark Fork with a crew of friends and a cooler of Kettlehouse Cold Smoke to mountain-biking old pack trails in the Rattlesnake to hucking cliffs at Snowbowl to eating yellow-cake ice cream at Big Dipper.”

Read the full article here

photo by: Bitterroot

The post Outside Magazine names Missoula as one of its “Best River Towns in America” appeared first on The Missoula Real Estate Guide.

Montana from the Air

Steve Palmer — Sat, 18 Aug 2012 13:00:07 +0000

Check out this amazing aerial video of Montana by the folks at Skyworks, a British company specializing in top-end aerial filming and footage for use in film and broadcast productions, advertising and corporate video, and all types of interactive applications.

The post Montana from the Air appeared first on The Missoula Real Estate Guide.

Missoula area employers make Outside Magazine’s list of 100 best places to work

Steve Palmer — Sun, 05 Aug 2012 14:59:16 +0000

Outside Magazine recently released their annual list of 100 best places to work and four, yes 4, Missoula area employers made the list.

Here are the 4 employers and their rankings along with their “sweet perks” as indicated by Outside Magazine. The links will take you to the corresponding ranking page on the Outside Magazine web site.

Seeley Lake Elementary School District (Rank = 3)

Sweet Perks: Financial aid for everything from a master’s in science to ski-instructor certification.

Ecology Project International (Rank = 27)

Sweet Perks: Exclusive access to some of the most remote sea turtle and whale and grizzly habitats in the world.

Adventure Life (Rank = 79)

Sweet Perks: In order to talk knowledgeably about the destinations they serve, each employee gets the chance to take a trip abroad to learn about the location (past trips have included Antarctica, Alaska and the Galapagos).

Adventure Cycling Association (Rank =89)

Sweet Perks: Adventure Cycling staff embodies the expression “the family that plays together, stays together,” as they do all sorts of things together out of the office: Missoula Osprey baseball games (including free tickets and a barbeques for family and staff), hockey in the winter, and a yearly bike overnight that starts with a staff ride from the offices out to a designated camping spot.

Read the article about these rankings on the Missoulian web site – Note: The Missoulian somehow missed the ranking for Adventure Life

photo by: SMU Central University Libraries

The post Missoula area employers make Outside Magazine’s list of 100 best places to work appeared first on The Missoula Real Estate Guide.

2012 Prudential Montana Real Estate Float Trip on the Blackfoot River

Mindy Palmer — Sat, 04 Aug 2012 17:10:22 +0000

We had our annual company float trip on the Blackfoot River the other day and oh what fun it was. We ended up with around 3 dozen or so people on the trip, including the usual complement of spouses, friends, and family members. We had just about every mode of river transport available – all manner of rafts, kayaks (inflatable and hard shell), tubes, and a couple of stand up paddle boards. Heck, one person even came with a dry suit and she simply swam/floated the river herself. As usual, we put in at the Whitaker Bridge access and floated down to the Johnsrud Park access. All in all it took us 3-4 hours, including a stop for lunch and a few random stops just for the hell of it.

This trip is one of the highlights of our year and we’re already looking forward to next year’s float. It also makes us swear to take more time off and spend more time on our gorgeous rivers in Western Montana.

Check out the photos form our float trip – they are all smartphone photos so the quality is just so-so but you’ll get a sense of the trip nonetheless. Enjoy!

The post 2012 Prudential Montana Real Estate Float Trip on the Blackfoot River appeared first on The Missoula Real Estate Guide.

Montana’s Housing Market Continues to Improve

Steve Palmer — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 12:56:43 +0000

The Montana Association of Realtors recently released a mid-year report covering home sales for the first 6 months of 2012 in the areas covered by the eight largest associations in the state. An excerpt from that report is listed below.

Montana’s housing market continues to improve, with nearly every major market across the state reporting an increase in activity through the first six months of 2012. The Montana Association of REALTORS® received sales data from the eight largest associations in the state, and in seven there was an increase in the number of single-family homes sold compared to the same time frame in 2011.

Overall, in the eight major markets in Montana, 3,725 single-family homes have been sold thus far in 2012 compared to 3,476 in 2011, an increase of 7.2%.

“Most of our markets, most of our major cities are up compared to last year and that is good news,” said MAR President Judy Gudgel. “Seven of the eight major cities are reporting improved numbers, and that is great to see.”

The Billings Association of REALTORS® saw the largest increase in single-family home sales at the mid-way point of the year. Through the year’s first six months, BAR recorded 895 sales, up from 756 at this time last year for an increase of more than 18%. The Missoula Organization of REALTORS® was next with an increase of 83 homes, followed by the Great Falls Association (+61), Helena Association (+56), Gallatin Association (+40), Bitterroot Association (+22) and the Butte Association (+19). Only the Northwest Association of REALTORS® reported a drop in the number of home sales from year-to-year, although the 633 home sales in 2012 is still an increase from when the market bottomed out in 2009.

The average sales price of a home and the median sales price rose in five of the eight markets and the average days a home stayed on the market fell in four of the eight markets. Those figures do not include townhouses or condos, although every market in the state reported an increase in the number of those sales as well.

Montana Mid-year 2012 Housing Statistics (PDF)

The post Montana’s Housing Market Continues to Improve appeared first on The Missoula Real Estate Guide.

Good News for Montana on the Economy

Steve Palmer — Mon, 23 Jul 2012 13:21:06 +0000

Some good economic news for Montana was released this past weekend – State Sees Wage Growth

Some highlights:

Wages and salaries are up 11% from November, 2011
Home prices were 1.3% higher in the first 3 months of 2012 when compared to 2011. Missoula home prices showed a 2% increase.
Economic activity in Eastern Montana is driving the statewide recovery in economic growth

More data will be released Aug. 9 when Patrick Barkey of the the Bureau of Business and Economic Research at the University of Montana delivers his Midyear Economic Update at the Hilton Garden Inn in Missoula.

Register for the Midyear economic update

The post Good News for Montana on the Economy appeared first on The Missoula Real Estate Guide.

Mindy shoots a TV commercial for Prudential Montana Real Estate in Downtown Missoula

Steve Palmer — Mon, 23 Jul 2012 02:21:44 +0000

Mindy and our friend and colleague, Mike Nugent, recently sat for a video shoot for a commercial for Prudential Montana Real Estate in Downtown Missoula.

The commercial consists of a a slide show of photos from our First Friday events with a couple of video clips of Mindy and Mike pretending to work at one of our big screen TV’s – Mindy does the voice over for the whole commercial.

We think it came out real well. What do you think?

The post Mindy shoots a TV commercial for Prudential Montana Real Estate in Downtown Missoula appeared first on The Missoula Real Estate Guide.

Top Ten Western Farmer’s Markets

Mindy Palmer — Sun, 22 Jul 2012 18:29:21 +0000

This is pretty cool. Sunset Magazine recently named the Missoula Farmers’ Market as on of its top ten western farmers’ markets.

According to Sunset magazine, the scene consists of…

A mix of ranchers and college kids, families and hippies, sipping coffee from the local Butterfly Herbs cart and enjoying an old-fashioned sense of community

…and the find is..

Huckleberries in high summer–this is Montana, after all–framed [sic] by Southeast Asian Hmong and sold in unsealed zip-lock bags so these wild, intense, just-sweet-enough beauties can breathe

We’re thinking that they meant to use the word “farmed” instead of “framed” in their find comment above. If so, they are in error. Huckleberries are not farmed, they are picked in the wild. Huckleberries have not been domesticated so farming them is not an option.

Nevertheless, fresh huckleberries from the Missoula Farmers’ Market is definitely one of the top finds at our local market.

Sadly, they left out the “other” markets that takes place at the same time in Downtown Missoula, the Clark Fork River Market and the Peoples Market (also known as the Missoula Saturday Market).

Regardless, during Spring, Summer, and fall, Downtown Missoula is the place to be on Saturday mornings.

The post Top Ten Western Farmer’s Markets appeared first on The Missoula Real Estate Guide.

Best Real Estate Agent, 2012

Mindy Palmer — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 13:24:11 +0000

For the sixth year in a row, I find myself incredibly touched, honored, humbled and yes, BLOWN away by this recognition! Trust me when I say that I GET how fortunate and blessed I am to have my hub, best friend and business partner (all the same guy, by the way) Steve Palmer sharing this incredible real estate journey that we’ve shared since 1998.

Yes, we work hard, often too hard, with little to no time off, but we do this because we are not only passionate about all things real estate, more importantly we’re passionate about all of YOU fine folks that we’ve gotten to know along the way.

We love you, Missoula!!

“Best Real Estate Agent, 2012″

Some photos from the Best of Missoula party in Caras Park:

The post Best Real Estate Agent, 2012 appeared first on The Missoula Real Estate Guide.

A New Low in Bad Missoula MLS Photos

Steve Palmer — Sun, 08 Jul 2012 13:25:51 +0000

We’ve reached a new low in bad listing photos here in the Missoula MLS.

We recently noticed a new listing in the Missoula area MLS that we had listed and tried to sell back in 2007. It didn’t sell back then and the seller decided to take it off the market. Apparently, the seller has decided to try again and has chosen to go with another agent. No biggie – this is quite common in the real estate biz.

Anyway, as we were checking out the photos of this new listing our first thought was how bad the photos were. Our second thought was that the photos looked awfully familiar, so we checked our original listing in the MLS and lo and behold, some of the photos in the new listing had been taken from our original listing.

But wait, our photos were pretty good and the new, “pirated” photos were pretty bad, really bad. Upon closer examination, we realized that these new “pirated” photos had not been downloaded from the MLS but that they had been scanned from one of our old flyers from when we had the listing. Yep, the new listing agent got a copy of one of our old flyers (presumably from the seller) that looked like it had been folded up and stuck in a drawer. They then proceeded to scan the flyer (creases and all) and post these scanned images to the new listing in the MLS.

And here’s the proof. The photo gallery below contains 5 pairs of photos. The first photo in each pair is from the new listing in the MLS; the second photo in each pair is a screen shot from the original pdf document we used to print our flyer back in 2007. Click on any photo below to browse through the gallery and see for yourself.

This is about as lame as it gets for a listing agent and in our opinion, is a new low for lowering the bar in the Missoula real estate industry. What do you think?

The post A New Low in Bad Missoula MLS Photos appeared first on The Missoula Real Estate Guide.

A clickable map of Missoula neighborhoods and MLS areas [Updated]

Steve Palmer — Sat, 23 Jun 2012 13:30:44 +0000

Update: We’ve made some minor changes and clarified some of the labeling on the neighborhoods map – Enjoy!

Check out the map we just uploaded – we’ve taken a map of the neighborhoods in the city of Missoula and superimposed labeled MLS areas on it.

The MLS areas are outlined with a heavy, dashed black line and each area is prominently labeled with the “name” of the MLS area. The labels are hyper linked and clicking on any individual label will take you to our web site and the very latest residential listings for that MLS area. Cool, no?

Feel free to download the map and share it with friends, family, or colleagues and if you have any questions, as always, feel fee to contact us.

Download Map Here

The post A clickable map of Missoula neighborhoods and MLS areas [Updated] appeared first on The Missoula Real Estate Guide.

May 2012 Montana Foreclosure Report from RealtyTrac

Steve Palmer — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 16:19:06 +0000

RealtyTrac just posted their latest Montana foreclosure rate heat map for May 2012. They report that 1 in every 3,424 housing units received a foreclosure notice in May 2012. Compare that to the national average of 1 in 639 or to Georgia with 1 in 300 housing units receiving a foreclosure notice in May.

In Missoula County, 1 in 2,278 housing units received a foreclosure notice in May 2012. Compare that to Ravalli County with a rate of 1 in ever 1,632 or with the highest rate in Montana in Carter County with a rate of 1 in 810.

This morning there are a 1,306 residential listings for sale in the Missoula MLS – 96 of these listings are short sales or bank owned. That’s 7.4% of the current market – barely a blip in the big picture of things.

Here are the most recent foreclosure and short sale listings for sale from our service area in Western Montana

Showing properties 1 - 10 of 65. See more Western Montana Foreclosures.
(all data current as of 5/16/2013)

$185,000 : 7 Joyce Drive, Missoula

3 beds, 2 full baths
Home size: 2,184 sq ft
Lot size: 8,349 sqft
Year built: 1963
Parking spots: 1
Days on market: 1
$135,000 : 2352 Classic Court, Missoula

2 beds, 1 full, 1 part baths
Home size: 968 sq ft
Lot size: 6,241 sqft
Parking spots: 2
Days on market: 2
$219,900 : 2828 S 3rd St W, Missoula

2 beds, 2 full baths
Home size: 3,756 sq ft
Lot size: 18,208 sqft
Year built: 1947
Parking spots: 2
Days on market: 4
$164,900 : 982 Discovery Way, Missoula

3 beds, 2 full baths
Home size: 1,632 sq ft
Lot size: 3,144 sqft
Year built: 2004
Days on market: 10
$200,000 : 603 S 1st W, Missoula

4 beds, 2 full baths
Home size: 2,004 sq ft
Lot size: 7,800 sqft
Year built: 1930
Parking spots: 2
Days on market: 16
$217,800 : 360 SHARROTT HILL LOOP, Stevensville

3 beds, 2 full baths
Home size: 1,536 sq ft
Lot size: 9.60 ac
Year built: 1978
Parking spots: 2
Days on market: 21
$254,900 : 558 Three Mile Creek Rd, Stevensville

4 beds, 2 full baths
Home size: 1,948 sq ft
Lot size: 10.76 ac
Year built: 1922
Parking spots: 3
Days on market: 22
$164,900 : 483 Ashleigh Lane, Stevensville

6 beds, 3 full baths
Home size: 4,104 sq ft
Lot size: 17.77 ac
Parking spots: 2
Days on market: 23
$259,900 : 11295 Stella Blue Drive, Lolo

3 beds, 2 full, 1 part baths
Home size: 2,972 sq ft
Lot size: 8,507 sqft
Year built: 2007
Parking spots: 2
Days on market: 29
$249,500 : 439 Hidden Valley Rd N, Florence

3 beds, 2 full baths
Home size: 1,632 sq ft
Lot size: 2.68 ac
Parking spots: 2
Days on market: 29

Listing information deemed reliable but not guaranteed. Read full disclaimer.

photo by: JefferyTurner

The post May 2012 Montana Foreclosure Report from RealtyTrac appeared first on The Missoula Real Estate Guide.