Residential waterfront inventory in ‘record-low territory’

As the red-hot real estate market continues here, Flathead Lake waterfront residential inventory is in “record-low territory,” according to Realtor David Fetveit, who publishes a monthly waterfront real estate report.

Prices and demand continue to surge, but inventory is lagging.

The Flathead Lake waterfront real estate market currently counts 37 listings, compared to 94 this month last year.

The number of land listings has dropped to 13 from 29.

The situation is so erratic it’s getting hard to track real estate sales, Fetveit explained in his June Real Estate Market Report last week.

Median prices, in particular, are hard to nail down, because higher-priced listings are coming on and off the market so quickly.

The latest data show residential listings have normalized in the range of $2.5 million, and land listings are also back in an expected range of $1.5 million.

“The combination of record sales over the past 18 months along with lack of motivation for sellers to give up their Montana real estate continues to put downward pressure on inventory,” said Fetveit.

Condominium units on Flathead Lake are harder to find than they have been: there are only 14 units listed for June, priced at an average of $534,679. So far this year, 16 condo units have already been sold for an average of $616,511.

Waterfront residential sales are at 26 for the year. The sale price was $1,675,200.

In May, Fetveit reported seven total waterfront property sales. The biggest sale was recorded in Bigfork, at a waterfront property with 718 feet of lake frontage that sold for $10 million.

The total volume of waterfront property sales in 2021, to date, is $43,555,200, according to Fetveit’s report.

A total of 149 total waterfront properties sold throughout 2020. The average sale price was $1,307,565 and the total volume of sales came to $194,827,150.

Fetveit expects the balance of transactions for 2021 will ultimately end up lower than 2020.