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Newsletter from Montana - Minnesota
January 2009
While Montana did not participate in the "easy loan" craze and therefore does not suffer any more foreclosures than usual, some prices did come down a little.
Take a look at the 1.5 acres in White Sulphur Springs with all utilities on the golf course and not too far from town with spectacular mountain views all around for now only $45,000
Click on the first picture and then use your arrow keys to see all the others. The 5 acres of rolling terrain is for sale for $105,000 in the same subdivision with room to roam and privacy.
The cabin in
downtown White Sulphur Springs can now be had for $65,000, which includes the lot next door with the trailer. If you are an artist, use the trailer as a studio and make an art gallery in the front room of the cabin. Or haul off the trailer and rent the space to RV travelers or park your own.
The
duplex lot in Red Lodge is still at the same price - 15,000sqft for $87,000. It is the only duplex lot that is for sale in Red Lodge, but you could also build a single family home there, all the utilities to the lot line.
Single family lots half the size start at $55,000 also with all utilities. Half acres lots where you still need to drill a well start at $80,000 and a two acres lot is for sale for $195,000 near town, but you still need a well and septic there.
One of the most beautiful mountain ranches in Montana with 1,138 acres +640 acres of leased State land right here in front of the Beartooth Mountains with a 10,000sqft stunning log home and manager's house has been reduced from $15 million to $9 million! Now it looks like a bargain;
let me know
if you are in the market and I will send you the brochure. The land is half timbered and adjacent to National Forest!
The unemployment rate in and around Billings is only 3.5% - so it would be fairly easy to find a job here. I posted the
unemployment breakdown for last month by county for Montana to my website.
To find a job, contact any of these employers.
If you are looking for a job anywhere else, you might want to post your resume to
head hunters in your field of expertise.
Why is the unemployment way down in Eastern Montana? Because that is where you find the large ranches and
hardly anyone lives there.
The average size of a farm or ranch in Eastern Montana is
well over 2,000 acres.
Why are the ranches so large? Because the
rainfall is a marginal 10" to 15" per year.
Therefore the land can only support one to four cows per 100 acres.
To support a family on ranch income alone, you will need around 200 cows...
Most
forests in Montana are in the mountains and inside of the National Forest.
There is not much privately owned land that is forested.
To show where the mountains are, here is a map of the elevation in Montana along with the few rivers that run through the land. Notice the lack of lakes.
Of course if you have mountains, you have earthquakes, but it
did not quake much in the last few hundred years.
As you can see, here in Red Lodge and the Eastern Part it did not quake at all.
Now we mosey on over to Minnesota. Here is the
winter air traffic typical for the state.
Better yet, here is a
duck delivering building materials in Minneapolis
Besides ducks playing, people play in Minnesota too with their snow mobiles. There are over 200 miles of snow mobile trails around
Detroit Lakes.
If you like to join the fun, we have a listing right downtown Detroit Lakes. Mike had told the sellers to clean up the house and pick up the laundry for photos, but they refused and rather lowered the price by $15,000! - some people just don't like to do the laundry... Here it is: 1,700sqft, 1.5 story, 3 bedrooms 2 baths and a double garage for $ 70,000 - unbelievable!
While you enjoy the lively town of Detroit Lakes, you can also buy your own job. Mike just listed a farm supply. It comes with the business and real estate on two acres in downtown Hawley for $ 169,000.
If you like to live in style with a 5 bedroom/3 baths home with swimming pool, riding arena, stable, insulated chicken coop, insulated cow barn, large shop, 5 car garage, airplane hangar, landing strip, ponds and farm ground (which is leased in exchange for hay and straw for the livestock) for just $1,150,000 you might want to take a look at the Flying DL Ranch.
Because there is more water in Minnesota, more people live there.
Minnesota also has cows, actually four times as many as Montana
The farms are much smaller, because more animals and crops can be accommodated on smaller acreage with the same result.
The soil is richer and it rains more, but you still will not get soaked.
The forests in Minnesota are lush and plentiful in the North.
While the elevation is not very high in Minnesota, you still have
rolling hills which are the moraines of the glaciers that used to occupy the state and they also left plenty of lakes behind.
If you did not get dizzy looking at all those maps I made for you, maybe this will do it:
Have you ever looked at your credit report? I never looked at mine, who needs credit anyway, right? Well, big surprise. There was a property I just had to have so I ventured over to the next lender and he said: "What did you do with your credit!?" Huh? Me? Nothing I know of, anything wrong? Well I did not have time or interest to check into it, so I just paid what they told me to pay and paid the loan off in short order and let it go at that. A few years later I was at the bank again, being told I had to pay a judgment. A judgment? They got to be kidding. They were not, and handed me a check at closing for $85 to pay off the judgment..? I put the money in my account and let it go at that. Then I ordered a credit report from Experian. A pile of papers I did not have time to bother with and hid it under my stack of things to do. Every time I got down to that particular nuisance, I made sure to cover it up again. Then American Express (I need them to shop at Costco) called and said they lowered my credit limit because there was a collection on my credit report. I thought that was interesting, how did that get there? As far as I know, I pay all my bills on time and never miss a beat. In the meantime I tossed out the credit report, it just got too old I thought to weed through it, all Greek to me anyway and time consuming. Now curiosity got the cat. So, while shopping for a new computer at Best Buy on the Internet, they recommended a free credit check at
Credit Keeper.
I clicked on the link and filled in my information. They asked for my credit card info, because after 30 days they start charging $10 a month to keep me alerted to what is going on unless I cancel the service. Then the fun started. They show all three credit companies next to each other comparing what each of them shows regarding what I owe to whom and for how much. It shows late payments, collections, judgments, all my store cards I was conned into getting and then closing them again quickly; the whole works since time immortal. Wow! It seems to me Experian gets it right all of the time, Equifax most of the time and Transunion is a total goofball, there I found most of the mistakes. They are the ones who had the judgment against me. That was years ago and actually the other party owes me the money, but they had it reversed smashing up my credit and costing me a lot of money. The collection I came to find out was a compliment from a clinic, which I had paid years ago. Actually, they had five account numbers for me and when I paid the $31, I wrote the wrong account number on it, so they did not mark it as paid and send it to a collection agency, who never contacted me. Now how interesting is that? Because of those two easy to fix boo boos, my credit got smashed costing me a ton in interest. How to fix it? Credit Keeper gives you links to dispute whatever does not look right; very easy. Of course, Transunion still operates with pony carts, so you have to print it out and send it in. Experian is on top of it and you can correct it on-line. Try it; they also explain in an easy to understand language and in a very friendly way what is going on and what it all means.
Quick rules to boost your credit: Keep a bunch of credit cards, especially old ones, the one you have since high school is the best. Use it just a tiny bit occasionally and pay it off right away. Do not use more than 30% on any of your card limits, better to stay under 15% even. Never be late with any payments, use Bill Pay at your bank where they send out electronic checks every months to all the companies to whom you owe money. This way all your checks are being recorded and if you have QuickBooks, that program will soak in all your transactions right into your checkbook automatically; your accountant will be pleased. The big reward for all your trouble? Next time you buy a property, you will get the best interest rate the bank can muster and
Best Buy will let you have a new computer for easy monthly payments without charging interest for 18 months. If you buy an HP (they make indestructible laptops) they will take all the annoying trial programs off for you, too.
Hope your February looks bright and you get a ton of Valentine cards!
:-)
Best Regards,
Dorothea Lowe, Broker
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