Over to the west here, you got the whole Gallatin Range,
before starting on Omnipod.
and then over here, you have the Absarokees, or Absaroka.
Get on your horse, man, and pack your mule,
and you head into the hills and get lost.
- My name’s Kameko, and this is my husband, Ryan,
and we’re looking for our dream home
in Paradise Valley, Montana.
Hi. Hi, come on.
Look at how friendly.
We have our youngest, Cash. He’s 11 years old.
He’s just the little twinkle in all of our eyes.
Wouldn’t it be awesome just to open our front door,
just walk out to the barn in the morning,
saddle ’em up and go?
- Yeah.
- That could be our life.
- It will be our life.
- Hey, I like that.
- John Steinbeck once said,
"For other states I have admiration,
respect, recognition, even some affection,
but with Montana it is love."
And the people who live here now feel the same way
that Steinbeck did back in the 1960s.
And that’s in large part due to the fact that Montana
has changed a lot less than some other states
in the last 60 years.
Here, pretty much anywhere you go,
you’re looking at jaw dropping landscapes.
And if you’re lucky enough to live
near southern Montana’s Paradise Valley,
you’re only an hour away from the north entrance
of Yellowstone National Park.
Living here, you’re greeted every day
by the majestic Absaroka Mountains.
And you can fish for trout or raft
down the Yellowstone River anytime you like.
It’s for all these reasons that Ryan and Kameko
wanna buy a home for their family here.
- Remember when we were driving through here with our RV
on our RV trip?
- Yep.
- That was immediate falling in love with this country.
- Yeah.
- I agree.
- But having all this natural beauty at your fingertips
isn’t cheap.
Homes here can sell for a million dollars or more,
but that doesn’t scare the Ramirez family.
They’ve worked hard for this opportunity,
and they’re determined to find their dream home
in big sky country.
- This mountain range looks totally just magical to me.
- [Ryan] Looks like a painting, huh?
It’s crazy.
- It’s almost too good to be true.
- Okay, guys.
So, this house we’re gonna see is called Pony Ranch.
Says horse property on 35 acres,
is listed at 899,000.
- It’s a little on the higher end
of what we’re wanting to spend.
We’re hoping to spend about a million dollars.
- But, depending on what we find,
we’re a little flexible with that.
Look, what’s on your left here.
- Oh, it’s a place for our horses.
- [Kameko] It’s all ready to go, bud.
- Sweet.
(serene music)
- Hey, I see the girl.
- Hey.
- I’m Trecie, and this is Jackie, and we are best friends,
sisters in a past life.
- We own Yellowstone Brokers, Land and Home,
based in Bozeman, Montana.
The Ramirez family has spent a lot of time vacationing here.
They’ve had a vacation rental they rented.
Hence, how we met them.
- They’re the perfect people to be here.
- Well, this is Pony Ranch, and it is listed at $899,000.
The house itself is just over 2,500 square feet.
You’ve got three bedrooms, two and a half baths,
but you have like a riding arena.
You’ve got a tack shed,
corrals, everything you need for a horse setup.
Why don’t you lead the way in, Cash?
- Oh, this is a cool house.
- Ooh. Can’t wait to check it all out.
Oh, wow.
The views in this kitchen are insane, you guys.
- And lots of light, ’cause that matters
a lot in the winter in Montana.
- [Kameko] Oh man.
- [Trecie] Definitely want light.
- Yes, and I love how it’s totally open here
so we can have -
- [Ryan] You can do your -
- All the family here at once.
When I first met Ryan,
I just remember him being, like,
this super mysterious, quiet guy.
And that really attracted me to him.
- When I remember seeing her
and I remember seeing how beautiful she was
and how much of a great personality and that big smile.
And it just kind of sucked me in,
and it went on from there, so.
- We fell in love fairly fast after we met,
and got married shortly after.
I had two kids and Ryan had his daughter.
So, we came together like the Brady Bunch
from Orange County.
- [Ryan] Blended family.
- [Kameko] Yeah.
- You’ve got like a mud room,
laundry room and then the half bath right there,
which is awesome ’cause you know you can come in
with your muddy boots without having to track it
into the main part of the house.
- Oh, yeah. I love that.
- [Jackie] Over here, so that’s pretty well thought out.
- That makes sense.
We don’t think about that stuff in SoCal.
I am a Cali girl for sure.
I love the beach, but this guy right here,
he came out of the womb a mountain man.
This is his kind of place for sure.
We came up here first in a road trip in our RV together.
Coming outta Yellowstone through this valley,
we just both looked each other and knew
this is where we need to be.
Somehow we need to get here.
- We have a wire damage
and wire damage clean up from restoration business.
We come in, we clean it up,
and then we also put everything back together again.
We do construction.
- We do a little crime scene clean up.
- We do crime scene clean up, as well.
- We started out small with just us,
and then, you know, the kids when they got old enough.
Now, we have 40 employees now
that we literally consider family.
Wow, 15 years, here we are.
Worked super hard, super hard.
- [Jackie] There’s master over on this side here.
- This is for us, babe.
What do you think?
- It’s a little small, but I like the vaulted ceilings.
The ceilings, I mean, is what makes it.
If it was eight foot high, I’d be really claustrophobic.
- [Kameko] I agree. I like it so far, guys.
Awesome.
- You guys haven’t even seen the whole house.
There’s like two more bedrooms upstairs
and make sure you take in all the views
’cause the views from upstairs are great.
Every room has a view.
- Yep.
- Okay, yeah.
- I can’t wait.
I wasn’t expecting this. Look at this cool landing area.
Oh yeah. What do you think?
What do you wanna use this for?
- Maybe little TV entertainment slash -
- Entertainment area.
- Perfect suggestion. - This would be a good spot.
- Right?
I do definitely like this because the great room
isn’t that huge downstairs.
So, all the kids could be loud and crazy up here.
What about this bedroom, Cash?
- I might take this bedroom.
- Yeah?
- That’s a cool bedroom.
And this is about the same size as
the main bedroom downstairs, I think.
I mean, it’s pretty close.
- Right.
Let’s check out the other one and then make the decision.
- [Cash] Okay.
- [Kameko] This is nice too, though, Cash.
- [Cash] This is very nice.
- Seems to be about the same size as the other one.
- Yeah.
- [Kameko] You can see the deck and the hot tub from here.
- [Cash] Yep.
- It’s gonna be a tough choice.
Which one are you thinking?
- Maybe this one. Probably this one.
- Why this one instead of the other one?
- [Cash] Not as much houses.
- [Ryan] More views.
- [Cash] Yeah.
- [Ryan] A little bit more nature.
- [Cash] Yeah.
- [Ryan] Yeah.
- We’ll make the other one a guest room.
- [Cash] Yeah. - [Ryan] There you go.
- I thought the second floor at Pony Ranch was great.
It has that space for the kids.
Cash picked his room practically already, right?
And then the guest room for when we have our family out.
I mean, I don’t see anything wrong with it.
- [Trecie] Hi.
- Hi, guys. I’m liking it.
We’re liking it.
- Yeah?
- Envisioning the horses running in the wind?
- [Kameko] Yeah, I love that it’s horse ready,
and the views everywhere are insane.
- [Cash] I like the loft slash landing area.
- [Kameko] Is that gonna be your space?
- My space, yes.
- Yeah, he’s got it.
And the guest room, what will be the guest room
is perfect, too.
I mean, I think it’s big enough for our family.
- Price wise, would you think the sellers
would be motivated to go a little bit down, or?
- At this point, no.
This house was listed at 950.
They pulled it off the market.
They did the new carpet, the paint,
and then brought it back on at 899.
If you want it, you’re gonna have to come in full price.
There’s not a lot of negotiating right now.
- Got it.
- Our local real estate market,
it has just turned crazy because we had
these small, little quaint towns,
and they’re growing, and they’re growing so quickly
that our real estate market can’t really keep up.
At the same time, most of the locals don’t wanna leave,
and so, it becomes really competitive.
- Well, there’s a couple other properties, too,
that we wanna show you guys,
and then you guys can make a quick decision, hopefully.
I hope you can, sorry.
I mean, you’re gonna have to, but.
- [Ryan] Got it.
- Let’s go, guys. Hurry.
(upbeat music)
- All right, guys.
This next listing from Jackie and Trecie,
it’s called the Mountain View Cabin,
two bedrooms, two bathrooms, 976 square feet.
- That’s small, huh?
- [Kameko] Yeah. Whoa.
I think you might be able to see some Yellowstone River
from this one.
Beautiful.
- [Cash] Cool! Look at all the mountains.
- Hi.
- Welcome to the top of the world.
- Another incredible place.
- The spot is awesome. Yeah, it’s perfect.
- Yeah, you’re looking at the Absaroka Mountains here.
Where in the Gallatins,
and then that’s the Yellowstone River
that you have this incredible view of from right here.
This house is listed on the lower end of your budget
at 625,000, but we still wanted to show it to you
because there’s definitely room to either build a main house
and have this become a guest house
or possibly add on to this one.
- [Ryan] Definitely a start for our dream home, right?
Dream land for 35 acres?