Considering a move from Montana to Idaho

[banjomike]

Originally Posted by Cody01

I want to thank everyone for the input. After looking at a lot of listings I have realized I just won't have the amount of money required to live decently in these areas at least for the time being. I really need to keep my budget close to what my current home will sell for. Maybe I will revisit this at retirement.

One thing I know about my home state is Idaho has always been behind the national trends.

All my life, Idaho was slower to fall into a recession by a year or more. But once Idaho fell, the recovery also took longer here than in the rest of the nation.

The same has always been true in nationally prosperous times. Idaho may be slow to catch up to them, but once she does, we always do better longer than the rest of the country.

Though quite often not by very much. Like every other state, the booms and busts all tend to taper off. But here both come and go gradually.


Now, be aware all this is only a general picture of our past, and I am only a regular working guy who's no economist.
Idaho has never experienced such a large and on-going growth spurt state-wide in my life. While our regions have seen many of these growth spurts before, all of them stayed within the region they began.

This is the first time the growth spurt has happened all over the state that I know of. This is the first time I've ever seen many of our really small towns have suddenly began to grow.

There are really a lot of those small towns here. There are many here that were always the same population for 100 years, where the population slowly declined until it reached a point of stability.

The truth is, and has always been, that Idaho is a difficult state to live in. Folks have always come here for the personal opportunities they discovered, as much for them as for a life amidst our beauty and bounty, but once here, they either will stay for many years, or begin to make plans to leave as soon as possible.

This time seems to be different than all the others, and I'm still unsure why or how it's different. I urge you and everyone to come, take a deep look at what we offer, and then try to make some plans with one of our regions in mind afterward.

Idaho is truly a wonderful place to visit. We are hospitable and very, very friendly and approachable here. We are also quite racially tolerant, and very tolerant of other cultures, national heritages, religions and the other stuff that makes for a contented life.

We all share our harsh climate, our dry land, and our solitude. There are some things in all of them that some of us treasure in those realities, but most of us just tolerate the only way people tolerate the harsh things- we like to socialize with each other, help each other out, and try to keep our lives on an even keel until the sunnier day comes along.

There won't be very much big-state excitement that will happen. We are mostly ordinary people, happy leading ordinary lives from day to day here, so we seldom feel we are being left behind on social trends and fast-paced lives.
But at the same time, our folks are generally protected from the bad stuff that happens in bigger states. We don't have big traffic jams on our Interstates (except for around some of our largest cities), and there are few really good or really bad neighborhoods in our cities or our small towns.

Mostly, our communities have either grown or withered so gradually, all the folks who live in them are in one big economic boat. Our people share much more in common than are divided by our commonality.

This has changed very recently too. But not everywhere yet, and not equally throughout our big state.
I can see the places that are changing, but I also see as many that haven't changed very much.

Since I've lived here so long, I probably notice the changes more than a newcomer will. I have lived in some other states, and in other cities here, but I've always been happiest right here, in the town I was born.
I may be surrounded more often by strangers these days, but those strangers seem to be happy here too, so that's not troublesome for me. Idaho is my temperamental Old Mother, and she's always held me close, even when she's being difficult.

[AnythingOutdoors]

Originally Posted by Cody01

I want to thank everyone for the input. After looking at a lot of listings I have realized I just won't have the amount of money required to live decently in these areas at least for the time being. I really need to keep my budget close to what my current home will sell for. Maybe I will revisit this at retirement.

Makes sense. I don't think you're going to find a house on acreage near a population center at your price range in Idaho. Nor do I expect this will change anytime soon. Idaho's land mass is somewhere around 63% public land, and much of the state is simply too rugged and isolated for habitation. This is why the population is massed around lower regions like the Treasure Valley, Snake River Plain, the Palouse, and valleys in NID. So land in lower areas with a milder climate is scarce and valuable, agriculturally or subdivided into small lots for housing in/near cities.

Get far enough away from cities and you may find a few options, such as in the Big Lost River Valley (https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/3...04622400_zpid/), but this is about 1.5 hours from the nearest real city (Idaho Falls). While there are some basic services in Arco and Moore, for most things you'd probably have to head to IF. I think you have to consider if, in retirement, you want to be trekking ~3hrs round trip (longer in winter) for things like medial care.

IMO, you'll need to up your price range, reduce your acreage, or look to a different state with cheaper land.