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We are a few years from retirement, and starting to look at our options. Wyoming and South Dakota are on the short list of places we might be interested in living, but of course, we have lots of questions.
We currently live in Minnesota and love it, but are thinking it might be time for a change when we retire. One of our main concerns is lack of health care locally as we age, so any town we move to would have to have a good hospital and health care facility. We realize we will not get the same level of service in a smaller town as we would in a larger city, but we are looking for a place that would offer at least some services such as surgeries, chemo, dialysis, etc. without having to drive to another town.
We lived in eastern South Dakota back in the eighties and don't care to repeat that experience, but we're thinking the Black Hills area might be more to our liking.
We're aware of water issues in Wyoming, and we're wondering if there are the same types of restrictions in western South Dakota. Can we use the roof run-off to water gardens? Are water shortages, rationing, or other restrictions common there? Can we raise a garden without worrying about having our water cut off when the garden needs it the most?
And speaking of gardening, how well do gardens do there?
I see SD has a mountain lion hunting season. How prevalent are these predators, and what, if any, problems do they cause in the Hills area? Also, we were told by a park ranger at Custer SP that they had no black bears in the park. Is that true of the rest of the Hills?
Currently, Spearfish has our interest. We have made two brief visits there this year and plan to spend a few days there next summer for a more in-depth look.
I've read that people think homes are expensive out there but from the listings online, we don't see it. Prices seem reasonable to us, but of course it's all relative. One thing we know from experience is how high real estate taxes in South Dakota are compared to where we live now. How can we figure out approximately what taxes would cost on a house valued at, say, $200,000?
Any and all info about living in western South Dakota is welcome, especially regarding Spearfish. We're very interested in the little things we might need to know before moving there, the kind of things you can't just Google to find out.
I like spearfish, great town. Housing is expensive in spearfish. Mountain lions are becoming more common. Gardens do well around here.
Yes, there are watering restrictions. Often it is an even/odd day to correspond with your address and they have times when watering is permitted. Rooftop collection is done. Often it is a 55 gallon barrel and a spigot with a hose attached. I use drip for my planting beds and gardens.
During this last outage, we had no water so we collected snow melt off the roof to have wash water and they ability to flush the toilet.
I moved to Hot Springs a couple of years ago from Wisconsin. Spearfish was on my short list, but I chose Hot Springs because of the milder winter weather at the south end of the Black Hills rather than the north end.
ALL lifetime residents think the taxes and housing prices are too high. That is because they have never lived where the prices are high. As you mentioned, it is all relative to ones experiences. I am reasonably confident that you will find housing prices and property taxes to be quite reasonable as compared to what you are used to.
Rapid is the center for extensive medical care. I am not sure what medical facilities Spearfish has, but it would be reasonable to expect a few clinics as well as a hospital there. Hot Springs has both and since Spearfish is larger, I would expect it too have more services.
HOA's are not as big around here as in other area's, but that would be something to check on when you find a specific house.
Mountain lions don't like people, so you need not worry about them. Black Bears are not common in the Black Hills, but they have been sighted in the northern hills. Elk, Buffalo, Antelope, & Deer are common. Mountain Goats and Big Horn Sheep are present.
As SD stated, gardens do well here. Vine crops such as melons, squash, tomatoes, zucchini, & pumpkins do the best.
You will find that the climate is drier here than in eastern South Dakota or Minn. Most people think drier is better and I agree with them. However it is dustier and different than you are used to. That is something you should check out for your personal preferences.
It was our experience when we lived in SD previously that the real estate taxes were much higher than Minnesota's. What we found at that time was that the real estate taxes we paid on our $50K house (back in the eighties) was approximately equal to what we had paid for state income taxes in Minnesota at that time. We did not actually save any money over living in Minnesota in spite of not having personal income tax in SD. That's why we're trying to figure out how to find out what the total tax burden might be for us when looking at a state without income taxes. It's very difficult and frustrating trying to figure this out because most ratings look at whether or not a state has income taxes and at what percentage, the percentage of sales tax if any, and that sort of thing. From the very, very sparse info we've found so far, it looked like the real estate taxes on a house in SD valued at $100K less than the value of the house we have now were quite a bit higher there. This was for a house on a city lot out there, compared to a lakeshore property on a seven acre lot worth substantially more. That was discouraging.
We're in a small town with a currently depressed economy, so housing prices are actually a bit lower here than there at the moment. We think the prices are reasonable out there though, so without actually having seen some houses out there, we aren't concerned about that part of it.
We'd definitely be looking into whether or not a neighborhood has an HOA. We do NOT want to get caught in that trap!
Good to know about the wildlife. If you have bears out there, I'd be surprised if they are as common as they are here. We enjoy seeing them once in a while, although we weren't too thrilled about the ones that tore up our house earlier this year. No, we don't think it's cute to feed them and we do take precautions not to make our place attractive to bears. We're most concerned about mountain lions with relation to pets, as we're likely to have a dog wherever we live. We have mountain lions here too, but they are so rare they were thought to be extinct here till a few years ago. They seem to be becoming more common around here in recent years and more people are reporting seeing them. We also have lots of other wild cats, but we've been here 23 years and never seen any of them.
We're not great gardeners but we keep trying, and feel the ability to raise a good garden might be important as we get older. Gardening is tough up here, given the poor, rocky soil and extremely unreliable weather we have. Thanks for the info. Gardening sounds encouraging there.
We've taken note of how dry the climate is out there, and all the way to Utah and Idaho on our last trip.
What do you like most about living in Hot Springs? What don't you like? Nothing is perfect, after all. We absolutely loved the library there. To be honest, I can't remember much more about your area. It seemed like the town was hilly, but I could be wrong. Of course, they don't call it the Black Hills for nothing. We liked the Angostura RA where we stayed a night, too. Very nice park.
As far as property tax goes, you are asking a question that really can't be answered on this forum. Here is an excert out of Pennington County's tax assessor's office:
Quote:
The South Dakota Department of Revenue and Regulation audits each county equalization office every year for accuracy of assessed values. The county-wide median sales ratio is the primary measure of accuracy. The state assigns each county a taxable factor to equalize assessed values to 85% of market value. The taxable factor that each county receives is dependent upon their level of assessment in relation to market value as determined by the median sales ratio analysis. The value indicated on the property tax bill is taxable value and is a result of applying this factor.
Taxable value is different from assessed value. It is generally a percentage of assessed value, and the percentage changes every year.
My folks lived up by Johnson Siding. The taxes on their 10 acres went from $800 per year, to $3500 per year, in a 2 year period. When my dad questioned it, they said it was due to planned improvements of street lights, fire hydrants, etc.... That was in the early 1980's. Today, there is still no street lights, fire hydrants, etc..... So after quadrupling peoples taxes, 30+ years ago, they don't quite have enough money to put in those ammenities. So to put it in perspective, you are currently taxed for something that you will never see in your lifetime.
UH, you are partially correct in that taxes "Where you are" may be normal, or reasonable. But get into the comprehensive planning zone of Rapid City and you will find that taxes are not normal, nor are they reasonable. You ban be 15-20 miles OUT of town, and be taxed at the same rate as if you had a house on Canyon Lakes shore.
If you want to take a look at taxable property, you can actually download all of the property information for an entire county. Here is the website for Pennington County . Take a look through it, on the left, down toward the bottom you can click on it and be able to download the tax table of properties. Save it to your hard drive and then you can search for particular property to see what the assessed value is. It comes up in an excel spreadsheet.
Last edited by ElkHunter; 10-11-2013 at 10:19 AM..
I've gone so far as to call the tax assessor's offices in specific towns and ask about taxes on specific properties. THEY can't even tell me how they would arrive at a tax rate therefore they can't give me a tax rate. It's very frustrating. Moving is a big decision and since we're not moving for a job and can live anywhere we want, a lot of the deciding factors are going to be based on money and overall cost of living. OTOH, a lot of what interests us about possibly living in the Hills has nothing to do with money, so maybe it doesn't matter that much. It's probably not more expensive overall to live there than here. Still, we like to go into big changes as prepared as possible.
Sometimes I think the powers that be who figure out how to set tax rates intentionally make things difficult so people can't figure things out themselves. I'm talking in general, not about any particular state or county.
Our income has changed significantly since the eighties when we lived in SD before, of course. So I'm not sure if SD property taxes would still be about equivalent to income tax in MN. That's one thing we're trying to figure out.
"What do you like most about living in Hot Springs? What don't you like?"
The first one is easy. THE WEATHER!!!! The climate, especially in the southern hills, was made for me. Of course I should also mention that I was raised on a small farm, out on the prairie, about 40 miles northeast of Fargo, ND. I then spent most of my adult life in central Wisc. As we have mentioned before, many things are relative. A close 2nd is Evans Plunge which is an indoor pool/water park that my wife and I go to on a regular basis. Me for the excersize, my wife for the therapeutic effects the warm water has on her arthiritus
I suppose the inconvenience of limited shopping in Hot Springs is my least liked thing. We have 2 grocery stores and a hardware store so most of our needs are satisfied, but we still run into Rapid once per month or so for the big box shopping.
If I needed a job, I would probably live somewhere else, but I am retired so that is not a factor.
Thanks, UH. We did poke around Hot Springs a bit in July. We're still undecided about it, so your input is very helpful and appreciated. We need to take another look, I think.
Available medical care is a big issue. We will be elderly and, potentially, one of us might be alone dealing with trying to get to appointments, ongoing treatments, etc. We won't have any kids or other family to help us with transportation if such a situation develops. Yet we don't want to live in a large city or even a small city like Rapid, so we're sort of on the horns of a dilemma and looking for the right balance.
We noticed when we lived in SD that Hot Springs was always warmer than anywhere else in SD. How are the winter winds out there? Is Hot Springs protected from the west by the hills?
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