The 2026 Gallatin Valley Housing Report, released Wednesday to a packed room of real estate professionals and a general public that could not attend because they were at work at their second jobs, confirms that the median home price in Bozeman has reached $800,000.

For context, $800,000 in 2019 bought a four-bedroom home on an acre in the Bridgers with a view of three mountain ranges. In 2026, it buys a three-bedroom ranch-style home on a quarter acre near the interstate with a view of the home that sold for $800,000 last year and is now worth $860,000.

“The market remains strong,” said Gallatin Association of Realtors president Cheryl Lundeen at the report’s unveiling. “Buyers are motivated, sellers are confident, and inventory is — " she paused to check her notes — “not great.”

Neighboring Manhattan, Montana, once considered the affordable alternative, now carries a median price of $625,000, a figure that caused several audience members to laugh, though it was unclear whether the laughter was directed at the price or at the memory of Manhattan ever being considered affordable.

Belgrade, traditionally the valley’s working-class anchor, reported a median of $485,000, which one attendee described as “the last exit before you just give up and rent forever.”

“I’ve been saving for a down payment for four years,” said Bozeman renter Kyle Amundsen, 31, a sous chef at a downtown restaurant. “Every year I get closer to my goal, and then my goal moves. It’s like financial interval training.”

The report notes that the average Bozeman buyer is now 42 years old, up from 36 in 2020, suggesting either that it takes longer to accumulate the necessary funds or that younger buyers have simply accepted their fate and stopped trying.

Commissioner Terry Wolfe called the numbers “a wake-up call,” which is what commissioners have called every housing report since 2018, by which point the community was presumably awake and simply unable to do anything about it.

Amundsen, the sous chef, said he’s considering relocating to Livingston. “At least the wind is free,” he said.