Just last week Dr. Larry Swanson an economist with The Center for the Rocky Mountain West did a mass presentation about the Montana economy, how it's doing, and where it's headed. There was also a panel of speakers there, the president of the Home Builders Assoc, our Realtor board President, a Hotel/Convention Center manager, the manager of the Southgate Mall, and a manager from a regional bank, First Security. It was a pretty interesting discussion, in fact I've got the power point slide-show, if you'd like it let me know I'm happy to email it.
Larry started off that all of the US is being hit by the current recession, however certain areas of the country are actually making worse of the local economy by just reading the news, Montana was an example. Our economy here is steady, not great, not bad, but steady. However many people turn on the TV and hear the sky is falling, and they presume it's happening here too.
A few points from his presentation that I'd like to pass along:
- If you were to remove California, Florida, Nevada, and Michigan from the national trends there is no recession and there is no burst in the housing bubble. The mass loss of jobs, economic slowdown, and deflation in home values comes from these 4 states. Now, that doesn't mean all would be fixed, however the massive declines mostly come from these areas.
- In the western half of the US, we see a housing and economic trend that flexes and bends, when California/Nevada are up, the rest of the collective western states are down, and when Cal/Nev go down the rest of the western states go up. Where are we right now? Well Cal/Nev is headed down and the rest of the western states are headed up, and at this point they're just about equal, which suggests in the next 2-3 years strong economic gains in states like Montana
- This year Montana home-owners have lost just $1,000 in median value, a 0.05% price decline.
- This year Missoula's SALES volume is down 28%, the Missoula valley will have just under 1,000 residential sales this year.
- Missoula is in one of the nation's top-50 small-sized towns in regards to growth, economy, and housing prices. Billings & Great Falls also fell on this list I believe, I'll double check that.
- Next year Larry predicted we could see legislation that will lock 30-year interest rates at 4%. That would be interesting, during the early 2000's when sales went nuts interest rates were never that low, usually in the mid-low 5% range.
- Montana's economy is largely service based, construction, medical, real estate, and general services are some of our biggest portions of the economy.
I'll scan through that report and put some more points up after Christmas
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