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MANSION GLOBAL | The Allure of Rustic Living Is Driving Ranch Buyers out West

April 17, 2023
  • Facts & Insights
  • In The News

A whole new wave of wealthy individuals have been in search of wide-open spaces along with a solid investment. The 80,000-acre Climbing Arrow Ranch outside of Bozeman, Montana, went into contract in less than 24 hours when it last listed in 2021. In addition to generating more demand for large properties, the pandemic changed some buyer priorities.


BY MICHELE LERNER |  | MANSION GLOBAL

Competition among landowners to accumulate the largest ranches is legendary—and not just on television shows like Yellowstone, a popular drama series about an extended family and their colossal Montana ranch.Headline-grabbing sales in 2022, such as Yellowstone creator Taylor Sheridan’s purchase of the more than 266,000-acre Four Sixes Ranch for $192 million in West Texas, and T. Boone Pickens buying the 100-square-mile Mesa Vista Ranch in the Texas panhandle for $170 million, tell the tale: Ranch sales are hot. The bigger the ranch, the better. In fact, if you want to be among the 100 top private landowners in the U.S, you need to own a minimum of 150,000 acres, according to the latest annual figures from The Land Report magazine.

The land grab wasn’t a strange, pandemic-driven blip.

In late 2021, when Mike Swan, owner of Swan Land Co., a ranch brokerage based in Bozeman, listed the 80,000-acre Climbing Arrow Ranch outside of Bozeman, where the 1992 movie A River Runs Through It was filmed, the property was under contract in less than 24 hours.

“It was listed at $136 million, and we had multiple offers,” Mr. Swan says. “Individuals with means know what they want and are ready to go when they see it.”

That property includes cattle, fly fishing along 3.5 miles of the Madison River, and world-renowned elk hunting.

 

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