HELENA - An interim legislative committee voted Thursday to endorse a bill that would make public the sale prices of residential and commercial real estate.

The Revenue and Transportation Interim Committee, by wide margins, endorsed two separate bills that will be introduced in the 2011 Legislature to make these prices public. Sales prices of agricultural and industrial property would continue to remain confidential.

Only Montana and nine other states by law keep real estate sales prices confidential, while it's public information in the other 40 states.

Realtors, however, can learn the sales prices because people in their industry submit the prices to their proprietary Multiple Listing Service.

Joe Roberts, lobbyist for the Montana Association of Realtors, opposed the bills, saying he considered making the sales prices public a violation of the state constitutional right to privacy.

However, Revenue Department officials said last month that making the sales prices public might help reduce the reappraisal "sticker shock" if homeowners could learn what similar homes in their neighborhood sell for. The agency didn't endorse the bill.