dana ranch

Six Top Luxury Ranches For Sale

Filed under: Estates

Is this the time to indulge your hankering' and buy yourself a not-so-modest spread in Wyoming, Montana, or Colorado? After all, just three months ago, Texas billionaire Kelcy Warren picked up the Boot Jack Ranch in southwest Colorado for a mere $46.5 million; the ranch was originally listed two years before at $88 million. At the time, it was the highest price residential sale in the country for 2010 -- a short-lived record surpassed by a Bel-Air home a few weeks later.

But if a guy like Warren can get half off the price of a ranch with of 3,000 pristine wilderness acres, 6 lakes and 7 miles of world-class fly fishing on the West Fork of the San Juan River -- not to mention the 14,000-square-foot home -- might now not be the time for the rest of us to get in touch with our inner cowboy?

Lest you think Warren got the only real deal out there: A Bozeman-area ranch, once listed at $39 million, just closed escrow at $11.5 million. Another ranch in southwest Montana, which at its peak listed for $60 million, just sold for below $30 million. In southern Colorado, a ranch that once sported a price tag of $100 million, has a new owner who paid about $46 million for it.

But before you jump in the saddle, you might want to hold your horses, literally. There's more than meets the eye about what constitutes value in ranch land and it's not just acreage alone.

(First, let's eliminate those ranches that Luxist readers likely wouldn't consider: The ones that are in the middle of nowhere, have no pretty views, and their value is based on things like the dependability of the precipitation, the strength of the grass and the quality of livestock water. i think we can safely eliminate most of Western Nebraska and Eastern Montana, maybe even Eastern Colorado.)

What features drive up the price of a luxury ranch? Oddly enough, it's privacy.

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