Authors
In the last few years, Montana has seen some of the nation’s fastest-increasing housing-affordability challenges. The price of a typical home in Montana has more than doubled over the last decade, exceeding $300,000 in November 2020 and $400,000 just 14 months later in January 2022. In 2022, about one in four Montanans was housing-cost-burdened, or paying more than 30 percent of their income on housing costs.
In 2023, Montana adopted a suite of land use policy changes intended to address the state’s burgeoning housing-affordability challenges. This included four slightly different regulatory reform bills that required cities with certain population levels to allow higher-density construction, such as multifamily housing in commercial areas, duplexes, and accessory dwelling units. A judicial injunction presently prevents implementation of half of the land use provisions. As Montana’s housing challenges have intensified, they’ve outpaced analysis and dissemination of many of the available data resources.
The Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis has developed a new data resource, the Montana Housing Dashboard, to both inform those addressing housing challenges in Montana and prepare for monitoring the impacts of land use regulation reforms on housing affordability if and when the state fully implements those changes. This effort builds on the Minneapolis Fed’s existing dashboard monitoring similar land use reforms in the City of Minneapolis and advances our efforts to provide data that inform policy and implementation conversations around housing affordability.
As a comprehensive tool to analyze Montana’s housing outcomes, the new dashboard includes nine broad housing indicators. For these indicators, which draw from data sources such as the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the U.S. Census Bureau, users can view trends over time or on a map of the state. Additionally, many of the indicators provide specific measurements or ways to disaggregate the data. In total, the dashboard provides data on 23 unique indicators. Housing stakeholders can look to the Montana Housing Dashboard to inform many different discussions and questions, especially those related to the impacts of current and future land use regulations.
The Minneapolis Fed will update the dashboard at least annually and continue to closely track these important outcomes as Montana’s housing challenges and policies evolve. Future data updates will expand the array of data on Montana available to users.
Libby Starling is Senior Community Development Advisor in Community Development and Engagement at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. She focuses on deepening the Bank’s understanding of housing affordability, concentrating on effective housing policies and practices that make a difference for low- and moderate-income families in the Ninth Federal Reserve District.
