Apartment construction has stalled in three cities, and not in the rest of Montana

A pair of third-quarter reports from MMG Real Estate Advisors describe two different Montana rental maps at the same time: a finished construction wave in the state’s three primary apartment markets, and a still-busy pipeline once Bozeman, Whitefish, Kalispell and Helena are counted.

In its Q3 market report, the firm said average rent in those three primary markets was $1,437, with occupancy at 93%. Trailing four-quarter net absorption was 487 units, and annual rent growth was about 1%. The post-pandemic supply wave “has fully run its course statewide, with no units under construction across all three primary markets, down from a 2021 cycle peak of nearly 1,900 units,” the report said. Great Falls posted the strongest rent growth of the three, and Billings was the only market still in an annual decline.

A separate pipeline tally from the same firm, assembled Aug. 19, counted 1,679 units under construction in Montana, 1,007 in pre-lease or lease-up, and 2,189 planned. Many of the jobs under construction are outside that three-market slice, including Compass, Wallace Works and The Oxbow Phase II in Bozeman, the Whitefish Corridor Community, Bloomstone in Kalispell, Zimmerman Home Place in Billings and The Capital in Helena.

The two documents are not in conflict so much as they are aimed at different geography. The market report is about Billings, Missoula and Great Falls. The pipeline list is broader. MMG also warned that the pipeline file can lag, and that clients should check project status on their own.

For renters and owners, the practical split is straightforward. In the three older apartment markets, new buildings have mostly stopped rising. In Bozeman and the northwestern towns on the list, the cranes have not.

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