Montana's big sky is falling, if only in pieces, and those chunks are landing hard on the state's property tax coffers.

Last year, Montana accepted 240,000 applications from homeowners seeking a state-sponsored, flat, $400-per-home property tax rebate, due to soft and slipping home values.

Montana's Revenue Department assesses property taxes based, in part, on home values.

Now, the Treasure State is about to embark upon its regularly-scheduled statewide property reappraisal to bring more home values on par with market conditions.

The event could net some property owners a further reduction in their property taxes and further drain the state's property tax pot.

But don't count on a windfall just yet. Every homeowner may not get a property tax break. Some could even see an increase in property taxes.

Montana has suffered an increase in foreclosures and a decrease in sales, but home prices have been rising.

RealtyTrac.com reported that Montana's foreclosures increased 40 percent in the past year, but there's only about one foreclosure per 1,000 households. Compare that to Nevada's 1 foreclosure for every 50 households. Big difference.

The National Association of Realtors (NAR) says Montana's homes sales dropped more than 14 percent last year, but the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise (OFHEO) says home prices rose nearly 7 percent during the same period.

Overall, the state's rate of home price appreciation is the fourth fastest in the nation, but home price increases are not uniform.

Real estate agents who report to RealtyTimes Market Conditions for the capital city of Helena say prices were trending down in March. To the contrary, realty market reporters from Billings and Missoula said prices were trending up, slightly.

Published: May 5, 2008

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Broderick Perkins parlayed a career in old-school journalism into a contemporary digital news service that really hits home. The award-winning consumer journalist, originally from Wilmington, DE, is founder, publisher and executive editor of the bootstrap DeadlineNews Group, a Silicon Valley-based editorial content and consulting service specializing in residential real estate, consumer news and related editorial consulting services. The DeadlineNews Group includes the website, DeadlineNews.com, offering real estate editorial content and consulting services, and its back shop, the Deadline Newsroom, an open house on news that really hits home. Perkins obtained his formal journalism education from University of Delaware and a journalism boot camp, the Institute of Journalism Education at the University of California-Berkeley. He went on to 20 years of service as a daily newspaper journalist at the Wilmington, DE News Journal and San Jose, CA Mercury News. Perkins covered housing on the San Jose Mercury News reporting team which earned a General News Reporting Pulitzer Prize in 1989 for coverage of the Loma Prieta earthquake. He has also produced real estate, consumer and small business content for the Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, RealtyTimes.com, Nolo.com, Better Homes and Gardens, the National Association of Realtors, Homestore/Move and Intuit/Quicken among more than three dozen publications. In addition to managing the DeadlineNews Group, Perkins most recently served as chief editorial consultant for Nolo's Essential Guide To Buying Your First Home, Nolo, and writes real estate television scripts for RealtyTimes.com.