Land and acreage
Water, septic, access. The questions to ask before you write a check.
Land
Land here is its own market.
Land.com and LandWatch list roughly a billion dollars of farm, ranch and land in Flathead County, close to 100,000 acres of it. Most of the rules are not visible from the road.
Agricultural and land appraisal is where I spent most of twenty years: soils, carrying capacity, outbuildings, easements, water. Buyers from out of state routinely underestimate how much of a parcel's use is decided before they ever get there.
Water rights don't come with the creek. Neither does a legal approach, a septic permit, or the right to split the parcel later. I will walk it with you and we will find out what is actually there.
- Water right: whether there is one, whether it is decreed, and whether it transfers.
- Well log and flow rate, or what it costs to drill one.
- Septic: a perc test and a county permit before the offer, not after.
- Legal access, and who maintains and plows the road.
- Zoning, subdivision review, and covenants that limit what you can build.
- Wildfire exposure, defensible space, and what insurance will cost.
- Grazing leases, ag use, and the tax classification that comes with them.
Let's talk
Looking at a parcel?
Send me the address or the listing link. I will tell you what I would check first, and what I would want to see before you write an offer on it.
Or call or text 406-721-3940. I return calls the same day.