The megapopular TV franchise “Yellowstone” put Montana in the national spotlight, but some locals have mixed feelings about the attention.
“Yellowstone” and “Marshals” star Luke Grimes recently told podcaster Joe Rogan that he’s gotten the cold shoulder after moving to the Big Sky State with his family.
“Well, your show made a lot of people move out there, though,” Rogan said.
“That’s true. Yeah. And they’re not happy about it,” Grimes responded.
He shared with Rogan a recent experience he had.
“The valley that I live in, we had some people come visit us,” said Grimes. “Our friends from California drove out, and we went on a hike, and we were in their car. And they had, you know, Cali plates. We get off the hike, and someone had written ‘go back’ in the dust on their car. Like, people are super weird about it, so I don’t tell anyone exactly where I’m at because they would get really mad at me.”
Grimes said this has affected where he chooses to go.
“I can’t go to bars there anymore because whatever that one idiot is at the bar … he can’t wait to start a fight with me,” said Grimes. “Just like can’t wait to do it because it’s like a win-win for him, you know? He gets to sue me or something. I don’t know, but it’s a lose-lose for me.”
Despite the backlash, Grimes—who told Rogan he moved his Airstream to Montana during the COVID-19 lockdown and “never left”—said he and his wife, Brazilian model Bianca Rodrigues Grimes, love living there.
“We love it, man. It’s the best thing that’s ever happened for me,” he exclaimed.
Grimes, who lived in Los Angeles for 16 years before making the move, says Montana is the opposite of L.A.
“I have no FOMO about anything anymore,” he said. “I can just think and sleep and read and watch films, and it’s the best.”
Montana meets California
Chase Heiland, a Bozeman real estate broker with Keller Williams, moved to Montana from California nearly a decade ago.
“I get a lot of clients from Los Angeles since I’m from there—for me, it’s a niche,” he tells Realtor.com®. “California is still the No. 1 state people move here from.”
“Yellowstone” attracted a lot of buyers to Montana, especially in 2022 and 2023, Heiland explains. “I do recall getting calls from people who said, ‘I saw “Yellowstone,” I want to move there,’ and when I’d ask if they’d ever been here before, they’d say no,” he says.
Locals have even nicknamed Bozeman—where the median listing price is $937,450—“Boz Angeles,” he says. He adds that although people like to rib Californians, it’s generally all in good fun.
“In the Bozeman area, are you going to get ribbed and teased for being from L.A.? Yes. But do I think people really care after you get that ribbing? No,” he says.
Prices have skyrocketed in Montana
Accelerating home prices and substantial growth have characterized the Montana housing market since the onset of the pandemic, says Hannah Jones, senior economic research analyst at Realtor.com.
“Home shoppers in search of value and views latched on to the scenic state, fueled by a remote-work revolution that decoupled high-paying salaries from coastal urban hubs.” she says.
In February 2020, the median listing price in Montana was $349,000. Six years later, the typical home costs $612,000, a roughly 75% increase.
“Price appreciation in Montana is more than double national growth in the same time period,” Jones adds.
Over the past six years, Montana has seen the most extreme overall listing price growth of any U.S. state, she says. Only Vermont has seen faster price-per-square-foot growth than Montana since 2020—84.6% compared with 82.7%.
Since 2020, Jones says median listing prices have risen the most in Deer Lodge (+303%), Columbia Falls (+224.2%), Roundup (+177.4%), and Big Sky (+131.9%).
Heiland admits some locals have been forced to leave the state because they could no longer afford it. However, he says he’s very optimistic about how that is changing.
“The majority of my clients now are first-time homebuyers, which is the first time that’s been the case in seven years,” Heiland says. “They’ve saved up, they want to be here, and they’re ready to pull the trigger.”
