When Mark Zuckerberg bought a 5,000 sq ft, 5 bedroom, 5.5 bath home in Palo Alto, CA in March 2011, he probably never thought of how much money he could save by buying a very similar home right here in Billings, MT.

Irrelevant? Maybe. While I highly doubt it would make any sense at all for Mark Zuckerberg to move to Billings to save $6.5 million dollars, it’s still interesting to ponder the differences between the Billings real estate market and other areas.

It is a little hard to estimate the value of an imaginary home, so I took what little information I could find about Zuck’s home and pulled sales data for similar Billings homes. My final estimate would be about $484k. However, this doesn’t accurately account for the neighborhood, lot size or amenities of the home. If I had all of the information and could get a feel for neighborhood placement, I would be able to pull together a more accurate estimate.