Moving to New Mexico need advice!

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S.R.R.

S.R.R.

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The wife and I are selling the ranch and moving to New Mexico. I would like to ask you all were the best part of the state is to start a Dude/cattle ranch? We are looking for year around water ie. river, creek, lake, etc. also green grass and land reasonably priced. Most of all we would appreciate your advice on the best places to live in New Mexico.
Thank you in advance for the help.
 
Santa Fe is where the money tourists go, but man the area around Silver City and the border with AZ west and north of there is sure pretty country too.

Tourist based living can be pretty rough when the economy is bad, though. Do you speak German? They love that old west stuff, and the dollar is in the toilet - good for them right now.
 
Water and reasonably priced do not go togather in NM any place that you find water is going to be expensive. I would avoid the northeast. Farmington, Gallup, Grants would not work well for you. Check out the south. Silver City in the Burro mountians like said above is nice. Look into Las Cruces, it is desert, but a good place to live. Cloudcroft is high country, probably the best for you, cold winters and lots of snow. It would be ideal for trail rides. If you don't want the cold and snow, right down the hill is Alamogordo, another great place to live, and a short drive to the ski lift. Last, but not least is Ruidoso. Mountain country, and cowboy country, rodeos, and horse racing.
I know that is a lot to take in, but it is my 2 cents.
Mac
 
Our daughter lives in Rio Rancho...the town that Intell built...I would contact realitors web sites and see what is available and how the description of the property plays out with your plans and then take a tour of the state...alot of Reservation, BLM and National Forrst land. Desert and lots of it and water will be key to where ever you decide to ranch. The mountains are nice but the new age hippies and the educated malcontents have flocked the the Santa Fe area and the prices have reflected it.
Can you speak Spanish?
When you go, be sure to stop in at Richardson's in Gallup and see the silver jewlery and pawn items off the reservations...it is worth the stop, been buying from them since the 60's.
Good luck to you,
Dave Mc
 
I've traveled in NM and fair amount of Colorado. SE quadrant of NM is rather arid...aka "Area 51" stuff...lol. NE NM around Santa Fe, Ruidosa is pretty, mountain type terrain in parts.

In general, before you finalize any move, check with the NM officials and see WHERE you have best chance of finding water when drilling a well. I know the SE quadrant of Colorado is very arid (e.g., Alamosa, etc.).

Water + inexpensive land prices don't go together.

Tourista areas and probably within 50 mile radius will also be expensive (e.g., Santa Fe).

Get aerial map views from Google Earth or other source. Would be wise investment in time and travel expense to take a realtime tour of NM to get first hand look at terrain, vegetation (indicator of water), and other issues.
 
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Thank you all for the advice we go on the 23rd of February for a few weeks to travel around and look at a few ranches. We are looking forward to the new life. Bye inexpensive I meant around $300,000 do you think that is unreasonable?
 
S.R.R.":if5oo2zm said:
Thank you all for the advice we go on the 23rd of February for a few weeks to travel around and look at a few ranches. We are looking forward to the new life. Bye inexpensive I meant around $300,000 do you think that is unreasonable?
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There are probably a good number of ranches that could be had for that. Not around ruidoso though. The catch is that alort of those ranches are not all that big in owned/deeded land. Most of the land is in leases.
 
Thank you all for the replies. It seems that our "Cattle today" board has no New Mexico members!! Interesting.
 
There are a lot of cattle in New Mexico, and a lot of cowboys. Most of them have electricity now, and when they start getting computers I am shure that there will be some join in on the fun here.
In the mean time, Las Vegas is a small town not to far from Santa Fe, but not to close. Nice grass country and the land will be a lot cheeper. Worth a look see.
D.R.
 
Forget N.M., move to West Virginia. That's the cheapest. Cheaper even than Kentucky. I have Florida deer hunters all the time telling me where the cheap stuff is.
 
S.R.R.":288qp1z6 said:
Thank you all for the replies. It seems that our "Cattle today" board has no New Mexico members!! Interesting.
Click to expand...

There's at least one. I corresponded with her a while back. She is located almost in CO.
 
I retired early and lived in Taos, NM for five years before taking over the family farm with wifey about 9 years ago.

You need to stay where the tourists want to go. Silver City, Riodoso and south really don't do it for me. They are nice, hot in summer and off the beaten path. Sure people go there, but drive through the towns and there is little that begs your return once you've been there . :welcome:

I am sure you could find nice land outside of Santa Fe. Try between Santa Fe and Pecos. Or slightly north east near Chimayo and Truchus. These are pretty little towns within about one hour of Santa Fe.

I am very predjudiced about Taos. It is gorgeous, located in the southern Rockies at 7,000 ft. Cool summers, skiing in the winter, dry climate and no water problems that I am aware of. Their tourism has been off the past couple years. Prices in town are much too high.

Outside of Taos are gorgeous areas - Eagle's Nest Lake, Red River and Angel Fire are some of my favorites. I know that in Taos there are a lot of BandB's for sale and friends of ours have been trying to sell theirs for over 8 years (they want 1 million). The town and county are actively working on imcreasing tourism. Taos is a meca for art, lots of nice shops, museums, the Taos Pueblo, fishing, hiking, skiing, and you bet - eating in great restaurants.

There is a gorgeous area north of Taos (Valle Vidal) where theUS government recently set it aside as protected wilderness - 100,000A. It might be too far out for a dude ranch?? But, there are a number of ranches out there. Stay away from Questa, they are dealing with contamination from a molybneum mine.

Through out the northern areas are trout streams and anglers. They get a bit of snow in the winter , but it is usally gone by afternoon.

Great place to live, I miss it and would return in a minute- but can't.

Speak to Joel Schantz at Prudential Realty in Taos - tell him that Bill and Elsa sent you. We bought and sold our house through him.

Do a search of real estate in all areas mentioned. I don't know prices, but that will guide you. Then make a few calls to an agent to get a feeling of what is possible.

Good Luck.

P.S>=. The further you go south in NM the more the terrain looks like the moon - except for those few mountainous places like Riodoso and Silver City, etc.

Billy :cboy:
 
MrBilly":15eaga70 said:
Now I want to make you hungry. Forget the prices, just eat. Billy
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Michael's Kitchen in Taos is one of my all-time-favorite places to eat. I used to get to Taos 3-4 times a year. I've only been averaging about once a year for the past 4-5 years, though. Taos is a really nice place to visit - but seems like it'd be expensive to live there full time. I know it'd be expensive for me anyway - too close to the Indian casinos! :help:

Another place that hasn't been mentioned is Chama, 90 miles northwest of Taos, in northern NM. The Chama River valley is beautiful and it had the most reasonably priced mountain/riverfront property I could find in New Mexico or Colorado when I was looking. Chama used to get a number of tourists in the summer, but I'm not sure that the narrow gauge train is still running from there to Antonito. It's definitely not as "touristy" as Taos or Red River.

George
 
George, Michael's Kitchen is good, we always enjoyed having breakfast/lunch there. The CombresToltec steam train still is in operation out of Chama during the warmer months (May thru Oct).

Living expenses were not that bad, at least 9 years ago. Gas was expensive, we would stock up once per month on needed items in Costco in Albuquerque.

If one wanted to be self sufficient, they could live out on the mesa west of Taos over the Gorge brdige. It is just scrub oak and sagebrush. You'd be off the grid out in the middle of no where. Land is very cheap out there, but I don't think a dude ranch would go out there? A guy in Taos is the world authority on building solar houses, earthships they are called ( http://www.greenhomebuilding.com/earthship.htm ). They don't do anything for me, but some love them.

Billy
 

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