Home buying thread

ToeMissile said:

My dad had the chance to buy a few acres of lakefront property up there in the 70s. Decided not to.

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That’s a big L, bet it’s worth a fortune.

Burnem Wizfyre said:

That’s a big L

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The best solace against this sort of thing is knowing that you probably would have sold for 50% profit (which wouldn't have really mattered) instead of hodling for 20+ years for 100x or whatever. Like the guy that spent billions of future bitcoin dollars for a pizza. He gets to feel like shit forever, but we all could have bought a pizza's worth of bitcoin then.

TJT said:

So I have been looking for a "Summer / Winter Retreat" if you will for some time. I think we have settled on Wyoming. We've been visiting Yellowstone and the area up there for a few years and while Jackson Hole is far too rich for my blood other places in the state are not. My kids are young but I see use spending 2 months a year at the property for now and increasing as time goes on. Maintaining our primary house in Texas. I can work remotely so I am flexible in this.

Previously I investigated NoCal and other places nearer to my origins in Oregon. But Wyoming seems more ideal as I do not see myself being totally free from Texas and Wyoming is within the realm of reason in terms of driving out there (1 long day of driving vs 2 or 3 days).

My criteria:

1. Low property tax/upkeep.
2. Small town vibes. Preferably able to walk or bike from the property to most places in town.
3. 4 seasons.
4. Mountains
5. Outdoor activities galore.
   1. Mostly interested in hiking, fishing, camping, driving around a snowmobile or some Xcountry skiiing.
6. Reasonable distance from larger city (4 hours or so if we need stuff).
7. <=$400k
8. 3/2 or something typical. Don't need anything fancy here.

This will likely be the first time paying cash for a house for me. Haven't really decided here as I am free and clear on my other houses in Austin area and the rental income more than covers whatever the mortgage I am looking at may be.

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I've been doing something similar to this since 2021. Spend 8-9 months out of the year in Ohio, then 3-4 months in Wyoming (Casper for me). I did end up renting my place out for a year this time though, but should be going back late October.

Casper itself is probably too "big" for what you're looking for, but it is less than 4 hours from Grand Teton National Park, less than 5hrs from Yellowstone, and less than 4 hours from Denver if you wanted a major metro for whatever reason. Plenty of places available within your target price range as well. Once you get outside of the city area, there's really nothing in any direction for about 2 hours. Casper Mountain is there with plenty of hiking and skiing. The North Platte River runs through town if kayaking is your thing. Decent fishing (from what I hear) too.

Buffalo has a population of less than 5k, but it may take some time to find a decent 3/2 for <400k. It's about 2hrs from Bighorn National Forest which is a very underrated place (in my opinion) with activities for all 4 seasons.

Sheridan is about 40 minutes from Buffalo and has a population of about 20k. Home prices seem kind of all over the place in my brief research there.

Laramie is home to the University of Wyoming with a population a little over 32k. It's about an hour from Medicine Bow National Forest which is one of my favorite places in the state. The "city" itself I guess could be considered on the larger side for Wyoming, but there's definitely some affordable homes. I've only stayed a few nights at a time there and while the college is there, it never felt like a "college" town to me.

Hope at least a little of this info is helpful. I love the state and when I was looking for a place in late 2021, I thought for sure I would pick a place in Montana, but by then, the locusts from California and the PNW were already flooding a lot of the areas I was looking at. Wyoming seems like one of the last bastions of safety from that mind rot. Jackson Hole (Teton County) is the only one in the state that votes blue. If you have stable remote employment, I really can't recommend it enough.

All I know about Wyoming is they have a "mud season." Not sure if it hits as far west as you're looking, but it sounded miserable. Oh, and the winds.

I think Teton county has one of if not the highest average incomes in the country. Going from wiki which is suspect at best it's listed at per capita income of $250k. Kind of why they have economy meetings and such there. Not a lot of people there, not sure how they count billionaires like Gates there which isn't really income.

My cousin lives there kind of on the line between "east" and more affluent areas of the west. Until just recently she raised and trained horses and her husband ran a X-ray weld inspection service. She loves it ever since she moved there maybe 40 years ago. Seemed like it agreed with her well.

I think a lot of workers in Jackson commute from Idaho where it's cheaper to live.

TJT said:

Jackson Hole was a small ski town outside of the Aspen cool rich dude sphere for like 50 years. Eventually rich people caught wind of it and began buying up property there. 20 years later Jackson Hole became the Aspen of our generation. As exactly the same thing happened to Aspen in the earlier years of the Boomer generation.

Small ski town used by locals in the region becomes rich playboy funtown and pushes out all of the actual locals. Luckily there are still many such ski towns across the USA today. But if you want to capitalize on that you need to understand that they are indeed normal small towns with minimal local businesses. On the other hand prices are low so it has its own appeal.

Jackson Hole is straight up bougie now with all of the stuff you would associate with a wealthy town. Restaurants, shopping, luxury condos, whatever.



Definitely. But the other towns like Driggs and Victor are getting bougiefied with rapidity as well.

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Tell me more about these supposed affordable ski towns with skiing on par with Aspen or JH

TJT said:

Can you read? They are not on par with JH or Aspen. They do have skiiing options and are just normal smaller towns without any of the luxurious amenities of Aspen or JH. Like Aspen and JH were prior to being taken over by rich people.

See Casper like discussed above.

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Yeah I can read and I looked up Casper. You said there are affordable smaller ski towns with fewer stores/amenitiee.

Perhaps we just disagree but as someone who likes to ski I don’t think a ski area with <30 runs qualifies as a “ski town.” I don’t think anyone who likes to ski would want to buy property there with skiing as the main focus.

I guess the good news is you can cover a lot of ground in a hurry in WY on stuff like I-80. Probably 1 out of 10 vehicleles that passed me were going faster than my truck was capable of and I was doing 90 give or take back when WY had the "no speed limit" deal and then it changed to prudent speed.

If you want to drive where you see miles and miles and miles and some more miles just fur the fun of it of snow fences that's the place to be. Not a fan. It made west, TX seem populated and interesting. I don't know if it's the same now but used to have signs "Rest area ahead, next stop 50 miles."

Just saw they rebbuilt this in a year. They got it opened up pretty quick after it happened for people that were working around Jackson that lived in Idaho.