Yellowstone County, Mont., housing prices are jumping.

Publication: Billings Gazette (Billings, Montana) (via Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News)

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COPYRIGHT 2006 Billings Gazette

Byline: Tom Howard

Mar. 5--Whenever he sees television's talking heads lecturing about the pending collapse of a "speculative real estate bubble," Dan Wagner takes their dire warnings with a grain of salt. The nation's hottest real estate markets don't have a lot in common with Billings, he says.

Nonetheless, Billings residential real estate prices experienced double-digit gains last year for the second consecutive year. According to information compiled by Billings Realtor Howard Sumner, the median price of a single-family home in Billings was $161,000 last year, up 11 percent from 2004's median price of $145,000. The latest increase comes on the heels of an 11 percent price increase from 2003 to 2004.

Wagner, the past president of the Billings Association of Realtors, says that several factors affect local real estate markets: the health of the local economy, population trends, the availability of housing and whether a community is a desirable place to live. Since real estate market conditions aren't uniform from coast to coast, the doom-and-gloom predictions of a pending collapse don't keep him up at night....

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