Why did you move here (Santa Fe, Taos: real estate market, home, buy)
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The first time I saw New Mexico, at age 10, I was in love with it. We had to move here. My parents did not succumb to my constant persuasive efforts. My brother was on the fence. The dog would have gone with me. My parents decided to distract me with school and other things. It took 55 years to finally get here permanently but there were many visits during that time. By then I didn't need a job. I am a trained historian and researcher and focused on Latin-American history. I am interested in architectural preservation. I ramble through the "outback", I fly fish, and I write and do photography. There is no better place for that.
If there is a better place, I'd like to know about it. I've searched high and low, but nowhere else is nearly as attractive for various reasons. Another reason I stayed.
I was about the same age when I first saw New Mexico, and still have a picture of myself on horseback at Bishop's Lodge just outside Santa Fe. We used to drive out from Dallas on summer vacations. It is a completely unique place and the weather in northern New Mexico is fabulous. Knock-your-socks-off color in the mountains - the aspens are spectacular. And the backroads are beautiful. No better place for photography, in this country anyway. Well, maybe Jackson Hole. But I'm here for the same reasons - climate and photography.
As for architectural preservation, the Tewa Indians have done a fantastic job of preserving the centuries-old Taos Pueblo, by the way, which everyone should see.
Went remote with my job, was looking for a mountain town within a weekend drive of the family in COS. CO has scenery majesty and outdoor rec options galore, but New Mexico is still more wild, untrafficed, and undiscovered. I like that! The scenery is more a capturing the changing sky against the land rather than the majesty of the land itself. The culture is something special - didn't really know what it was going to be before I moved here but I like it.
I thought I'd want to live in a more lush biodiverse place, but I've come to really learn to grow the open sky and atmospheric storms and geology you see from the lack of lush.
I guess the flip question is what about New Mexico gives you hesitation? For me it's the dysfunction and undercurrents of resentment. The arson on the Starbucks under construction in Taos is a good example. The road in front has been under construction for like 3 years, and there's this whole cohort of people who celebrated the arson as sort of a middle finger to the Texans and anything remotely corporate. The majority of people were repulsed, but the fact that there's enough people who support that leads to strife. I'm optimistic that will improve over time, and the good things will continue to improve.
Went remote with my job, was looking for a mountain town within a weekend drive of the family in COS. CO has scenery majesty and outdoor rec options galore, but New Mexico is still more wild, untrafficed, and undiscovered. I like that! The scenery is more a capturing the changing sky against the land rather than the majesty of the land itself. The culture is something special - didn't really know what it was going to be before I moved here but I like it.
I thought I'd want to live in a more lush biodiverse place, but I've come to really learn to grow the open sky and atmospheric storms and geology you see from the lack of lush.
I guess the flip question is what about New Mexico gives you hesitation? For me it's the dysfunction and undercurrents of resentment. The arson on the Starbucks under construction in Taos is a good example. The road in front has been under construction for like 3 years, and there's this whole cohort of people who celebrated the arson as sort of a middle finger to the Texans and anything remotely corporate. The majority of people were repulsed, but the fact that there's enough people who support that leads to strife. I'm optimistic that will improve over time, and the good things will continue to improve.
I lived in Taos for three years and never encountered an "undercurrent of resentment" but then, I wasn't interviewing people. There IS a certain cohort of latter day hippies in Taos, but they don't constitute the majority, by any means. I wasn't there during any arson episode. What does Starbucks have to do with Texans? I will say that I did encounter Texas-haters in northern New Mexico. Why they hate Texas was never made clear. Real estate-related, probably, but there are more people from California who have driven up the real estate market than people from Texas. From New York too.
Drawbacks to Taos relate to its isolation, related small size, and the difficulty of getting there. And its relative poverty, as a city, which probably has to do with civic improvements. There is precious little retail, other than a few artsy clothing boutiques. If you need something, Walmart is your only option. So when one needs household items, one must drive an hour and a half to Santa Fe, and back, to get to a shopping mall. Same for shoes. Not much fun when roads through the mountains are icy in wintertime. And real estate in Taos has gotten ridiculously high, for what it is. And, believe it or not, there are "gangs" in little bitty Taos. Kind of a hard place to make friends - just not very many people there.
I lived in Taos for three years and never encountered an "undercurrent of resentment" but then, I wasn't interviewing people. There IS a certain cohort of latter day hippies in Taos, but they don't constitute the majority, by any means. I wasn't there during any arson episode. What does Starbucks have to do with Texans? I will say that I did encounter Texas-haters in northern New Mexico. Why they hate Texas was never made clear. Real estate-related, probably, but there are more people from California who have driven up the real estate market than people from Texas. From New York too.
Drawbacks to Taos relate to its isolation, related small size, and the difficulty of getting there. And its relative poverty, as a city, which probably has to do with civic improvements. There is precious little retail, other than a few artsy clothing boutiques. If you need something, Walmart is your only option. So when one needs household items, one must drive an hour and a half to Santa Fe, and back, to get to a shopping mall. Same for shoes. Not much fun when roads through the mountains are icy in wintertime. And real estate in Taos has gotten ridiculously high, for what it is. And, believe it or not, there are "gangs" in little bitty Taos. Kind of a hard place to make friends - just not very many people there.
There's been a lot of crap going around on facebook groups since the starbucks deal where people feel like newcomers are the source of all the problems. White texans with money are a convenient target. These people are mostly keyboard warriors though. In person I haven't came across it really - in person people are friendly and like to talk. There's less innate trust here than there is in other places, like CO or especially the upper midwest from past grievances, and that's unfortunate cause it results in more barbed wire and us vs them.
I will admit that Texans are a little bit of a problem when they come in, buy a second home, fence it all off, then never interact. They've kinda shut off public land access the town of Valdez across from me protecting their private estates. That type of attitude doesn't make friends. Second home owners are going to get a lot more flack than primary residences, as they should honestly.
The hippies are concerned about any sort of development and think we're running out of water tomorrow, but they are too transient to really have any impact.
You nailed it with the downsides. It used to be really poor - my neighbors moved here in the late 70s and they said it's much much better now than it was then economically speaking. Amazon is a life saver, you can always order shoes or pillows from there if you need to. Thankfully my side of town is pretty tame, the south side is rougher.
The upsides outweigh the downsides for me though. Going forward it's easier to mitigate those problems while the benefits stay the same. It seems harder and harder to snag a good mountain town - Taos is still livable in ways much of CO or now ID is becoming difficult to live in.
I have been to New Mexico twice, once on a trip to cloudcroft where I stayed in a cabin in the woods for a few days and then another time I road tripped with some buddies to Colorado and we camped in Santa Fe and then checked out the town the next day. New Mexico is an amazing place with amazing scenery. Culture is similar to texas which I like. Also like how there are less people. Definitely a place I wouldn’t mind living
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