It’s important ot note early on in the quest-for-the-best house (an on-going project in 2024 at Home Economic) a few types of homes will be quickly eliminated. To qualify to be the best home to take to market, it must be an attractive home to a bunch of people. Like hundreds of thousands of people.
The inclination to become nostalgic and nominate the turn-of-the-century home of relatives several generations back, simple won’t do. The market for sentimentality exists only between a tight group of people.
Other factors attract only a slim pool of buyers. I once took the Empire Builder from Minneapolis to West Glacier in Montana. After leaving Minnesota the tracks run through North Dakota and Montana skirting the Canadian border by forty miles. Trains are wonderfully spacious which allows people to circulate. A woman from Devil’s Lake or Lakota or Epping explained that Amtrack was her best bet for travel. Bismark was hours away and air travel wouldn’t take her to her relatives, a day’s journey down the tracks by rail.
Property in remote areas may offer privacy. The views from a log cabin at the foot of the Grand Tetons are unique and spectacular. A two hunderd acre ranch in the Bitteroot Valley maybe a haven for horse lovers. Whereas movie stars a celebrities might relish the distance this keeps between them and their fans, most buyers would struggle to make a life in extremely rural conditions.
Historic homes, iconic homes, or those with sentimental ties are not qualifiers for the best-of-the-best. Nor are propeties in remote locales. Simply too few can make those work.
Home Economics 