Dakin sells real estate office to Whitefish partners
Bill Dakin, left, Bob Foley and Brian Murphy. Dakin sold his offcice to the partners recently.
Longtime Columbia Falls real estate broker Bill Dakin has sold his Re/Max Mountain View office building and business to Bob Foley and Brian Murphy, who own Re/Max Rocky Mountain real estate office in Whitefish.
Dakin grew up in Columbia Falls. He has a history degree from Montana State University and a master’s degree in anthropology from the University of Montana. He spent 12 years plowing snow on Glacier Park’s Going-to-the-Sun Road as a member of the road crew. But in the late 1980s he was on the Flathead County Planning Board and he noticed the Canyon wasn’t getting a fair share in its real estate values.
So he quit the Park Service in 1988 and joined Columbia Falls Realty, which was owned by Sharon Wilson and Karl K. Sorenson. Living in Coram at the time, he became an agent for the Canyon area. It was a tough time to be in real estate. Mortgage rates were 11-12 percent.
But Dakin persevered in the Canyon.
“I’d like to think I got them some respect and fair value for the properties,” he said in an interview last week.
Dakin and Julie Plevel partnered in 2001 to start Re/Max Mountain View in Columbia Falls.
Plevel retired in 2014 after a battle with cancer.
All told, Dakin has spent 28 years in the local real estate business. He said the sale he was most proud of was convincing Mildred Claire to sell her 35 acres to School District 6 on Talbott Road for the new junior high.
He said he’d visit her a couple times a month and they’d sit together and talk, smoking Marlboro cigarettes. After about 6 months of visits, she decided to sell. Dakin also said he enjoyed helping the Lundgren family sell its property in West Glacier and the Ridenour family with a sale that resulted in a fishing access site on Lake Five.
Dakin isn’t retiring immediately. He said he plans on staying on for at least a year, but he’s not taking on any new customers. Dakin and his wife, Sarah, are building a home on Echo Lake.
Foley and Murphy bought Rocky Mountain Real Estate in 2014 from Greg Carter and recently became a Re/Max franchise.
They’re currently working on a couple of large projects in Columbia Falls, including Mountain Watch near Meadow Lake Resort and Timber Ridge on Highway 40.
“We thought it would be great to open an office and get exposure here,” Foley said last week.
The staff at the Columbia Falls office will stay with the firm. Combined, both offices will have 16 real estate agents.
The market in Columbia Falls is definitely picking up right now. There’s a high demand for homes in the $180,000 to $220,000 price range. Homes in Whitefish, even small bungalows in the city, are pricing in the $300,000 range, Foley noted.
Columbia Falls, in turn, is becoming a valuable market. As the city sees a revitalization in the post Great Recession era, people can get more home for their money, Foley noted.
The same goes for the Canyon.
Foley said the community is an attractive place.
“They want to see growth,” he said. “But they want to see smart growth. They want to see the downtown area revitalized.”