Bozeman is ranked the 3rd best winter city to live in as determined by Livability.com. Anchorage and Fargo lead the list. To be considered a winter city, the average January temperature had to be below freezing. The determinants of BEST included cold-weather dependent activities, affordable housing, and low unemployment rates. “Bozeman averages more than 90 inches of snow each year, which means there’s plenty of white stuff for snowboarding, snowmobiling, cross-country and Nordic skiing,” the article states. “And when the rest of the country is celebrating the arrival of spring, Bozeman area ski resorts are still packing powder.”   Livability.com lists the average January low in Bozeman at 14 degrees, median home price at $201,869 and an unemployment rate of 6.5 percent. If you want to ... 12/25/2011

Bozemanproduces 16 National Merit Semi-Finalists! As we market Bozeman Montana as a fantastic place to raise your family, the article in the Bozeman Daily Chronicle sure reminded us that this truly is a wonderful place to live! We may be a small community, but Gallatin County has produced 16 National Merit Semi-Finalists, and one student that scored a perfect score on her SATs!  This is a huge achievement for any school to boast, but one Bozeman High School gets to lay claim to. Bozeman High offers so many opportunities for these gifted students some of which are:                                                              1.      Gate Classes for Gifted Freshmen      2.      College level Advanced Placement courses      3.     Speech and Debate Team      4.      Marching Band (this is... 12/24/2011

Is now the time to buy your new Bozeman home? As a Bozeman Real Estate agent I get asked on a regular basis how the market is doing.  It comes up over dinner, at any event I attend, and sometimes just in passing.  It is a topic on everyones’ minds, seems we all have to have a place to live and the American Dream is still to be a home owner. The answer is a little more involved than a simple yes, it’s a great time to buy!  It is dependent on the personal situation you are in.  Let’s take a look a few scenarios: Long term Real Estate investors:  Are you looking to purchase some investments?  Wanting to supplement your income for the long haul and plan on that same income for retirement?  It is an awesome time to purchase.  Interest rates make the payment low enough that, for the first tim... 12/22/2011

Bozeman Going Green! Bozeman is going green.  At least the street lights are.  The city will be replacing our lighting with LED’s in January and February.  They have budgeted $8,800 to make this happen, but expect they will be 80% more efficient, hoping to reduce the monthly $32,000 electric bill. (Wow, can you imagine budgeting that into your household budget?). Residents should notice the change, the lights producer a whiter light and should be less harmful to the fantastic night skies we have.                                                                                                 Photo by Joe Bergantine 12/20/2011

Gallatin County  Jail Celebrates 100 years! It was the December 100 years ago that Gallatin County opened the new jail in  Bozeman.  The building no longer houses criminals, but instead, hosts the Pioneer Museum, with plenty of evidence that it was the jail house for 70 years!  There are gruesome reminders, like the hangmans’ noose and trap door, along with the isolation cell called “Siberia”, that some terrible criminals were kept here.  In 1911, the construction cost was $33,932, quite a sum for those days.  The Historical society maintains the building at no cost to tax payers these days, it relies entirely on donations of good doers instead.  The Pioneer Museum houses 12,000 artifacts, 17,000 photos, and a mess of newspapers, tapes, films and transcripts.  It is toured by school chi... 12/18/2011

Bozeman National Guard Armory Now Kipton Hotel Article revised and moved to: https://www.taunyafagan.com/history-bozeman-armory-hotel/Dynamic, Proactive, Tireless...  giving you the advantage...®406.579.9683 - taunya at taunyafagan.com - 3960 Valley Commons Drive, Ste 1, Bozeman MT 59718 (Updated 10.27.20) 12/16/2011

Yet another award this week, Best Winter City, #3 Bozeman Montana, according to Livability's "Top Ten Winter Cities" BozemanAccording to Patrick Coleman, CEO of the Winter Cities Institute, "Bozeman, Montana is a winter city that makes a good effort to enhance winter living."In the winter, Bozemanites enjoy skate and classic skiing on the area's many groomed trails; downhill skiing and snowboarding at some of North America's finest ski areas (Bridger Bowl, Big Sky Resort, Moonlight Basin); world-class ice climbing in Hyalite Canyon; snowmobiling on Montana State and US Federal lands; ice skating and hockey playing on Bozeman's many skating rinks; winter Biathlon events.Coming Sports Attractions in Bozeman MT in 2012 include: Montana State University, in conjunction with Bozeman's Bridge... 12/15/2011

Baby Formula Collection     For the last four years there has been a program in the     Bozeman area for collecting formula during this time of    the year to distribute to families who have infants in    need.  Most of us know that formula is terribly    expensive, but invaluable to babes who have mothers    that cannot nurse for one reason or another.     This program was brought to us by Kama Werner who    had heard about another new mother that watered    down the formula to make it stretch, only to have her    infant hospitalized for malnutrition.  After hearing this heart wrenching story, she started the Baby Formula Food Bank Drive that runs from Thanksgiving to December 22nd in the Gallatin Valley. Please don’t let the formula aisle overwhelm you, just pick a can and deliver it ... 12/14/2011

This article appeared on the ABC News website about Bozeman based builder Anders Lewendal.  Lewendal is a former economist turned builder who set out to construct a home in Bozeman with only materials made in the USA. Made in America: A Blueprint for Creating JobsStory by David Muir and Ben Forer In Bozeman, Mont., Anders Lewendal is hard at work building a home he hopes will be a blueprint for creating jobs in America. Lewendal, an economist turned builder, is constructing a house made entirely from U.S.-made products. Everything from the nails, screws and bolts, to the steel, staples and bathtub is made in the United States. "Every piece here is made in America," he said. Lewendal is convinced that if every builder bought just 5 percent more U.S.-made materials, they would create 220,... 12/13/2011

The Warming Center shelter for the Bozeman area’s homeless has opened for the season, though it has yet to raise enough money to stay open all winter. The no-frills Warming Center opened the day after Thanksgiving, five weeks earlier than last year. It is again located in an old office building on the west side of the Gallatin County Fairgrounds, but this winter it has several improvements.   Instead of outhouses, it has an indoor toilet. It has added bunk beds, thanks to donated lumber from Simkins-Hallain Lumber Co. and volunteer labor, so that the maximum number of people it can accommodate has increased from 18 to 24. In addition to cards and a few games for entertainment, it now has a small donated TV that can pick up a few local stations. Kim Wattam, who worked at the Warming Cent... 12/13/2011

From Yellowstone Park and Big Sky to the Bridger Range and the Crazy Mountains there are abundant activities for you and your kids to do.December 2011: From skiing and snowboarding to hiking and hunting, the southwest Montana region, with Bozeman at its hub, has excellent public and private schools, a major university -- Montana State (MSU) -- shops, museums (Museum of the Rockies with its dinosaurs), art galleries, music venues, health clubs...all sorts of indoor and outdoor forms of entertainment. For more information on the rating of Bozeman 2012: Best Places To Raise Your Kids, go to Bloomberg BusinessWeek. In 1864, W.W. Alderson described Montana's Gallatin Valley as "one of the most beautiful and picturesque valleys the eye ever beheld, abounding in springs of clear water."In the ... 12/13/2011

Toyota In Bozeman…. Toyota was in Bozeman on Sunday in the downtown area shooting their new commercial.  If you want a sneak preview and some insight on how they accomplished this watch the clip below or check out Toyota.  While you’re watching TV, be sure to pay attention when the commercial is aired and see if you can pick out your favorite downtown business.  If you haven’t visited us in the past, maybe you can get a glimpse of why we love our town and choose to call it home.  Call me for a tour of Bozeman Homes for Sale! 12/13/2011

Warning!            Cell Phone Laws in Affect in Bozeman! Yes, we are a little slower than most of the rest of the country.  However, very recently the city did pass a law restricting cell phone use in Bozeman while you are driving or riding your bicycle!  Starting on January 17, 2012 you could get a ticket folks, one worth $100 (how many lattes will that buy you?). While most of us agree cell phone use is dangerous while driving, there are some out there that think this is an assault on their freedom and just one more law to obey in town.  I for one am using my hands free and I am expecting a safer environment while driving in town. 12/12/2011

Bozeman voted Best Place to Raise Your Kids! Here in Bozeman we have always been proud of where we live and what we have to offer families.  Once more, we have been voted the best place to raise your kids for 2012 by Bloomberg Businessweek. Our school district is working diligently hand in hand with the individual schools to improve academics here consistently.  They have developed new fast response to help struggling students at one end of the spectrum and have consistently ranked amongst the highest test scores. We value family life and interaction with our children.  There are multiple activities both during the warm months and the winter months to enjoy your loved ones.  Hiking, camping, skiing, tubing (either snow or water), Museum of the Rockies, Lewis and Clark Caverns, Emerson C... 12/11/2011

One-Year Cap of Foreclosures Deficiencies The House of Representatives introduced a new bill on Tuesday that seeks to limit and standardize the timeline in which a mortgage company can go after a home owner following a foreclosure for a deficiency judgment. Dubbed the Fairness in Foreclosure Act of 2011 (H.R. 3566) wants to place a one-year cap on deficiency judgment (with the exception of states that already have shorter time limits in place). In addition, the bill proposes that mortgage lenders will not be allowed to go after “low-income” borrowers for a deficiency judgment. "A deficiency judgment after foreclosure seems to be one of the greatest injustices that occur to home owners after they have gone through the arduous foreclosure process," Rep. Edolphus “Ed” Towns, D-N.Y., who in... 12/09/2011

 New Safeway store opens~ This is a follow up to the story I did not too long ago about growth in the Bozeman area where I featured a few of our businesses that were expanding. As of Friday, December 2, 2011, the old Safeway store has closed and the new store has opened, as you can see on this camera.  Some of the bragging rights include 130 new jobs that they created when they closed the old store and opened the new, and the application to become one of only 200 LEED-certified grocery stores in the nation.  This title was earned in the green construction process they implemented from the demolition of the building that was there to the choice of refrigeration systems with fewer emissions.  We are proud that more than half of the building materials came from within 500 miles of Bozeman ... 12/09/2011

C.h.r.i.s.t.m.a.s S.t.r.o.l.l Capturing both the Montana and the season spirit, Bozeman’s Main Street Christmas Stroll is an event that evokes awe and warmth (although it was a particularly cold evening). Held once a year to kick off the holidays in the downtown area, stores come out onto the streets to serve food, warm drinks, and other goodies. There are hay rides offered, Santa is in attendance, gingerbread house building contests, carolers, and a lighting ceremony for the downtown decorations. All and all it reminds me how, even though Bozeman is growing every day, it will always remain true to the good old small town sense of community interaction.            On the night of the Christmas Stroll, there is even a little more magic to how much the people all come together.  If you ha... 12/07/2011

Finding new Bozeman Listings Part of the procedures in our office includes helping home owners in the Gallatin Valley that have been marketing with another firm and have not been successful in selling their home.   Weekly we send out an invitation to recently expired listings to call us for a unique and positive experience during the marketing period. We include a detailed outline for the initial 90 days, an outline for refreshing their listing at the 90 day mark, and a strategy for communication that is unparalleled.  The package includes copies of the first pages of all three websites their listings will be featured on, an example of the individual listing web page we build, a list of websites we syndicate their listing to, and a list of reviews from previous clients. As an office and... 12/04/2011

Want Information on Bozeman Homes for Sale? As a dedicated Bozeman real estate agent, I am always looking for new solutions to get information in the hands of new home purchasers when they want it.  Now, if you want information on Bozeman homes for sale, you can simply text BMRE to 59559 and then reply with the address.  In seconds you can receive all the photos, price, bedrooms, bathrooms, and other pertinent details from the comfort of your car, or while on a walk, or even while looking at an ad in the paper! If you are an agent and would like to research this new possibility, go to www.kwkly.com.  Rachel has been a dream to work with in setting this up for us and has provided us a wonderful new opportunity to provide our Bozeman MT homes buyer with instant gratification!             ... 12/03/2011

A lone car drifts off the road, facing an oncoming semi, and rolls to get out of its deadly path…      From this crushed tin can, a man crawls out. He seems untouched, unscathed. But he knows his partner inside is not.  With disregard to his own body, sore and aching, he helps lift her limp body after it collapses trying to escape.  He has no formal training for this moment. Off of his back he takes his shirt and holds her head against him. Paramedics arrive. They are rushed to the ER. No one even knows the man was in the car with her.  The whole time my marketing manager, Brittney, was in the hospital, her boyfriend never took credit for all he did. He was certainly her guardian angel. A dozen people stopped and played a role in getting Brittney off the road. After a full day in the ER... 12/01/2011