FISH CATCHING TRAVEL

There are lots of mule deer, including these 20 feet away from me while I drink coffee on the back deck.

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The Wade Right Fishing Belt and the new Madre Sling.

For all your wading needs.

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Real Estate Insanity!

Well Tuesday turned out to be a rather informative day.  As we kick around coming this way we have noticed the prices are much higher than even last year.  (How high?  Here is an example – How about an old trailer house across the street from a junk yard for $260K and there is nothing else cheaper.) And it sure seems like there is not really that much for sale.  Now we know the reason why.

It was raining pretty good so we headed west to the town of Bayfield, which is a little over half way to Durango from Pagosa, to check it out.  We putted around town, the old part was really cool and has not yet been gentrified like some old downtowns have been.  So after our general drive by, seeing no real estate signs, we stopped at a real estate office.  Us:  Hi we are thinking about coming this way.  Her:  Sorry I have no houses for sale.  I mean literally nothing under basically a million, and they sold 25 of that size last year.  And to give us an example one of the brokers who works there made a bid on a house in Durango that was $525,000.  His bid – asking plus $100k and paying all costs and taxes.  He did not get it!   And the last old, and they are old, houses in that old area sold for over $400k.  I am talking stuff that should not bring much over $100k.  So what is the freakin’ deal?

That is what I say:  What’s the deal?

She said the biggest factor is everything in sight has  been bought up, mostly by city folks from all over the country fleeing the virus.  And to add to it is the number of those who can now work remotely.   She said it has been crazy, folks are flocking to this area and price has not been an object and now, nothing left.  A literal feeding frenzy.  Folks who normally might sell with prices skyrocketing can’t, they would then have no where to live.  So when she said there is nothing much out there she was not kidding.  So there you have it, we will not be moving to Bayfield anytime in the future.  (As a side note wish I had gotten her name, her husband is from Seadrift, she from Aggieland.  Small world.)

And one side affect of that is we have heard from a couple of younger folks that they are leaving.  Basically the only jobs in the area are service related, which do not pay much.  Definitely not enough to live here much less trying to find a place to live.  Times have really changed fast, who would have seen that coming.  But as we know many of the folks who could flee did, and it looks like every single one of them has come to southern Colorado.  This is not deterring us at all, like many things in life, want it bad enough then figure it out.

Everybody is looking a little ragged as they shed the winter coat.

So today has been a rest up day.  I am sitting on the deck, the Boss is doing her shopping thing.  It leads to one question:  How can she shop and not buy something?  Always has puzzled me.

Tomorrow the Boss has a Zoom meeting in the morning so I will be up and gone at daylight back to the woods.  First chasing animals, then another go at Williams.  That was a nice brown I caught yesterday and who knows, maybe I will catch a bigger one.  And  one last thing – the elk medallions are marinating to go along with the asparagus.  Great way to finish the day.  So keep stopping in and thanks for reading my stuff.

Good Luck and Tight Lines