There are only two Montana blog sites I’m really interested in anymore. These are MT Post and RD.
I go to the former these days solely to see what the article titles are, and if they allow any comments.
Most days I see that there is indeed a new post, and that it’s not allowing comments. I typically close that site out for the day then, though sometimes I do skim through one of their posts, and occasionally I even read one.
Before comments were disabled, I mainly clicked on articles to read those...to see what other people were thinking. Now, however, there’s really no need to click on the articles. Most days I have no desire to read the site’s mish-mash.
RD is different. This site actually digs through stuff and asks questions, doesn’t just regurgitate Party talking points.
I read the articles on that site each day and the comments.
Today RD had a post up called, As Missoula Housing Prices Keep Climbing, Big Tech Is Making Big Investments In Affordable Housing.
The article makes it a point that the average price to buy a home in Missoula is now $340,000 and that when most residents are making $50,000 a year or less.
What’s driving the price isn’t just out-of-staters fleeing the coasts and the idiotic policies put forth by those blue state governors. It’s also high-tech fleeing those same areas, though mostly to get away from all the people and traffic and pollution and crowded living conditions.
One aspect that few people ever talk about is open space bonds and how this has removed hundreds if not thousands of acres of developable land that could be used for new homes and apartments.
While it’s true we’ve open space bonded ourselves to death, many argue this is what makes Missoula so great. Yeah...if you can afford it, which the majority of residents cannot.
The article concludes by saying Big Tech is “very busy shaping what the future is going to look like, even housing…so what are we going to do about it?
I think the answer is simple - wait.
The median age in America is just over 38-years-old. These are the millennials, and there’s 72 million of ‘em. Baby Boomers have just over 71 million left...and they’re dropping each day. By 2050 there’ll be just 16 million of them left.
When they drop, they often leave a house or apartment. Sometimes the kids get these and they’re kept off the market. But many times the kids sell these homes, putting them back on the market.
Boomers owned 21 million homes last year.
Nearly 5,000 Boomers die each day.
Between 2007 and 2017, these deaths allowed 730,000 homes that were once owned by seniors to hit the market, and as we progress into the 2020s, that will grow to 920,000 homes hitting the market each year.
In fact, it’s estimated that 27% of the homes currently occupied will be for sale by 2037 as the Baby Boomers die-off.
Yeah...that’s 17 years from now, but as you can see, each day the deaths come and each day the properties are listed.
Macabre?
Perhaps. But with the economic system the Boomers are handing off to us - one propped-up by $27 trillion in federal debt and trillions more in state and local debt - how else are you going to get a home?
Scrimping and saving no longer cuts it. Even getting a good education and a good job won’t. Most of the police officers in town can’t find homes to buy, because they can’t afford them.
And that’ll never change. Missoula doesn’t have the space and has no desire to create more. The only thing that will put a dent in our housing market is the older folks dying off.
So we’ll wait.
Over at ID they had a post called, Matt Rosendale is in Trouble in his Race Against Kathleen Williams. Let’s Keep the Pressure Up!
I guess Rosendale is finished. Seems California Kathleen raised $2.4 million to Maryland Matt’s $1.9 million.
Wow…$500,000.
That money’ll sure benefit the local TV stations, newspapers, radio stations, and Facebook in California.
- It’ll do nothing for our families.
- It’ll do nothing for our state.
- It’ll do nothing for our future.
But by God will it enrich the already rich!
That’s what politics is about. That’s what Matt and Kathleen are all about.
An even bigger problem for Matt, according to Don over in Helena, is that Matt is not cracking even 50% in a poll.
But then, neither is Kathleen.
One poll has them tied at 44%, another has them tied at 47%.
We know from 2016 that polls are meaningless.
Ultimately, Don figures that the race will come down to one thing - Trump. He figures our president will be even more unpopular in November than he is now, which will hand the win to Kathleen.
For Don, Rosendale’s closeness to Trump will be his undoing, and he views this as Democrats’ “best chance to flip the House seat Republicans have held since Pat Williams retired.”
For Montana Democrats, every year is the ‘best chance’ to flip that seat. Never happens.
Personally, I think Trump is Rosendale’s best shot. Kathleen doesn’t have anyone to cling to. Biden’s no help to anyone, least of all himself.
Matt needs to keep doing what he’s doing. He needs to figure out how to get Trump to campaign here. If Montana voters don’t think Rosendale is on Trump’s side, then he’ll lose.
I simply do not understand where Kathleen is going to pick up more votes than she did in ‘16. With nearly two months of nightly rioting in major cities around the country, I don’t see how Dems are going to win the narrative this fall.
Personally, this race is a real tough one for me. On the one hand, I don’t want another rich-ass, out-of-state, transplanted Republican to go to Washington to represent me...knowing full-well that that that man does not care about me or my family; indeed, he’ll probably try to do everything he can to hurt me and my family all so he can benefit himself.
On the other hand, I don’t want another old, out-of-state, transplanted former legislator Democrat to go to Washington to represent me...knowing full-well that that woman does not care about me and will just become another pawn in Chuck and Nancy’s never-ending quest to remove Trump from office.
Neither the D or the R is going to help me one lick.
What else is new.
