Buying a House in the Bozeman Area? Here's My Personal Experience

Many people are trying to find a place to live in the Bozeman area, but home prices are skyrocketing.

The dream of homeownership in Bozeman is becoming harder to attain for hopeful homebuyers in the Bozeman area. According to the latest update from the Gallatin Association of Realtors, the median sale price for a single-family home in Bozeman is $815,750, which is a 45% increase since January 2021. Needless to say, it isn't an easy time for the average person trying to buy a house in Bozeman.

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A lot of people would say that I'm lucky. I bought a house in Manhattan in 2018 before the housing market got so out of hand. I work in Bozeman, so I was hoping to find a place close to work. With help from my real estate agent, I was able to find something in Manhattan. Shortly after I put an offer on the house, my agent informed me that someone had put down an all-cash offer. All cash offers are becoming fairly common in the Bozeman area.

My agent and I continued to look at homes in the area because I wasn't able to compete with an all-cash offer. A week later, I got a call from my agent and he told me that the all-cash offer had fallen though, and advised that I put an offer in front of the seller immediately. Thankfully, my offer was accepted.

One thing that I found interesting about my experience is that the home I bought in Manhattan wasn't owned by someone living in Montana. The house was owned by a company in New Jersey. It was initially purchased as a rental investment property before I bought it in 2018. The owner actually had to fly to Montana from New Jersey to sign the paperwork.

At the time, it seemed really strange to be buying a house from a company rather than an actual person, but I've come to find out that many homes in Bozeman and the surrounding area aren't actually owned by people that live here.

If I was trying to buy a home right now, there is no way that I'd be able to afford it. Home prices in the Bozeman area have gotten severely out of hand.

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