RedHouse › Locations › Billings, MT
Billings
RedHouse Lending's Billings office. One loan officer based here; the whole team behind them.
- Address
- 80 25th St W, Suite 1, Billings, MT 59102
- Phone
- (866) 722-4282
- Hours
- Monday to Friday, 8am to 5pm
- Areas served
- Downtown, the Heights, the West End, Laurel, Yellowstone County
In Billings
About the area
Montana is a beautiful place with friendly people. Whether you are looking at property in one of our small cities, a small town, or out in a rural area, you may be surprised by how willing people are to be helpful and welcoming. I was born and raised on a farm near Circle, and I have spent most of my adult life in Great Falls. I keep offices in both Great Falls and Billings so I can serve clients and agents around the state.
What first-time buyers ask me
Surprisingly, the interest rate is not what most first-time buyers want to talk about. Costs and payments are. I spend the time it takes to go over expected closing costs, and what a payment would look like under different loan types, different down payments, mortgage insurance, and down payment assistance. What matters to me is that a first-time buyer does not run into an unexpected surprise anywhere in the process, from pre-approval through closing and after.
Assistance programs I use
A lot of lenders now offer their own down payment assistance alongside the state and local programs. The costs and the rules vary quite a bit from one to the next, so it is worth taking the time to compare what is actually available to you rather than assuming there is only one option.
A closing that stuck with me
The closings that get stressful are the ones where several transactions have to come together in a short window. The buyer is selling another property and needs those proceeds to close on the new one. Their seller may be waiting to close on something of their own. And all of it is scheduled across three successive days. At that point my job is to communicate constantly with everyone and keep the process moving, step by step. There are a lot of moving parts between agents, processors, underwriters, title and closing agents, and the buyers and sellers themselves. My goal is to stay informed enough that I can calmly tell every one of them that progress is being made.
— Linda Drummond, Loan Officer · NMLS 2742218
Financing a home in Billings
Billings is Montana’s largest city and the medical, retail and transportation hub for a wide stretch of the eastern half of the state. That means the buyers this office works with are rarely all from Billings. Plenty are moving in from Hardin, Roundup, Red Lodge or the Hi-Line for work; plenty more already live here and are moving across town. Those are two different files, and it helps to know which one you are before you start looking at houses.
Downtown, the Heights, the West End and out toward Laurel
The Heights and the West End carry most of the volume, and the housing stock in each is different enough to matter once an appraiser is involved. Older homes closer to downtown and on the South Side can bring the condition items that government-backed programs look at closely — roof, foundation, older wiring, peeling paint on a pre-1978 house. Newer construction on the West End and in Lockwood raises different questions instead, like whether a subdivision is complete and how a homeowners association or special improvement district is structured.
A few miles past the city limits, the questions change again. Acreage around Shepherd, Huntley and Molt often comes with a private well and a septic system, and a lender will want water testing, septic sign-off and a clear picture of how the property is legally accessed. Some of those addresses also sit inside USDA’s rural eligibility area, which is determined address by address rather than by town name — worth checking on a specific property before you rule it out.
Why the broker model matters in a market this varied
RedHouse Lending is a broker, so we place your file with the lender whose guidelines actually fit the property and the income in front of us. In a market where a 1920s bungalow, a 2023 build and a house on ten acres with a well can all be in the same price conversation, that flexibility does more work than it would in a subdivision where every house is the same.
You work with one loan officer in this office from the first phone call through closing. No call center, no handoffs, no starting your story over for the fourth time.