Just closed on a house on the South Side of Bozeman, near the lindley park, petes hill location. House was built in 1889, was well on up keep, and came with a larger than normal lot and was fenced. The final price was $289,000.00 for the 3 Br., 2 Ba. I have the upstairs/master suite and rent out the two lower rooms. The rent for the rooms are currently $325.00 per month for each tenent. Gas/Electricity is about $35.00 pp per month, Internet/TV is $40.00 pp per month, and water/sewer is $10.00 pp per month, garbage is $5.00 pp per month.

Moderator - Can we add pics anywhere?

In Bozeman, the cost of living has inflated to extreme prices over the last 15 years, but is finally starting to settle down with the recession. It makes since when considering the population has doubled, and the rich keep pouring in. And the housing situation is at best a scrambled egg.

Rental prices are going to be anywhere from $300 for a small bedroom in shared house to $700 for a large bedroom shared house with land.

You will probably pay around $800 starting for an apartment near Bozeman and much less in Belgrade or Four corners.

Main street two bedroom goes for $1400 a month. But my god is it fun to live on main street. (granted alot of the mainstreet apartments are no longer livable due to the explosion)

The East side of town doesn't have too many openings usually, you can find apartments and such and such next to the interstate but stay away. I have heard many horrible complaints from that area. If you can find a room for a good price away from the interstate then you should seriously look in to it. There are some great views and most of the houses out there come with alot of land.

The North-East side of town use to be the poorest neighborhoods of Bozeman (besides Lehrkinds). That was when all the mill workers lived up and down the streets in small houses. Now a days the North East side has recently been blighted and not only are big businesses and more art galleries being installed on every corner, but the houses are being torn down to be replaced with mammoth apartments and mansions without yards.


The West side of town is where the construction over the last 10 years has ripped through the sold out farmers fields and left thousands of cookie cutter houses. There is a lot of affordable housing on this side of town, however, nobody wants to live way out by four corners. I went down the streets near meagher and the houses were one after the other for sale and for rent. Simple because the construction went too fast for Bozeman too handle.

The North side of town, I like. Expensive in parts, but you can simply go as far as you want away from town and you will see a continual drop in prices and houses with bigger properties the further you go. And you have the east gallatin flowing all the way to the headwaters.

The South side of town is where the best deals are right now for housing. And you can find some really sweet houses from the 70's, with big yards. Look near the 'museum of the rockies'.

I know that was alot to take in.

employment:

Job market has plummeted, construction is nill. The only things that seem to be surviving and flourishing in Bozeman is landscaping, lawn maintenance, pizza places, art galleries, banks veterinarians and bakeries. Our good old engineering town is no longer doing any engineering, in fact most are probably trying to becoming ski patrols.

Food,

Food here is touch and go. There is no diversity in the eating culture of Bozeman. Let me give you an example. We have probably around 15 pizza places. I-hos is the best and pretty much only authentic diverse food. Eat there and you will feel like you are in heaven. also la tinga is pretty good for cheap but really good mexican food.

We have very little for fine-dining. The so called 'fine dining' restaurants that have existed in bozeman have gone down hill because of lack of competition. I was born and raised in Bozeman so I can say this with confidence.

There is one company in bozeman that owns around 6 restaurants some are good some are bad. But come on, we need more individualism.

simply eating out will cost you at least 10 dollars, at most places like la parilla and franks.

milk 1.59 a half gallon

coffee varies extremely from store to store.

Eggs you catch on Thursdays for cheap local colorful eggs. or about 2-4 bucks for egg to organic egg.

Meat, oh the best food ever. Go to heebs grocery store to buy the best meat in town. There always having deals so stop by and grab when good.

Produce/vegetables, Hard to find very good organic selection of veggies, best option is to start a garden in your yard or start a garden in one of the community gardens and trade what you grow with your fellow garden neighbor. Apples are free and everywhere during the late summer months. Simply walk down the old side streets on the northeast side of town and you will find plenty.

Recreation

Recreation FREE, the best part of bozeman, you can drive twenty miles in any direction and end up in the mountains near streams and canyons and waterfalls. Ski in the winter, I am going to tell you to ski at Big Sky because you will probably get angry at life if you try to go to bridger bowl and attempt to keep up with alot of 10 year transplants who act like they own the Mountain and will without hesitation push you verbally and physically. And lift lines are getting to be around 30 minute waits on 5 inch powder days.

Fishing, Good luck finding a spot of river that doesnt have someone wearing a fly fishing vest with a guide working knots out of their tippet. My advice, stay close to the highways. The tourists dont like seeing the cars when they are on their legendary vacation. So the guides stay away from areas on the river that are right next to alot of semi trucks and noise.

healthcare


healthcare very expensive, all my friends and I simply use urgent care. don't get surgery at our local hospital, my simple opinion. Atleast drive to billings because I have heard better things from that hospital.





The thing to remember about Bozeman, is it still is a small town. Even though our population has grown from 18,000 to over 45,000 in the last fifteen years, it still is a small town. Alot of the houses that you see surrounding bozeman on the hillsides are owned by very rich people who live in those houses any where from a week to a month out of the year. There is even a service in bozeman that makes it look like there is someone living in the houses. So no one knows.

There are some really great people in Bozeman, but alot of them stick with their groups. It is hard to find friends in bozeman I have heard. The only place people really meet one another is at the bar or from a friends friend.

Speaking of bars, the madison brewery has much better beer and atmosphere then the other breweries of bozeman, my opinion.

There are alot of people who want to live in Bozeman. And that's okay. I was born down Willson street when the hospital was a small building next to main. Over the years I have felt less and less like a local and more like an swept under the rug memory. When I tell people I am from here they say things like, "oh wow, you don't see many of you", and there faces turn kinda red when they say they moved here six years ago.

All people come from somewhere. Here in Montana speaking for everyone, we simply ask that if you come, you respect the land and respect the values that keep this place pretty neat.

If you need any other information feel free to ask.





the best part about Montana

Update to earlier post, 2011

Main Street two bedroom apartment now rents from $600 to $900, I have some friends that use to live on Main street and it use to be over a $1,000 but they moved back to their old place because the landlord dropped the price and made the heater more efficient.

An apartment near downtown has dropped prices as well and will probably be around $4-500.

Rooms in houses around town are at a low that I have never seen before. Finding a small room in a good house in a good part of the city can be as low $200 a month. Travel out to the houses past Ferguson and you will be surprised how badly they are trying to move people into the empty houses.

I drove past four-corners yesterday, (four-corners is on the edge of the valley) it's a beautiful part of the city but there is nothing but the Gallatin and fields around the area. It is slowly growing but you will have to commute to town for living items you won't be able to find out there. The houses in the area are selling for $120,000-150,000. Which means you could probably buy them for even cheaper.

The employment state of Bozeman is still pretty bad but it's starting to get better. Right Now Technologies employs thousands and probably funds 10% of the families in Bozeman with the wages it pays.

Dog swimming pool just went under. Another landscaping business just went under. And I heard from a banker friend that there are a lot of businesses in Bozeman barely holding on.

School systems in Bozeman are awesome, and plentiful. That is until you get to our high school, which I am a product of. Not a school that encourages creativity, at least that was my experience in the system. They started the Alternative school the year I was graduating from BHS and from what I hear it is the better of the two schools (go figure).

Hawthorne gets my vote for best elementary school (bit biased cause its my first school) The Learning Circle (my Montessori school) is still around, and a couple of my old teachers are still there. Unbelievable places to learn as a young child in Bozeman.

If Bozeman schools don't hack it, I have actually heard the schools in Belgrade are amazing for the small town they are in.

Organic/farm eggs delivered to your door 2.99 to 3.99

Speaking of organic, watch out! The organic selection for Bozeman is quite horrible... Besides a small shop called the co-op you will be hard pressed to find a good place to shop for organic anything. The few things you can find around town that are truly organic are so overpriced it's too hard to afford. Take the Organic vegetable section at Town and Country on 19th - the fruit and veggies are so long past edible and they're all marked four times the price of normal produce. Where is the logic behind that?


Meat, don't think that because Montana has all these awesome looking cows frolicking on thousands of acres, that we eat good meat. The truth is there is only one or two actual slaughter houses in Montana, and they sell meat so expensive it makes you laugh with hatred.

The bozeman meat shoppe down town Bozeman, doesn't even sell meat from Montana. It's all shipped in from out of state. Just like the majority of the cows and buffalo from here, they are all shipped to huge slaughterhouses in the mid west and are mixed together with every other states meat. Don't get me wrong I am not trying to say anything bad about the meat of other places. But our cows are so happy and I can see them literally grazing out my backyard, yet can't eat them. I am a fan of knowing where my food comes from, and not being able to eat the great meat I see is frustrating.

So a 'new york strip that's not from Montana, will sell from 2.99 to 5.99lb at the meat shop downtown.

A Montana made new york strip will sell from 9.99 to 12.99. That to me is another head scratcher.

Even Teds Buffalo burgers in Bozeman gets their meat from out of state. This is Ted Turners restaurant, (Ted owns tens of thousands of buffalo just outside of town.)

Restaurant situation still sucks...

Recreation: priceless... However, Golf pass for the season at either public courses is $500-600 the same as a pass to Bridger Bowl. So for 1,000 dollars a year, you can have all the access to the outdoors you can handle. Fishing license is 20-30 for locals, tourists pay the same for a day or two license.

__________________
North Wallace

Moderator extraordinaire

mortgage, 4 bdrm 3800 sq. ft house= 1350/mo
energy bill: 300 average per month
doctor visit: 120.00
grocery bill for family of 4: 450.00/mo
average salary: 32,000
movie w/popcorn for 4: 60.00


rent 2bdrm apartment 700 sq. ft: 650.00
energy bill: 85.00
grocery bill for 2: 285.00
game of bowling: 6.00
movie w/popcorn for 2: 40.00

Bozeman is an interesting case as far as cost of living is concerned.

This might have something to do with the various monetary situations that exist amongst the city's occupants.

As a university town, a significant portion of Bozeman's population consists of college students. Some of these students are riding their parents' coattails, and as a result, they have a significant amount of expendable income. Other students are DIRT poor. There are businesses that cater to both here. Therefore, you can find an apple for 30 cents or a dollar. It's up to you.

As a resort disguised as a town (or maybe a town disguised as a resort), there are lots of affluent tourists and vacationers with summer homes, and because of this, you will find several businesses catering to the high-end market. Recently, there has been somewhat of a shift away from the high-end market due to the soft economy, but if you have expensive tastes, you will still not be disappointed with Bozeman's offerings.

As a somewhat small Montana town, there are a lot of people with limited funds living in Bozeman. The construction and service industries have taken a serious hit, as many formerly affluent citizens are moving out and selling their vacation homes to sure up their bank accounts. Working in any occupation directly or indirectly dependent on table scraps handed out by tourists is getting increasingly rough these days.

Don't come here thinking you'll be able to land a job right away. There are many, many more job hunters than jobs in Bozeman. That is why a majority of people raised in Bozeman move away to build a career.

Going out to dinner could cost you from $10 to $50 per person (not including drinks). Once again, both sides of the economic spectrum are represented here.

Going to the movies will cost you about $15/person, which is a terrible deal IMHO. The theater is LOW quality for this price, but since they have a monopoly, there is no other choice. The atmosphere there is nightmarishly cheesy, the sound and projection equipment are garbage. Because this corporate mega-theater complex ran the other two main street theaters out of business, you have to drive to the insipid mall on the West side of town if you want to see a recently released film.

If you are interested in the natural entertainment provided by living in a valley completely surrounded by some of the world's most beautiful mountains, Bozeman is a cornucopia of natural beauty, and nearly all of it is free to enjoy. Drive 15 minutes in any direction, and you'll be in a place postcards dream of.

It's hard to give an amalgamated cost of living for Bozeman because it is so varied in its population and activities, and as such, its prices are equally diverse. Rich, poor, or in-between, Bozeman has something for you and your lifestyle.