The couple, who have an 8-month-old daughter, are moving back to Salt Lake City to be closer to family.
So far, they haven't received any phone calls or inquiries about the house, but they remain upbeat.
In the first half of 2008, local home prices have cooled slightly, there is greater inventory and homes are taking longer to sell, according to data compiled by the Missoula Organization of Realtors.
The median price for homes in the greater Missoula area has slipped, dropping from $210,000 in the first half of 2007 to about $208,000 in the same period this year.
Homes are taking about four months to sell, or about two weeks longer than was the case in the first half of 2007.
In the greater Missoula area, there was a 35-percent drop in the number of homes sold this June compared with the same month last year - or about 94 homes sold instead of 145.
Residential listings in the $150,000 to $200,000 price range, as well as those with $275,000 to $350,000 price tags, sold more quickly than others for the month of June, according to MOR data. Homes priced at $457,000 or above had the slowest sales for the same period.
There are more houses for sale this year, giving buyers greater selection, real estate agents said.
In a snapshot of active listings taken on July 7, there were 775 homes for sale in the greater Missoula area. Comparable active listings for the same period last year were not available.
But more and more homes are going on the market in western Montana. There were about 3,338 properties for sale on the multiple listing service this July, as compared with about 2,707 in early July of 2007, according to MOR.
Brint Wahlberg, a Realtor with ReMax in Missoula, said he urges sellers to be more patient and price their homes realistically. He tells people their homes are likely to be on the market for four to six months.
“We are coaching our sellers that they need to be more patient and much smarter with your pricing,” he said. “It's not working anymore to bump up the prices with a buffer for negotiations.”
For buyers, the greater number of homes on the market gives them more choice and, in same cases, the ability to negotiate on price.
“For the buyers who are qualified and ready to go, this is a good market to be looking around in,” Wahlberg said.
As the housing market slows, sellers are trying their own marketing and offering lease-to-own options as well as using traditional real estate agents.
The Taits, who've lived in their home for 23 months, wanted to try and sell their Canyon Creek Village home themselves instead of paying fees for a real estate agent. They listed their 1,750-square-foot house on craigslist.org and homesforsalebyowner.com.
“If we want to get any of our equity, then we have to sell it ourselves. So we're trying this at first,” said Jody Tait. “I'm optimistic - it's a good value, with four bedrooms, on a corner lot and across from a park.”
He said his new employer in Utah is lenient about when he'll start his new job.
“We're not in a huge hurry,” he said.
With credit tightening for some borrowers, lease-to-own options are gaining popularity, said several real estate agents.
Don Cole, an agent with Montana Preferred Properties and a loan officer for Cornerstone Mortgage Co., said he gets two to four people into homes each month with lease options.
“With the lending programs changing, we just don't have the options,” he said. “Probably more than half of the people going into lease options could have bought the homes outright a year ago.”
He said he showed a lease-to-own home on Montrose Drive three times on the same day this week. People are willing to pay slightly more than they would for a rental because they'll have an option to buy the property in two years, he said.
And, if the option is used, the seller receives slightly higher payments each month and has a known price for the home in two years.
In this property, he said the buyer gains a $400 credit a month from the $1,380 monthly payment under the arrangement for the $187,500 home.
A lease option “puts the buyer in the driver's seat. If property values escalate above their buy-out price, they've gained equity. They can also walk away for any reason,” Cole said.
Of course, if they walk away, they don't recoup the equity and have paid more each month for the home.
Asked to characterize the local market, Cole said, “Missoula is not really in the dumps. It isn't where it was, but nobody is. We are better off than many places.”
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