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Tibbles open Polson real estate office

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A love of Montana and a heart for the Polson community prompted Carol and Tom Tibbles to open a Polson office of Clearwater Montana Properties at 201 Main Street, right on the southeast corner of Main Street and Highway 93. 

“Location, location, location,” Carol said of the visible office with constant foot traffic. “Tom refers to this as ‘the Times Square of Polson.’”

The real estate market is in an upswing, Carol said. As potential buyers and sellers drop by the new office, buyer inquiries are also coming in from out of state. 

“Prices are more realistic,” Carol said, “and with interest rates still down it is definitely the time to make a move, whether downsizing or a first-time homebuyer.”

With rentals properties few and far between, monthly mortgage payments are similar in price to rent payments, making homeownership appealing, according to Carol. 

Clearwater Montana Properties was co-founded in 1994 by Kevin Wetherell, a fifth-generation Montanan. Since opening the first office east of the Mission Mountains in Seeley Lake, the company has grown into a network of 29 locations across Montana staffed with 75 full-time agents and brokers. 

Having a network of offices across the state means property can be advertised in all areas in the Multiple Listing Services in Montana.

In 2007, Clearwater Montana Properties was chosen as the exclusive Montana participant for Cabela’s Trophy Properties — properties that lend themselves to hunting and fishing. Properties listed with Cabela’s Trophy Properties are transmitted not only through Cabela’s resource website, but also 575 other websites, drawing about 25,000 unique visitors per month.

During 2013, Clearwater Montana Properties and Cabela’s Trophy Properties sold 118 trophy properties, 56 residential sales, 38 land transactions, 23 ranch sales and one commercial sale.

“The company grew 80 percent last year,” Carol said. “That’s phenomenal growth, but that also goes in tune with the pickup of real estate.” 

Supporting community is a priority for all Clearwater Montana Properties through their Charitable Giving Program, which provides for a portion of every transaction to be designated to the service group or charitable organization of the agent’s choosing. At the end of each year, a check is presented.

The Polson office has chosen the Boys and Girls Club of The Flathead Reservation and Lake County to be their recipient. 

“Our son went there after school and in the summer,” Carol said. “I can’t think of a better recipient, and it’s not just for Polson, but for all of Lake County.” 

Since the inception of the Charitable Giving Program in 2000, Clearwater Montana Properties across the state has given back more than $218,000.

Although Clearwater Montana Properties is new to Polson, Carol and Tom Tibbles are seasoned sellers. Tom, born and raised in Montana and a Montana State University graduate, is an architect as well as a Realtor. When Tom met Carol, a broker and a city girl from Michigan, his hunting and fishing stories about Montana intrigued Carol. They married and spent years living in Hawaii as Tom’s architect business flourished. Eventually, Tom yearned to return to his Montana roots. While on a hunting trip in the Swan Valley, Tom bought a bar and returned home to Hawaii with the news. 

Carol said she was reluctant to leave Hawaii for Montana — “I was hanging onto the doorknob,” she said.

The couple moved to the Swan in 1993, and became friends with Wetherell. Wetherell later helped the Tibbles sell their bar through Clearwater Montana Properties. In 1998 Carol and Tom moved to Hot Springs and into the real estate business, where they sold homes for as low as $7,000.

Three years later the couple bought their own franchise in Polson, Coldwell Banker Kingsley and Associates. That business transitioned into Coldwell Banker Gateway when the couple remodeled Prices restaurant into their rustic office next to First Interstate Bank in Polson. As the recession slowed the real estate market in 2008, they merged with Century 21.

Now six years later, their journey led the Tibbles to open the Polson office of Clearwater Montana Properties for Wetherell, working under Wayne Heaton, their supervising broker out of the Whitefish office.

Carol, a broker and short sale foreclosue resource specialist, and Tom, a sales associate, are joined in the Polson office by sales associate Kathy Crockett. Jeannette Carr and Trudy Berge take care of business in a satellite office in Hot Springs.

As for Carol, the beauty of the Treasure state has turned her into a true Montanan; there’s nowhere else on earth she’d rather live.

For more information, call Clearwater Montana Properties in Polson at (406) 571-2220.

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