But tell folks theirs is the “No. 1 hottest county for land in the United States,” as a new property search dot-com did recently, and you'll likely elicit a scoff, a shudder, a stare - or all three.
“Really?” said County Commissioner Clark Conrow. “That's scary.”
In September, there were 28 properties in Mineral County, a relatively sparse number compared to second-place Nicholas County of West Virginia and third-place Calhoun County of Florida.
But on the average, according to Barnett, more people checked out Mineral County's 28 listings than they did any other county. He did not say how many of the properties sold.
“Even though it's not the biggest county, people were highly interested in the properties,” Barnett said. “Maybe they were looking at Mineral County, told their friends, and the friends were taking a look. Something made people extremely interested in property in Mineral County.”
County extension agent Kevin Chamberlain had a different theory: “It's probably all 4,000 people in the county trying to figure out what the hell's going on.”
Mining is more nostalgia than money these days in Mineral County. Logging is quickly reaching that point. But in a county long propped up by those industries, it's tempting to say there's a 21st-century land rush going on.
Plum Creek Timber Co. is selling off more than 7,000 acres in the county and has launched what amounts to a trial subdivision.
Missoula and Ravalli counties are filling up to the east, and Sanders County to the north is building at a furious rate. Now Mineral County, bisected by Interstate 90, is handling major subdivision proposals at an unprecedented rate. The nine or 10 full-time building contractors in the county are as busy as they want to be.
There are those who project the population of Mineral County, which climbed above 4,000 just last year, to be 8,000 to 10,000 by the year 2025.
Whoa, says Tim Read.
The county planner and sanitarian for the past 3 1/2 years, Read points to page 17 of a preliminary draft of the county's growth policy. Based on past growth, Mineral County will be approaching just 5,000 people two decades hence.
“We don't know if it's factual or not, but if you're looking at history, I'm sorry folks, the trend for the county would be more along that line,” Read said.
“I don't think by the year 2025 there's going to be 8,000 people in Mineral County. There might be 8,000 new houses that somebody comes up and spends a month out of the year in and takes off. But the permanent residencies, that's a real, real iffy one for us right now.”
Rob Harding left the Bitterroot Valley eight years ago. You can't say the owner of Freedom Construction in Superior never looked back.
“The first year or two, all our work was in Missoula or clear down in Hamilton,” Harding said, while putting the final touches on a foundation at Cedar Creek Terrace southeast of Superior.
This year, he's poured concrete for some 20 new homes, all but one in Mineral County.
“If it wouldn't have been for a homeowner that pleaded and pleaded, we wouldn't have even done that one,” Harding said. “We've had plenty of work up here.”
Elsewhere, builders may be suffering from a stingy market and sluggish interest rates, but there's no slowdown to speak of in Mineral County.
“The buyers are different here,” Harding said. “The folks here, second-home folks or retirees, aren't the kind that are selling this one and trying to take their equity and move to that one.”
Harding said he sold one house to retirees from California, another to a retired couple from Washington. A third will go next spring to an older couple from Spokane.
Land is going for $40,000 an acre if it's not on the river, substantially less than it sells for in the Missoula, Bitterroot and Flathead valleys. Harding said his houses are in the $250,000 range and under.
“We've always tried to build homes at the entry-level market, to get these young married couples in where they could afford it,” Harding said. “But we're getting a lot of retirees. If their retirement is limited, they will sell off and come here.”
He's no economist, though.
“I can't even say that big word,” he said with a laugh. “But I think the general contractors here can probably stay busy for the next five or six years unless there's a real major national downturn in the economy, only because we're not building homes because the industry is building here. There is no industry. People come here because it's quiet.”
It's quiet in a noisy sort of way. The Clark Fork River, placid and deep below the Alberton Gorge, forms the backbone of Mineral County, and the river valley its lifeline.
Between 3,000 and 6,000 vehicles whiz by the principal towns on Interstate 90 each day. Another 18 trains or so trundle up and down the Montana Rail Link line.
Reserve Street in Missoula is a 40-minute drive from Superior, not all that much more than it takes to navigate Reserve from end to end during rush hour, Harding pointed out.
“We have a lot of people driving from here to Missoula to work,” said Chamberlain, the extension agent.
And it's not just work. There are two major medical centers in Missoula and two more in Spokane, a couple of hours to the west. There are malls and box stores and theaters and the University of Montana Grizzlies, all within easy reach of Alberton, Superior and St. Regis.
“The Bitterroot is getting full, and you guys (in Missoula)
are getting filled up,” Chamberlain said. “Frenchtown's being resold for the second, third and fourth time. So they're moving this way.”
The hubbub quickly subsides when you leave the river bottom. Wooded drainages bask in their own history. You can hike or hunt or fish unfettered on all that U.S. Forest Service land. Affordable living or not, it's enough to make a wanderlust-struck someone from, say, California dream of living in the western Montana mountains.
“And there are some folks who just get tired of Missoula, who are still just the average blue-collar workers, but they're moving outside of town,” Harding said.
There's an exception to the blue-collar lure. Homesites along the Clark Fork are “a unique class,” said Read. “You're not going to pick up a residential lot on the river any more for less than $100,000.”
Judy Stang will finish up 18 years on the Mineral County commission next year and call it good.
Stang, the county's “east end” commissioner from St. Regis, got into real estate in the mid-1990s. She tried to puzzle through the “hottest county for land” title bestowed on Mineral County by Landwatch.com from a personal point of view.
“We were busy in September,” she said. “I don't know what the other Realtors were doing, but in August or September I had seven or eight deals - all on land, and all on the river. But the houses are kind of slow.”
In the past year, Stang and her fellow commissioners have been asked to approve at least five significant subdivisions ranging from 38 to 80 lots. Sometimes it got nasty.
In one case last spring, the commission ignored a recommendation by the county planning board and approved a 58-lot development near Cyr. Two members of the planning board quit, one calling the decision “an embarrassment to any people in government.”
“When I was first commissioner we had, like, one or two subdivisions, then we had as many subdivisions in five years as we had for the whole history of the county,” Stang said. “It didn't use to matter, but it's getting where it's too much of a conflict anymore. I don't feel very comfortable. I figured like, ‘Well, better choose one or the other.' ”
The wild card in Mineral County development is Plum Creek. The former timberlands management company is selling land left and right in Montana and elsewhere, and it's developing some of the rest.
Plum Creek has sold some 20 parcels in Mineral County. The first five went to a company that logged them within view of I-90 on the way up Lookout Pass.
Plum Creek's real estate division has also gained preliminary approval for Crystal View, a 38-lot subdivision on Quartz Road east of Superior. But the company isn't tipping its hand if it has more development in mind.
“My understanding is ... basically this is like a test subdivision for them,” Read said. “Is it going to work well for them? Is it going to sell well in the county?”
Much of Plum Creek's holdings are in the Fish Creek drainage, where three potential housing sites have been sold. All are on tracts of 160 acres or more, which eliminates the state requirement for a survey, something that could cost $15,000 to $20,000 in that rugged area, Read said.
Subdivision laws restrict building on grades of
25 percent or more, which seriously limits construction up Fish Creek and elsewhere in the county.
“There are some of those Plum Creek lands that are way up there, no power, and access to water would be a challenge,” Chamberlain noted.
Thus, the terrain of Mineral County that tends to draw people in will keep all but a few moneyed people from staying.
“You can't (overbuild) in Mineral County, you just can't,” Harding said.
“I don't look for a flood, I really don't,” said Conrow. “But I don't know, maybe Ravalli County didn't look for a flood either.”
Reporter Kim Briggeman can be reached at 523-5266 or at kbriggeman@missoulian.com
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