As one can see by looking at the included numbers, Bozeman’s market continues to remain hot. Many buyers have been frustrated lately to end up in multiple offer situations, some even losing out on multiple homes. In a multiple offer situation, cash is usually king. It has anecdotally seemed that there are more cash buyers in the market today, so I thought it was worth a look to see if that was true.

Looking at sales of single family homes in all of Bozeman between January 1st and June 1st of this year, 81 of the 360 homes sold were purchased with cash. That is approximately 22.5% of the sales. This is actually on par with past years. In 2014, 70 of the 318 sales during that time period were cash, or 22%. In 2013, 61 of the 276 sales, or 22.1% were cash, and in 2012, 45 of 237 were cash, or 18.9%.

One of the hottest areas in Bozeman’s market right now is the downtown core, especially the area between Main Street and Kagy Boulevard. That area shows a different story than the rest of Bozeman as cash purchases have been on the rise there. In 2013, 30.3%, or 10 out of the 33 sales in the area between Main and Kagy from January 1st to June 1st were cash purchases. In 2014, that number rose to 34.2%, or 13 out of 38 sales. In 2015, it has risen to 40%, or 18 out of 45 sales.

Buyers that don’t have cash that end up in multiple offer situations can still try to be competitive. At the end of the day, most people still prefer more money in their pocket, so there’s a good chance that a higher offer with financing could beat out a lower offer with cash, but not always. Buyers can also do their best to make their offer as attractive as possible by closely analyzing their contingencies and all the terms of their offer.

As usual, I have included data for the number of single family homes sold during the first five months of 2015. In addition to the 360 single family homes sold during this time period, another 198 homes are currently pending, or under contract, as of the date of writing this article.

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 Southwest Montana MLS, and does not include private party sales, Condominiums, or Townhouses.