More Bad News For Montanans Looking To Become A Homeowner

If you're living in Montana and hoping to become a new homeowner anytime soon, well...good luck.

A quick search on websites like Realtor and Zillow will show properties around Montana and the prices of those properties, and for many Montanans, it's simply too expensive to consider buying a home. Take the city of Bozeman for example. Bozeman has seen an incredible amount of growth in the last few years and right now, the average single-family home price is just shy of 1 million dollars according to our friends over at The Bozeman Real Estate Group.

A recent search on single-family homes in Bozeman for 500 thousand dollars or less resulted in two properties and let's say, both homes were "fixer uppers".

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It's not just Bozeman that is feeling the pinch, cities and towns all across Montana are seeing record-high home prices and for those Montanans who are saving to purchase a home, we've got more bad news. The folks over at Agent Advice researched all 50 states to find out which areas were the most and least expensive to save for a down payment on a home.

Where does Montana rank compared to the other 49 states when it comes to saving for a down payment on a home?

Montana is currently ranked as the 3rd worst state to save for a down payment. The only two states that are worse than Montana are California and Hawaii.

As you can see the home prices in both California and Hawaii are more than here in Montana, but the median household income is also higher. What does that all mean? Well, if you are currently renting and trying to save for a down payment it looks like you have an uphill battle.

Like many Montanans, my wife and I are looking to purchase a home, and even though we make more than the median annual household income when you throw in rent, utilities, and all of the other things it's certainly hard to save thousands of dollars for a down payment on a home that's priced double of what it's worth.

It's certainly frustrating and one of the reasons that so many people are leaving Montana including folks that have spent their entire lives here. The worst part? It doesn't look like it's going to change anytime soon.