Montana sellers finance cabins, ranch ground, recreational parcels and homes in town. If you hold the note or contract, we collect offers from several buyers and show you the pricing behind each one.
What reduces offers on Montana notes and contracts.
The same worksheet comes with every offer.
| Remaining balance | $129,400 |
|---|---|
| Payments left | 168 |
| Buyer’s target yield | 8.0% |
| Purchase price | $115,000 |
| Discount from balance | 11.1% |
| Our fee | shown on every offer |
| Sell the whole note | Sell 60 payments | Keep it | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cash today | $115,000 | $56,200 | $0 |
| Payments still coming to you | None | 108 payments of $1,140 | 168 payments of $1,140 |
| Total you receive | $115,000 | $179,320 | $191,520 |
| What you give up | Every future payment | The next five years | A lump sum now |
Illustrative example. Totals add up the payments as scheduled; they assume the payer keeps paying and are not adjusted for the value of money over time.
The promissory noteThe mortgage or deed of trustA payment historyThe closing statement from the saleMontana is big, thinly settled and full of property that does not fit a bank’s checklist. Sellers carry financing on recreational parcels, on cabins, on ranch and pasture ground, and on tracts split off a larger place, sometimes to a buyer who lives in another state. Where the payer lives changes nothing, because the rules follow the land, and a note on property outside Montana belongs under its own state’s page. There are notes on houses too, in Billings, Missoula, Bozeman, Great Falls, Helena and Kalispell and around the Flathead Valley.
Seller financing has a long history here, and older sales were often written as a contract for deed, under which the seller keeps title until the price is paid. An escrow company may hold the documents and collect the payments. If one does, it has been keeping an independent payment record for you all along.
Montana uses more than one security instrument, so check what yours is called.
Which instrument can be used depends partly on the size and type of the parcel, and practice varies. A Montana attorney or title company can tell you what your document is and how it would be enforced today.
Buyers discount your future payments to get the return they want on their money, which is why the price falls below your balance. A trust indenture with a trustee’s sale is generally the easiest of the three for a buyer to price. A mortgage with court foreclosure costs them more to plan for, and a contract for deed goes to the smallest group of buyers.
The land itself matters as much as the paper. On a Montana parcel a buyer will ask:
Distance makes value harder to judge, and a cautious value means less equity in the buyer’s eyes. Equity is the property’s value less the debt against it. A large down payment and a long, clean payment record offset much of that, as they do on vacant land notes anywhere. Put what you know about access and utilities in writing when you send your Montana note in for pricing, since a buyer far from Montana will price the land on what you can document.
If an escrow company is involved, ask it for a full payment history and for copies of the documents it holds. That one request can produce most of what a buyer needs. Without escrow, locate the note or contract and the recorded security document, and pull bank statements that show the payments arriving. If the contract or trust indenture was recorded, the county clerk and recorder can supply a copy of that too.
It is Montana's form of a deed of trust: a document that secures a note against real estate and names a trustee. It generally allows a trustee's sale after a default. A Montana attorney or title company can confirm what your document is.
Yes. You assign your interest as seller, and the buyer of that interest receives the remaining payments. If an escrow company holds the documents and collects the payments, its records make the sale easier to price.
Yes, though fewer buyers bid on bare land than on a house. They look hard at access, utilities, the down payment and the payment record. A note with strong equity and years of payments can still draw competing offers.
It depends on the instrument. A trust indenture generally allows a non-judicial trustee's sale, while a mortgage is generally foreclosed through the courts. Practice varies with the property, so ask a Montana attorney about your situation.