Renegade Financial

Real Montana lenders. They said no. We said watch this. Mortgage loans provided by Renegade Mortgage NMLS 2780304 Equal Housing Opportunity

[Renegade Financial @renegadefin]

Montana bankruptcies are up 15% on last year. Notices of trustee's sale are down 18%. Foreclosure lawsuits are up 51%, the most in eight years. 3 in 10 new foreclosures hit a loan less than three years old.

Our call - 2027 is the year the count turns.
https://t.co/XvWka9wWac

[Renegade Financial @renegadefin]

We checked all 8,802 Montana homes for sale on August 1. More than half are gone. The 38% still waiting ask a median $689,000, have been listed 152 days, and 56% have cut the price. Now they spend the winter on the market. https://t.co/Fj91ASs9nY

[Renegade Financial @renegadefin]

Montana new construction, March to September. The seasonal part of this story is normal. The rest of it is not.

Builders delivered. New-home listings ran 187 a month in March and 225 in September, the high for the year. About 1,000 new homes have sat on the market every month since spring. That is the inventory a builder plans for in January and delivers by fall. It arrived on schedule.

The buyers did not. Financed new-home purchases across the six big counties went from 24 a month in March to 11 in September. New builds were 6% of purchase loans in March. They are 3% now. Same houses, same markets, half the buyers.

The price point is the problem. Median list on a new home listed in March was $574K. In September it was $605K. Put 20% down on each, at March's rate and at today's rate, and the payment went from $2,805 to $3,328 a month, up $523. Most of that is the rate, not the price. The house got 5% more expensive. The payment got 19% more expensive.

Now look at the calendar. Resale inventory peaked in July and is down 11% since, because resale sellers pull listings when they do not sell. A builder cannot pull a finished house. Only 22% of new homes have taken a price cut, against 48% of resale. The new-home shelf is full, priced for a spring buyer, and heading into the slowest four months of the Montana year.

A finished house carries a construction loan. Every six weeks on the lot costs the builder about 1% of the house. A $605K house does not pencil as a rental at a $3,300 payment, so holding is not an option either. The price cuts that did not happen in September are going to be forced in January, and some builders are going to take heavy ones to unload.

Full report, with charts by market and price band:
https://t.co/N9N8wv8bFD

[Renegade Financial @renegadefin]

Montana builders listed 191 new homes in September, the most this year. Buyers financed 11 of them. 631 new homes are sitting for sale in our six counties, and only 21% have cut price vs 48% of resales. Somebody blinks this winter.
https://t.co/bJjorKD5Hv

[Renegade Financial @renegadefin]

Who's actually buying Montana? 87% of individuals who bought a Montana home last year are verified Montana residents. Out-of-state buyers paid cash 58% of the time, and LLCs and trusts took one in six homes. https://t.co/VthSg48spi

[Renegade Financial @renegadefin]

Montanans filed 607 bankruptcy cases January through July, up 26% from 481 a year earlier. New foreclosures started fell 14% over the same months. Two records of financial distress, pointing opposite ways. https://t.co/ESSK6BQYfA

[Renegade Financial @renegadefin]

Mortgage rates crossed 7% as Montana's selling season ended. Homes for sale are now 82 days old, up from 69 in June. One in five cut its price in September, and the typical cut was $20,000. Our full fall market report: https://t.co/kUjvuk54F0

[Renegade Financial @renegadefin]

Renegade Financial is on X. We're one Montana institution with two ways to get funded: direct business loans from our own capital, and home loans through our licensed brokerage. Decisions made in Helena, not by a committee in another state.