Picture this: The house down the street, once home to a Montana family, is now an Airbnb. The neighbors you knew are gone, replaced by a steady flow of tourists.
This transformation is happening across Montana, as more properties are being bought by investors and turned into short-term rentals. Those rentals have significantly contributed to rising property prices, according to industry groups such as Bozeman Real Estate Group and Realtor.com particularly in popular areas like Bozeman and Missoula. As prices climb, many local residents find themselves unable to afford housing in the communities they’ve long called home. The surge in short-term rental properties has further restricted the supply of available homes for families, exacerbating the housing shortage.
Data from the Montana Department of Revenue indicates that property values in some parts of the state have increased by as much as 30 percent in recent years, driven largely by outside investors purchasing homes for short-term rental use. This has resulted in a marked shift in the local housing market, with long-time Montanans struggling to compete with wealthier newcomers and out-of-state buyers. The Missoula Housing Authority reports that in 2022, more than 40 percent of renters in the city were severely rent-burdened, spending more than half of their monthly income on housing.
