Staying at the Lone Mountain Ranch for a week, enjoying three fabulous meals each day, soaking in the spa, visiting with family and new friends, is likely to be both relaxing and to expand one’s waistline…so feigning surprise that the dial on the scale has moved is predictable, yet mostly theatrical. It’s going to happen.
The factors that contributed to the “bubble” in Big Sky mirrored similar factors that swept across other communities and markets around the country. Essentially too much money chasing too few assets…and, while, of course, there were many interrelated and unrelated elements that economists and analysts will study intensely for years to come to try to understand and learn from with the goal of taming these cycles in the future, the perverse reality might just be that not only will these cycles continue to be repeated occasionally, but that its these cycles that create the environment for vibrant markets.
Given the refinement of modern day economic theory and the availability of quantitative computing power, which allows for complex market evaluations, it would, of course, be more comforting (but less thrilling) to have the ability to more accurately and precisely project future outcomes. Derived from the mathematical foundations developed to describe and comprehend scientific principals of the physical world, Physicists can, to a large extent, predict the behavior of planets, elements and space. However, as we are learning first hand, economists and real estate market followers have to rely on a different set of parameters.
So what does any of this to do with the Big Sky real estate market?
Well, the Big Draw to Big Sky is its natural beauty and out doors. Sure, its easy enough to get to, and getting easier all of the time with additional flights, the expansion of the airport to accommodate more and larger planes. The skiing is unbeatable (anyone taste that fresh powder on March 26th?). Fishing access is wonderful, with endless hiking, great summer concerts, top-of-the-line restaurants. The park (Yellowstone National Park) is so full of sights that new discoveries are everyday occurrences. We don’t need air-conditioning, the big horn sheep licking salt of the roads still make even locals slow down to watch, and relaxation seems to come naturally.
Yet, Big Sky defies quantitative analysis for many. Which isn’t to say that no information is preferable to good information…it’s just that an analysis of the Big Sky real estate market is more akin to the subtlety associated with biological systems, combined with a hint of a Zen like acceptance that you have to be here to really experience it, than an analytical scientific approach to predicting risk and reward.
And what does that mean? Well, despite the limitations in the lending arena, there are a lot of green shoots emerging. Lenders may have provided too much oxygen as stimulus helping to create the “bubble”, and then too quickly shut off the oxygen forcing that same bubble to contract. Still, like any healthy ecosystem, the participants have adapted. Exchanges between sellers and buyers are underway and increasing. With pricing at less extravagant and artificial levels, the values seem more intuitive, and market activity in the Big Sky thrives.
Despite many predictions and studies to the contrary, 21 years after the “devastating” fires in Yellowstone National Park, the forests there are healthier than ever. And even with normal and unavoidable cycles, the miracle of life continues. Be a part of it.
By Eric Ossorio
Broker
Prudential Montana Real Estate
55 Lone Peak Drive Ste. 3
Big Sky MT 59716
Eric.ossorio@prumt.com
p. 406-995-4040
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