Tell me why I shouldn't move to wyoming...

[StuckInTheEast]

Short term rentals in Jackson itself isn’t the issue, it’s the region. Big driver of home prices where most of the actual people live, which are also pushing people out of the area. Lots of towns in Wyoming where people hate short term rentals, not all centered on the parks. I bought a second place out of the area so I’d have a place to get away from Jackson some of the time. Plan was to short term rent, but it became clear pretty quick I wasn’t making any friends in my place to get away. I had every right to do it legally, but decided it wasn’t worth it.


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Its a slippery slope. I get the stigma, but I see the property owner side too. It's a legitimate business and investment strategy....but it does require some regulation to avoid conflicts especially in higher demand areas. I stand by my blown out of proportion overall comment though. At under 2% of the housing and with regulation coming into place i don't think STR is quite the devil many feel it is. However as you said, if people feel that way regardless of its actual effect, if any, on them...it certainly could make for rubs between niegbors.

 

[StuckInTheEast]

Here is the plan for success.

Move into a family ranch community. Buy up a big ranch. Cover it with no hunting signs. Complain to the state that you need all kinds of concessions…..public roads closed, etc. complain that the elk and deer are eating all your crops. Sell off to an out of state outfitter. Make sure they offer luxury hunts!

Then shoot yourself and demand you not be arrested. Finally run for governor or senator with like 90% or more out of state funding.

Are you a Navy Seal? I hear that helps.

….oh wait, you said Wyoming not Montana. Well, it should work there too. The locals love to be told what they are doing wrong!

I'm not extremely up on this subject...are you talking about Sheehy or an episode of Yellowstone I haven't seen yet?
Either way, no Navy seal(couldn't pass a hearing test to get in the service...tried 3 times)...and no family money or ranch with bunch of elk and deer to whine about so not sure this plan has much chance of success for me...but thanks for the ideas

 

[LFC911]

I am not sure if you said you were going to home-school your kids or if they were going to public schools. Either way I asked my nephew this past weekend why he moved to Bridger MT, vs a town in WY from a small town in KS. He is a sheep/cattle farmer. He was probably in his mid 30's and had young kids who went to public school. He said the reason that he didn't consider WY as much is that it was so remote. Meaning that if the kids had a FB/VB/BB game, they would have to go 3-4 hours to the away games in less than ideal weather. In Bridger he contrasted it was maybe 1-2 hours to the furthest competition. Just something else to consider. I too have dreams of moving to WY when i retire in 5 or so years.

 

[el_jefe_pescado]

I am not sure if you said you were going to home-school your kids or if they were going to public schools. Either way I asked my nephew this past weekend why he moved to Bridger MT, vs a town in WY from a small town in KS. He is a sheep/cattle farmer. He was probably in his mid 30's and had young kids who went to public school. He said the reason that he didn't consider WY as much is that it was so remote. Meaning that if the kids had a FB/VB/BB game, they would have to go 3-4 hours to the away games in less than ideal weather. In Bridger he contrasted it was maybe 1-2 hours to the furthest competition. Just something else to consider. I too have dreams of moving to WY when i retire in 5 or so years.

Bridger is a neat little place

 

[Mojave]

Options at price points:

1. $500,000 house and a couple acres. This is only really an option in southern Wyoming away from Cheyenne and Laramie. In Riverton, and maybe the Bighorn Valley. All of NE Montana, and no where else in Montana unless it is screaming remote.

2. $1,000,000 house and a couple acres. Most places in Wyoming and Montana except Jackson, Missoula, Kalispel, and Bozeman.

3. $5,000,000 house and a good sized property this is a 300-5000 acre place in most of the less desirable places in Wyoming and Montana.

4. $15,000,000 house and a good sized property or ranch. this is a 300-5000 acre place anywhere except the Flathead lake drainage, and the Yellowstone ecosystem.

5. $50,000,000 ranch. This is almost anything in both states except Jackson bigger properties and some of the 40,0000 acre plus ranches.

6. $200,000,000 this would buy almost anything in Jackson, barely.

 

[Mojave]

I put those 300-5000 acre spreads not here, as it really depends not he zip code.

 

[StuckInTheEast]

Options at price points:

1. $500,000 house and a couple acres. This is only really an option in southern Wyoming away from Cheyenne and Laramie. In Riverton, and maybe the Bighorn Valley. All of NE Montana, and no where else in Montana unless it is screaming remote.

2. $1,000,000 house and a couple acres. Most places in Wyoming and Montana except Jackson, Missoula, Kalispel, and Bozeman.

3. $5,000,000 house and a good sized property this is a 300-5000 acre place in most of the less desirable places in Wyoming and Montana.

4. $15,000,000 house and a good sized property or ranch. this is a 300-5000 acre place anywhere except the Flathead lake drainage, and the Yellowstone ecosystem.

5. $50,000,000 ranch. This is almost anything in both states except Jackson bigger properties and some of the 40,0000 acre plus ranches.

6. $200,000,000 this would buy almost anything in Jackson, barely.

I appreciate the input...but you may be a bit out of touch with the real estate markets in either state...yes, there are properties that fit those price points in WY and MT...mainly in Jackson, Bozeman, Missoula and Kalispell...but there is ALOT in between options 1 and 3 in the rest of both states. The majority of what's on the market that has anywhere from 5 to over 100acres and decent house is falling between $700k and $2mil roughly...obviously there are outliers on both ends of that price and acreage wise scattered about, but thats a realistic average price range.
I'm not too concerned with comparisons to Jackson, Bozeman, Missoula or Kalispell as we have no interest in any of those areas.
If I had the means for anything option 3 or above this topic would never have come up. Hell I'd have been there years ago and I'd be busy making sure as few people as possible knew I existed and painting happy trees in my studio with mountain views in between fishing and hunting excursions

All joking aside, if anyone really wants to make themselves feel insignificant for a few minutes looking at large acreage high end homes and ranches for sale in the mountain west can help out with that quickly for sure...mind bending numbers to think about

 

[Mike Islander]

-13F with 40 knot winds...in October.

 

[bradmacmt]

I always read these sort of threads, it's so interesting to hear other's perspectives. There's no "right" answer of course because at the end of the day this is about what you and your wife like or don't like. And of course "budget" enters into it - big time. If you want to make a change badly enough you'll do it. If you don't, you won't. Only you can know that.

Personally I couldn't live in most of Wyoming, but I also couldn't live in most of Montana. Tiny towns aren't my thing, and I despise wind. We came to Bozeman in the summer of 1992, bought ground, and moved our young family here a couple years later. Our kids went K-12 here, and both are MSU grads. We wanted a smaller college town with great public schools and good amenities - Bozeman fit the bill. It still does. However, the population has more than doubled since we've been here and housing is out of reach for most people. My kids can't afford to live here at this point. Winters are long - too long for my taste as I age.

My wife and I play the "where would we move" game all the time. Honestly, there's only a few comunities in the West I'd want to live in. The others are in Northern New England. So, we'll likely stay here and find out how to get out of here during the worst of the winter.

Everything is a compromise weighted one way or another. You just have to figure out what compromises you can live with, and those you can't.

 

[Coveyleader]

It's too bad it didn't look like this.

 

[4rcgoat]

I'll throw in my 2 cents.......property taxes!
Left California in 92,moved to Michigan for 16 years (wouldn't recommend it),moved to wyoming 17 years ago. Things seemed expensive back then with high rent,played that game for 10 years. Bought a house 6 years ago, taxes have already doubled. I'm in Sheridan, place is filling up fast so I expect taxes to continue to go up. If i were looking at the house I'm currently in, I could not afford it. If this continues and I'm priced out,I'll be looking to sell my place to whomever is desperate enough to pay 3x what it's worth ( more than likely out of state folks),then I'm off to live the rest of my days in the Arizona desert.
I love the heat.

 

[dieselchessy]

Im always suprised how shitty the roads are in Wyoming. I always thought the roads were shitty in Washington, but Wyoming is on another level.
I expect its the massive temp range the asphalt is exposed to.

I like places where most other people stay away. That seems to require bad weather and/or severe lack of jobs. Now days it doesnt seem even those situations will keep out the rich vacation home folks.

 

[StuckInTheEast]

I'll throw in my 2 cents.......property taxes!
Left California in 92,moved to Michigan for 16 years (wouldn't recommend it),moved to wyoming 17 years ago. Things seemed expensive back then with high rent,played that game for 10 years. Bought a house 6 years ago, taxes have already doubled. I'm in Sheridan, place is filling up fast so I expect taxes to continue to go up. If i were looking at the house I'm currently in, I could not afford it. If this continues and I'm priced out,I'll be looking to sell my place to whomever is desperate enough to pay 3x what it's worth ( more than likely out of state folks),then I'm off to live the rest of my days in the Arizona desert.
I love the heat.

Unfortunately that's the tax situation everywhere...literally everywhere. It's self inflicted for the most part as people just keep paying the ridiculous prices/rates like they have no choice. Admittedly, some don't, but the majority could easily wait awhile.
I've said it for couple years now...if folks woukd just calm down and not buy a home, truck, whatever they don't ABSOLUTELY need for 6 months to a year you'd see rates and prices and therefore tax valuations come down quite quickly.
It's the dark side of capitalism...everything becomes worth whatever the highest bidder is willing to pay for it. We have more power as consumers than we think....the masses just lack any sense of patience or self control. "I gotta get mine now...its just a monthly payment" is how the majority of the country lives. However we do need to get the big corporate/hedgefund and foreign investors out of residential realestate post haste...that won't happen but it needs too.

Real estate taxes are totally unhinged though. There needs to be drastic legislative changes to get that nonsense under control. I pay more in property taxes each month now than my mortgage was on my first house 15 years ago...and my interest rate on that house was near triple my current mortgage rate. Its pretty insane and certainly not isolated to any one part of the country.
If your lucky enough to have strong equity in your current home or have it paid off the situation doesn't effect you near as much as you can lateral or even upgrade pretty easy with minimal extra cash/payment.
If you just starting out trying to find first home it's utterly brutal and essentially unobtainable or finacial suicide in many markets if your not earning in the top 10% for your age group.
That's why I am investing pretty heavy for my kids...only way they'll ever afford to get out of my house before they are 30+

 

[Blandry]

i can't wait for the reservoirs to freeze over so I can do some ice fishing

 

[JP7]

You do have to put up with the annual posts about how the wilderness law is unfair as a Wyoming resident.

 

[StuckInTheEast]

i can't wait for the reservoirs to freeze over so I can do some ice fishing

What's in the reservoirs that's bites through the ice? I've done more hunting than fishing in wyoming though I enjoy both and am not opposed to ice fishing. We rarely get the chance here it's just small ponds for pan fishwhen we do.

 

[StuckInTheEast]

You do have to put up with the annual posts about how the wilderness law is unfair as a Wyoming resident.

I've read a few of those. I'm not really one to bristle much about laws in states I don't live in.
I kinda figure the law is the law....if you don't like it, move, run for an office that gives you the power to try to change it, pony up and file a suit, go through the channels to get a ballot initiative to change it...or do it the old fashioned, time honored way and smooze/bribe some current legislators to do your dirty work(otherwise known as "lobbying")

God knows I don't want to derail on that topic here. There are valid points on both sides but in the end, that's the current law until someone genuinely challenges and overturns or reaffirms it. Either way someone will be unhappy and venting about it on a forum somewhere...so goes life

 

[HingleMcCringleberry]

You do have to put up with the WEEKLY posts about how the wilderness law is unfair as a Wyoming resident.

Fixed it for you

 

[bigbassin]

-13F with 40 knot winds...in October.
View attachment 797838

I came here to say I have no first hand experience with Wyoming but know about 25 or so people that have moved out there. Not one stayed.

We all thought one guy we all went to high school with was a bit of a hick and his family appeared to be poor trailer trash in Florida. Turns out his parents are massive cattle and land owners in like 5 states and pull money in hand over fist and just like living that way. Anyways they offered jobs to everyone I graduated with to go cattle ranch and about 20 guys took them up on it. Keep in mind this was mostly Florida kids from lower incomes that had never been north of the state line.

June through August was spent with all of them saying they were never leaving, it was incredible, and on and on. The one negative was they said everyone was just weird and shady, mind you I’d assume this line of work may draw some transient folks.

By September 15th half of them had left.

By October 1st all but one left.

I think the last guy got 2 or 3 feet of snow the second week of October and just quit on the spot when he was told he needed to check on the cows.

One guy I knew went to Cody on a wrestling scholarship. Said it was just a weird place and a lot of drugs. After graduating he said he planned to never return.

Knew a guy that was raised there, don’t think he’d even gone back to visit for 10 years he hated it so much.

Knew a girl doing the instagram influencer deal (and she had the looks for it) that moved there in September. Moved back in middle of October saying she had never been so miserable.

 

[Blandry]

I came here to say I have no first hand experience with Wyoming but know about 25 or so people that have moved out there. Not one stayed.

We all thought one guy we all went to high school with was a bit of a hick and his family appeared to be poor trailer trash in Florida. Turns out his parents are massive cattle and land owners in like 5 states and pull money in hand over fist and just like living that way. Anyways they offered jobs to everyone I graduated with to go cattle ranch and about 20 guys took them up on it. Keep in mind this was mostly Florida kids from lower incomes that had never been north of the state line.

June through August was spent with all of them saying they were never leaving, it was incredible, and on and on. The one negative was they said everyone was just weird and shady, mind you I’d assume this line of work may draw some transient folks.

By September 15th half of them had left.

By October 1st all but one left.

I think the last guy got 2 or 3 feet of snow the second week of October and just quit on the spot when he was told he needed to check on the cows.

One guy I knew went to Cody on a wrestling scholarship. Said it was just a weird place and a lot of drugs. After graduating he said he planned to never return.

Knew a guy that was raised there, don’t think he’d even gone back to visit for 10 years he hated it so much.

Knew a girl doing the instagram influencer deal (and she had the looks for it) that moved there in September. Moved back in middle of October saying she had never been so miserable.

I typically love places that other people hate, but that's just me. I grew up in south LA/FL and south TX and will never return unless all the people who moved there leave.