2010—Uplifting news in Real Estate Sales
There’s no end to real estate in the news. One can purchase the Montana property where the Unabomber lived for $69,500, or read about shoddily documented mortgages that have investors wondering if the housing slump will ever end. More locally, apprehension mounted when one of the Flathead Valley’s most prominent real estate companies went out of business.
However, some Flathead Valley offices claim they are seeing a surge in real estate sales. Trails West Real Estate certainly did. “It was a busy summer followed by an even busier fall,” notes Tom Brown, one of the five owners of Trails West. Buyers from all over the country and Canada seem to feel that this is the perfect place to buy a home. Sales are strong across all of Trails West’s five valley offices. From January 2010 to December 8, 2010, Trails West Realtors closed 236 deals, a total sold volume of $102,010,482. Laura Manning, Business Manager at Trails West credits the agents and owners for the company’s success.
“The owners made a commitment to expand at the onset of the market decline. Not only did they add new office locations, but they also invested in a new website with improved search capabilities for buyers. The 39 agents made commitments to grow their personal business through excellent client service, personal branding, and staying on top of market trends. We now have agents that specialize in short sales, lake properties, land, and workforce housing, just to name a few areas.”
Maintaining focus on growth and evolution has allowed Trails West’s agents to market their listings to a much broader field of prospective buyers and take over market share. Trails West now represents nearly 10% of all the residential sales volume reported by the Northwest Montana Association of Realtors through December 8th of this year. In total residential sales volume, Trails West is approximately $20 million ahead of its nearest competitor for that same time period.
There’s never a crystal ball, but if November and December are any indication of sales action, it looks like 2011 will continue to show steady growth in real estate sales in the Flathead Valley. Maybe northwestern Montana should be in the national news. But then, no news is usually good news!
One of the luxury properties sold this year
by Trails West Real Estate
