Considering a move from Montana to Idaho (Boise, Pocatello: sales, mobile home)

[Cody01]

Good day everyone. I have really struggling with a place to relocate to but Idaho seems to check a lot of boxes. I am in Great Falls which is the open plains and windy, I mean windy all of the time. I am looking to be closer to mountains with less wind and have a bit better climate. I want to be within 15-20 minutes of some kind of city that is 20,000+ so I can have work and medical. Was eyeing everything from Moscow to Kellogg and Post Falls. Only concern is homes with 5 acres or more seem to be well above $500,000 to even a million. I will only have about $500,000 to spend. My question is with the obvious higher cost of living does the economy reflect that by higher wages? I would possibly start my own business anyway but need to research if there is a demand. I currently work in constrcution supply sales and it would be nice to find a growing area where a smaller scale business like mine is needed.

[oregonwoodsmoke]

Wages are going to depend on what you do for a living.

In North Idaho, both Post Falls and Coeur d'Alene have populations over 20,000

You can get 5 acres near Coeur d'Alene if you can settle for a mobile home. Maybe look 15 minutes south of Coeur d'Alene, since north isn't any cheaper.

Post Falls is a bit less expensive than Coeur d'Alene, and has more wind. You aren't getting a decent frame built house on 5 acres for $500,000 in either one of those cities.

[NW Crow]

I'd look 5-20 miles east of Lewiston. Or maybe parts of Spokane Valley WA.

Maybe near Emmett or Weiser. Or up to a half hour from Twin Falls.

[volosong]

Kellogg??? Too far from anything. Wages and the cost of housing in North Idaho are out of balance. There was a top-of-the-fold front page article in today's paper about the cost of housing and how most cannot afford it. Been a long term problem that has only gotten worse since COVID. No easy solutions. You shouldn't have any problems finding work . . . if you can afford to live somewhere close.

[Clark Fork Fantast]

Originally Posted by oregonwoodsmoke

Wages are going to depend on what you do for a living.

In North Idaho, both Post Falls and Coeur d'Alene have populations over 20,000

You can get 5 acres near Coeur d'Alene if you can settle for a mobile home. Maybe look 15 minutes south of Coeur d'Alene, since north isn't any cheaper.

Post Falls is a bit less expensive than Coeur d'Alene, and has more wind. You aren't getting a decent frame built house on 5 acres for $500,000 in either one of those cities.

I can usually find some interesting deals on Realtor.com--something in Hayden, or Dalton Gardens, but you guys are right--there's simply nothing under 500K + acreage right now! I'm stunned. Here is a funky home with 5 acres in Rathdrum for 525K, that's as close as I could get to anything in the Coeur d'Alene area:
https://www.realtor.com/realestatean...8_M23436-23622

[oregonwoodsmoke]

Originally Posted by Clark Fork Fantast

........Here is a funky home with 5 acres in Rathdrum for 525K, that's as close as I could get to anything in the Coeur d'Alene area:
https://www.realtor.com/realestatean...8_M23436-23622

I think that one is a pretty good deal. It's a tear-down and the buyer would just be interested in the property. The location is good, and that's a good price for 5 acres in that area, especially for five acres with forest, and it has it's utilities and drive already in, which would normally cost a lot of money to do from scratch. It's also got a shop, and shops are expensive to build.

But yes, "funky" would be a very polite description of the house. It's a big project, for sure.

[NW Crow]

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1...58872420_zpid/

Twin Falls
Twice the square footage, newer / way less funky than one above. A third less acreage but 30% lower price. Wilderness about the same distance away.

[banjomike]

Originally Posted by NW Crow

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1...58872420_zpid/

Twin Falls
Twice the square footage, newer / way less funky than one above. A third less acreage but 30% lower price. Wilderness about the same distance away.

I agree.
To meet the OP's requirements, SW Idaho is the only place that's affordable within the OP's constraints.

If not Twin Falls, I am pretty sure a place could be found in the surrounding area- Gooding, Jerome, Wendell, Bliss, Shoshone; basically, every town west of Burley or American Falls will be closer to Twin than Pocatello.

But really, it's all a matter of degree.
Idaho Falls is the windiest large city in Idaho, I think, but I've spent time in Great Falls and it is windier there than in I.F.
The difference is Great Falls has more continuous strong breeze than I.F. Both cities are calm at times, and both get strong winds with every passing weather front that moves in or out.

Pocatello's properties are still slightly cheaper than those in I.F., and Poky lies in a hole, surrounded by mountains, so while it gets wind, there's much less of it there. But Poky is almost as high as I.F., so it's only a few degrees warmer.

Year round, Southwest Idaho is warmer because it's lower in elevation. While the Southeast corridor is higher, its because the corridor lies on the western slope of the Rockies. So even though the cities are on flat ground, the mountains are really close. And the Rockies are not covered in pines. There are lakes all over southern Idaho, but the mountains that cover the south are all the biggest and most jagged in the state.

The Southwest corner is a prairie, so it's relatively flat, but it's Idaho's great canyonlands. Twin Falls is the home of our largest and deepest canyon, cut by the Snake River, the second-largest river in the inland northwest. Shoshone Falls is higher than Niagara Falls. The falls lies within Twin's city limits. So in SW Idaho, all a person has to do to find something real spectacular is to look down, not up.

To me, that's the biggest difference of all between Montana and Idaho. Montana is mostly prairie, with only the western edge of the state mountainous. The weather patterns are different there due to that fact.

Idaho is chock-full of mountains in our interior. We all live close to our boundaries in the places where there's enought flat ground to buid cities on. Those mountains all break up our weather patterns, and form many micro-climates.

All Montana is farther north than about 2/3 of Idaho. South Idaho is all higher than North Idaho, even though it's flatter. So it's all slightly colder, except in the spots where the elevation is as low as the valleys in the north. About 1,000 feet higher (a rough estimate).

North Idaho (we call it NID here), is more classicly what most folks think a nice little place in the mountains should be- lots of pines covering mountains that are mostly gentle enough for a hike, with a nearby lake in view somewhere in the scene.
That's why, in large part, the prices are so high there now.

South Idaho's countryside is much more mixed. Look westward through most of it, and it's all pretty flat, but that's deceiving. Just over that low hill on the horizon, what lies ahead can be anything from a gob-stopping canyon to mountains so rugged some don't have names. And Idaho also has a huge lava-flow desert that's the largest on the continent in the middle of that more common stuff.

Idaho is actually the closest thing to Mongolia that exists on N. America.

I think the best thing, if a person is thinking seriously of moving here, is to come and take a long visit and look us over. Try to plan to see as much as possible, and then go back home and make your final decisions after you return.

Bear in mind everything I just mentioned has already been disc'ered long ago by those who came before you. You won't discover anything new here that's undiscovered.

Also keep in mind Idaho is still the 'glamor girl' of the West right now. The folks who move to the West always have one state in mind they want to move to.

The picture in their mind- I call it 'The Little Cabin Home In The West'- is usually the same: a beautiful rustic home, next to a babbling brook full of trout, surrounded by pines, with rugged mountains nearby, to be seen from the big windows of the cabin. On 20 acres, most often.

The state that has all that tend to change. 50 years ago when I was young, California was the Glamor Girl state with it all and big cities, too. Then it was Colorado, and then, Arizona, and then Montana. They were all Glamor Girls once, and now, it's Idaho's turn.

And it's a real factor that needs to be understood before anyone moves. Those trends all come when a state gets something a lot of other folks like to hear and/or see. So they want to be there, no longer in the same routing as here.

The trends come and go, though, and when they go after a big rush of popularity, the state is left with lots of big problems as soon a the boom busts.

It's like a wave, sort of- catch it when it's rising, and surfing it to the beach is both easy and nice.

Catching the wave in the middle is harder to surf, and the beach won't be empty and pristine.

Catch it too late, and you won't be able to surf at all.
And the beach will be full of folks who are all rested, refreshed, and ready to catch the next wave, leaving all their litter behind.

If the too-late newcomer hasn't been ground under by the surf and actually reaches that beach, it won't be very nice any more.

[ejisme]

SW Idaho is probably your best bet. Here are some properties listed around Garden Valley to Cascade. I didn't delve into any of these, but they are in your budget at least. Trees and snow in the area. Cascade is close to your size needs and from Garden Valley you can get into the distant Boise suburbs pretty easy.

https://www.realtor.com/realestatean...ot-sqft-217800

A little closer in would be Emmett, ID. I'd guess this area is going to be the next booming suburb. It was announced a few weeks ago that the main highway to Emmett was going to become an expressway and connect directly to I-84. It will take a few years, but that easier highway access will mean a lot of people will move out that way for cheaper land, bigger houses and hopefully an easier commute into Boise and/or Meridian.

https://www.realtor.com/realestatean...t-217800/sby-1

The winter is much shorter in the area, as well as less wind here. We lived in Great Falls for several year. Nice area, but the wind and winter wear on you after a few years. I feel for you.

[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.