As we move towards the holidays, I’ve often run the numbers on the higher-end market. The million-dollar mark was once rarely crossed. However, with the median home price hovering near $800K for homes inside city limits and north of $900K when including homes outside city limits, what exactly constitutes the Luxury Market in Bozeman is perhaps the question. 

First, let’s look at some history. Looking back at some of the previous peak years, in the entire year of 2007, only 24 homes sold for seven figures or more in the Bozeman area. In all of 2008, that number was only 22 homes. In 2022, 14 years later, there were more than 13 times that, with 297 homes sold above the million-dollar mark. This year, we seem to be on a similar track to last year, with 259 closed sales during the first 10.5 months, and another 60 home sales pending north of $1 million.

To get a better picture of the market, I broke all residential sales into $500K chunks to see where they fall. For the following numbers, we’ll include all residential types: condos, townhouses, and single family, in areas both inside and out of Bozeman city limits. We’ll include only sales during the first 10.5 months of each year, in order to accurately compare 2023 numbers.

As our area attracted even more out of state buyers in 2020, the higher-end market took a big increase.  Between the first of the year and the middle of November in 2020, 119 homes sold for more than $1 million—a more than 50% increase in similar sales from 2019. Then, sales more than doubled from 2020 to 2022, with 243 homes selling during the first 10.5 months of 2021 for more than $1 million. Even though overall sales numbers slowed last year, home sales north of $1M have continued to climb, with 262 homes sold for more than $1M during the first 10.5 months of last year, and 257 sold this year to date.

The market north of $2 million saw similar increases, rising from 29 sales in the first 10.5 months of 2020, then nearly doubling again to 53 sales in 2022. Sales numbers held fairly steady last year and this year, with 53 and 44 homes sold north of $2 million respectively. 

The speed of the sales saw similar changes. Back in 2018, those six sales for more than $2 million sold at a median of 214 days on market. By 2020, that number had almost been cut in half, to 126 days on market. In 2021, it dropped down to only 23 days on market. Last year, even with slowing sales numbers, it continued falling just slightly, to 21 days. This year, the trend changed; we saw an increase to 47 median days on market for sales of over $2 million.    

Of interest, especially with the dramatic changes in interest rates, is that the number of all cash purchases in this price range has remained relatively similar. The highest percentage was in 2018, when 41 of the 64, or 64% of the homes north of $1 million were bought in cash. The following year, 2019, saw almost half, or 33 of the 72 purchases made in all cash. In 2020, it was 53% and 2021 saw 48%. Last year, it dipped slightly to around 43%. This year, its on the higher end of average, with just over 50% of sales north of $1 million made in all cash.

Some interesting notes on high-end sales in Big Sky: Through all of 2021, over 39 homes sold for more than $4 million, with the average price per square foot in this price range pushing well above $1000/SF. Last year held steady, with 36 homes sold north of the $4 million mark. This year, it’s up just slightly, with 40 homes sold year to date for more than $4 million and another 51 similar sales pending.  Of note, of those 51 pending sales, 49 are new construction, with many not likely ready for closing for months, possibly even more than a year. The average price per square foot for these high-end sales is now around $1400/sf. These numbers do not include Yellowstone Club sales or custom residences built directly for buyers. 

As usual, I have included the latest Real Estate statistics. Last year and this year bear a few similarities. The total number of closed transactions is very close, with 610 this time last year, and 603 thus far this year. Additionally, there are 82 home sales currently pending as of the date of this writing, exactly the same amount as at this time last year.

The included data reflects sales of homes in the greater Bozeman area, including Four Corners, Gallatin Gateway, Bridger Canyon, and Bozeman city limits. The data includes home sales reported through the local Big Sky Country MLS, and does not include private party sales, condominiums, or townhouses.