A house in Columbia Falls costs more than the same house would in Kalispell. Not by a little. According to the Northwest Montana Association of Realtors' 2025 annual figures, Columbia Falls posted a median single-family sale price of $600,000 last year against Kalispell's $560,000. That is a $40,000 gap in favor of the smaller town, the one with fewer restaurants, no comparable hospital campus, and a Main Street that still closes early on weeknights.

If you assumed the bigger city with more services would cost more, you are not wrong to be confused. The gap is real, and it has a specific cause. Columbia Falls has been selling scarcity, not just square footage. That scarcity is now breaking apart in full view, with a bulldozer already on site.

Fourteen Miles Bought the Premium

Columbia Falls sits roughly 14 miles from the west entrance to Glacier National Park. Kalispell sits about 32 miles out. That distance, compressed into a housing market, becomes a toll booth. Buyers who want to be close to Glacier without paying Whitefish prices have had exactly one other option, and they have bid it up.

Kalispell absorbed a wave of new apartment construction in 2025, including the 224-unit Parkline Towers, while Columbia Falls added almost nothing. The proximity premium held because the supply side simply did not move.

The Two Empty Lots That Explained Everything

City planning records reported earlier this year put a number on just how tight things had gotten: as of 2024, Columbia Falls had only two vacant multi-family lots left in the entire city. That is not a soft supply constraint. That is a market where a builder who wants to put up anything larger than a duplex has almost nowhere to put it.

The thinness shows up in the sales data too. Redfin's tracking put August 2026 sales at 17 homes citywide, with properties sitting a median 55 days on market, up slightly from 53 days the year before. A market that size will always produce noisy short-term numbers. Redfin's trailing three-month median through August, for instance, landed at $498,000, a figure that reflects which handful of homes happened to close rather than any broad repricing. Zillow's broader average value measure, updated August 31, 2026, put the typical Columbia Falls home at $610,243, up a modest 1.7% over the past year. That steadier number tracks much closer to the realtor association's $600,000 median than the thin monthly sales data does, and it is the one worth trusting if you are trying to read the market rather than a single month of transactions.

What Broke Ground This Month

The scarcity story just changed. Developer Mick Ruis started site work this month on Teakettle Heights, a 421-unit subdivision going up on 78 acres of former Columbia Falls Aluminum Company land south of Aluminum Drive. It is the largest single subdivision the city has ever approved, and it is no longer a rendering. Crews are moving dirt.

On September 18, Ruis told local reporters he had changed the layout. The plan originally called for 240 multifamily apartment units, some as tall as 45 feet, closest to the road. After hearing from neighbors in the existing Aluminum City neighborhood who were worried about losing views of Teakettle Mountain, Ruis shifted the mix toward single-story homes and townhomes along that edge, keeping the total unit count at 421. He said he intends to start with single-family construction first, with a goal of delivering the first homes within about 16 months.

The pricing structure is unusual for a project this size. Ruis has said he plans to sell homes in the $550,000 to $600,000 range with an alternative financing package: 2% down and a mortgage rate roughly one point below market, subject to approval, with no bulk or investor purchases allowed. He has also set aside roughly 1,850 of the 2,400 acres he purchased for a personal ranch, so the subdivision itself occupies a fraction of his total holdings.

Teakettle Heights is not the only project adding to the count. Taken together, the pipeline looks like this:

• Teakettle Heights: 421 units, groundbreaking underway, first homes targeted within roughly 16 months
• A 40-unit apartment complex near Meadow Lake Boulevard and Best Way Drive, built by Norton Luxury Homes and approved by the city council in March 2026
• A separately proposed 175-unit single-family development, reported by the Daily Inter Lake in January 2026
• Six homes from Habitat Flathead on Railroad Street and 4th Avenue, on city-donated land held by the Northwest Montana Community Land Trust, designated to stay permanently affordable

That is more than 600 units moving through the pipeline in a city that had two vacant multi-family lots two years ago. Not all of it will land on the same timeline, and some of it may not land at all. But the direction of the number has flipped for the first time in years.

The Superfund Line Buyers Actually Need to Draw

Any buyer who searches Columbia Falls will run into the word Superfund fairly quickly, because Teakettle Heights sits on part of the former CFAC aluminum plant site. The federal designation covers roughly 960 acres of that historic property, and it is real. Governor Greg Gianforte and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin toured the site on September 17 to mark progress on a cleanup agreement that has Glencore, the Swiss commodities firm that has owned the property since 1999, funding $57.6 million in remediation plus $1.8 million in past costs. A slurry wall meant to keep contaminated groundwater from reaching the Flathead River is targeted for completion in 2029.

The distinction that matters for a buyer is that the specific 78-acre parcel where Teakettle Heights is being built was tested separately and cleared for residential use, according to the Daily Inter Lake. No wells can be dug on that land, and the subdivision will run entirely on city water and sewer instead. Tony Haag, who leads the Coalition for a Clean CFAC, has said his group's focus now is making sure the EPA keeps the public informed as remediation continues elsewhere on the property. That is a reasonable thing to want, and it is also a separate question from whether the specific lot a buyer is considering sits inside the tested and cleared boundary. Anyone evaluating a home near the CFAC land should ask which parcel it is on and whether that parcel has its own clearance, not just whether the word Superfund shows up on a map.

The Detour That Comes With the Timing

Buyers closing in Columbia Falls over the next year are also buying into a construction zone. The city's $9.4 million Gateway to Glacier Safety and Mobility project, built by contractor Nelcon Inc., is rebuilding 1.3 miles of roadway and adding 1.7 miles of sidewalk and a mile of shared-use path along 4th Avenue West and 7th Street West, funded mostly by a $10 million federal RAISE grant. Work is scheduled through September 2027. For anyone using Nucleus Avenue or the downtown corridor as a daily route, that is a real, if temporary, cost of buying in now rather than after the ribbon gets cut.

What This Means If You're Comparing Columbia Falls to Kalispell Right Now

The premium was never really about Columbia Falls being a nicer place to live than Kalispell. It was about there being almost nothing else to buy. That constraint is loosening, but not all at once. Ruis is starting with single-family homes, which means the segment competing most directly with existing Columbia Falls inventory could see relief within roughly a year and a half, while the multifamily portion of the pipeline will take longer. If you are flexible on timing, a purchase timed to when Teakettle's first owner-financed homes deliver may land in a different market than the one showing $600,000 medians today. If you need to move now, expect to still be competing for a genuinely tight supply of existing homes for at least another construction season.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is it safe to buy near Teakettle Heights given the Superfund designation? The specific 78-acre parcel where the subdivision is being built was tested by the EPA and cleared for residential use without required remediation. The broader 960-acre CFAC property remains under active cleanup, with a slurry wall targeted for 2029. Ask which parcel a specific listing sits on rather than treating the whole CFAC name as one uniform status.

Will 600 new units bring Columbia Falls prices down? It is too early to say with confidence. Single-family homes are scheduled to arrive first, potentially within about 16 months, while the multifamily portion will likely take longer. Watch the pace of completions rather than the announced total.

Should I wait until the Gateway to Glacier project finishes to buy downtown? That depends on how much daily disruption matters to you. Construction runs through September 2027 along 4th Avenue West and 7th Street West. Some buyers will prefer to buy now and live through the work. Others will prefer to wait for the finished sidewalks and pathways.

If you are weighing Columbia Falls against Kalispell, Whitefish, or anywhere else in the Flathead Valley, the numbers change fast enough that a conversation beats a spreadsheet. Liz McGavin works with relocating families and second-home buyers across the valley every day and can walk you through what this pipeline actually means for your price range and your timeline. Schedule a free consultation or request a complimentary home valuation to start the conversation.

This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.