The Missoula Organization of Realtors released their annual housing report today, March 30, and while home values in the county are up, the supply of homes on the market has hit a record low.

"In Missoula in 2016, we had 1,392 Residential Sales reported in our Multiple Listing Service, which is pretty much flat, when it comes to volume increase over the year before: it was technically only two more sales, but what we did see a 6.8 percent rise in the median sales price," said local Real Estate Agent Brint Wahlberg, who helped to crunch the numbers behind the report.

The median sales price is now $255,000 and Wahlberg says one of the drivers pushing prices up is a lack of inventory. Whereas a healthy housing supply might have six months of inventory, Missoula has much, much less.

"This is a lack of supply that we've never seen before in this market," Wahlberg said. "The amount of sales activity in the last 30 days compared to the amount total supply puts our total market supply right now at around four months of supply, but when you drill down to the heart of our market, between $200,000 to $275,000 and $275,000 - $350,000, we're at just about one month of supply"

According to Wahlberg, new construction is just about the only answer to Missoula’s home supply issue, but it will take around three years at least before supply of homes catches up with demand.

More From Newstalk KGVO 1290 AM & 98.3 FM