Ever since Pyramid Lumber announced their upcoming closure, I have been asked one question by clients, friends and community members more often than any other: How will the mill closing affect real estate? Before I expound on that, there are many other things appropriately considered. First and foremost are the 100 employees that will be without a job. Behind each one of those employees are families that count on the wages brought home from the mill and without those wages, those families will be adversely impacted. Then there are the loggers, truckers and heavy equipment operators that supply the logs to the mill. All these people and their families support the businesses in and around Seeley Lake. Therefore, restaurants, fuel stations, hardware, vehicle repair, auto parts stores and many others will feel the impact.
At the annual Missoula Electric Cooperative meeting last month, MEC announced that Pyramid Lumber has been their number one account for decades. Much like a receding tide, we will be able to see the dollars leaving the Swan Valley should the closure come to fruition.
One need not do anything more than look around a little to see the devastating impact of wildfires in our valley. Pyramid Lumber provides an essential repository for much of the timber harvested from the area. Without that avenue, I think we all realize that our forest health will decline.
Back to the real estate question. I think there is a misconception that all the 100 mill employees live in Seeley Lake, and all will be forced to sell their home, thereby flooding the market with listings and driving real estate prices down. Nothing could be further from the truth. Many commute to work from Missoula and as far away as Darby. Others live in Condon, Ovando and anywhere in between. They live where they want to live for a variety of reasons, just as we each make evaluations as we consider where we would like to live. That might include proximity to family, good schools for our children, recreational opportunities, a strong sense of community and perhaps housing affordability.
Somewhere around 40 percent of the present mill workers are either retirement eligible or would be within the next four years. Many of those employees purchased their homes long before the prices shot up in this region. That means they have tremendous equity in their homes and may even own them outright. I believe most will transition into retirement, even if it is a bit sooner than they had planned. Many of the younger employees or those that are more recently employed by the mill don’t own homes. The mill offers a good wage, but we all know that the cost of everything has gone up and our paychecks just don’t seem to go far these days. There simply is very little left at the end of the month that could be squirreled away toward a residential down payment. While there are a number of down payment assistance or forgiveness programs out there, the amount of available dollars rarely meets the level of what a prospective buyer needs to come in with to purchase a home.
One of the reasons cited by Pyramid Lumber for closing was a lack of employees, which is directly related to the lack of affordable area housing. Both leadership at the mill, as well as the employees themselves, have been creative with the housing problem. Some have chosen to live in trailers or found other alternative living arrangements. All those alternatives have been Band-Aids and in no way address the housing affordability conundrum. That problem is not unique to the mill or Seeley Lake. For the past several years, it has been difficult to attract area teachers, law enforcement and medical professionals because their wages simply don’t allow for the purchase of an average Swan Valley home.
The fact is that the Swan Valley is an attractive place to live for so many reasons: exceptional beauty, wildlife, our many streams, rivers, and lakes, thousands of acres of accessible public lands that can be used for biking, hiking, botany, camping, boating, floating, fishing, hunting, photography, snowshoeing, skiing, snowmobiling and so many other adventures. Those are truly the reasons that our area is so desirable to live in and why we have seen real estate prices steadily rise and why our local market will remain strong.
We are still seeing about 50% of our buyers coming from other areas within Montana. The other half are relocating from out of state. The corporate philosophical change from brick and mortar to remote operations has allowed many people to work from home. There are now a large number of residents in our area that are working from home, which should come as no surprise. Who wouldn’t want to look out of their office window to see mountains, lakes and wildlife rather than garbage, concrete and asphalt? Who wouldn’t want to crack open their office window to smell the fresh mountain air and listen to birds chirping over the sounds of traffic, chaos and sirens that are everyday occurrences in other areas of the country?
People will continue to look to the Swan Valley as a respite from what is happening throughout the world. Not only true for the reasons previously cited, but our golden secret is our strong sense of community values. The people in this valley are unquestionably our best asset. They make time in their day to share a smile, help whoever needs helping and go out of their way to brighten up even the darkest of days. This past Sunday, our many local churches joined together for an evening of prayer to support the community in relation to the mill closure. This is what we do best, community helping community, resident supporting residents.
When we help shoulder the burdens of others, everyone benefits, and you can be sure they’ll be ready to assist you when you need them.
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