Antlers Ranch started out as a cattle operation, founded by a German immigrant who traveled up the Missouri River to Fort Benton in Montana on a flat boat, before making his way to Wyoming.
The ranch has been in the same family since 1895, but, last year, it hit the market for $85 million in what seemed like a rare, once-in-a-century opportunity.
While it may have seemed rare, it has been joined by a wave of trophy, legacy ranches, all hitting the Wyoming market in a big wave.
• Pitchfork Ranch near Meeteetse is for sale at $67 million.
• The Cato or PK Ranch near Sheridan is listed at $64.495 million.
• Midland Ranch in Southwest Wyoming at $22 million.
• Pathfinder Ranches in central Wyoming lists at $80 million.
There are at least a baker’s dozen of trophy, legacy ranches on the market across Wyoming, many of them in the same family for generations, with deep historical roots. These five represent more than $318 million worth of Western Wyoming real estate.
What’s happening now is unprecedented, Livewater Associate Broker Latham Jenkins told Cowboy State Daily.
“What we’re seeing in Wyoming right now is now is really a once-in-a-generation transfer of land and legacy,” he said. “We haven’t seen this. It’s the first time in decades that these ranches, long held in the same families are coming to market together.”
Jenkins has about half the trophy legacy ranches listed on the market right now. What he’s seeing is a situation where Boomers are ready to pass the torch on to the next generation, but that next generation doesn’t always have the interest or the financial wherewithal to pay the capital gains or estate taxes involved in taking on their family’s legacy holdings.
“It’s just kind of a perfect storm between the value that’s built up and succession issues,” Jenkins said. “It’s also combined with demand being generated by a new wave of buyers.”
Shifting Focus
The new wave of buyers have different interests than previous generations.
Buyers today, as Pete Widener, real estate partner with Hall and Hall, sees it, are more interested in recreational value than agricultural operations.
“Nobody is paying too much blue sky for nostalgic cattle ranches,” he said. “They will a little bit, but not as much as they will for recreational value. Elk hunting, for example, is more valuable, more desired than cattle operations.”
Cattle operations are still an important component to make a ranch more valuable, Widener acknowledged. But they just don’t drive the same interest anymore.
Recreation is a key selling point for one of Widener’s listing, the Elk Ranch in the Laramie area.
“If you look at that, you could run 300 to 500 cattle on a seasonal basis,” he said. “You’d get good grazing. But it also has some of the best elk hunting in the state. And those are the ranches that achieve the best prices. The ones that have good recreation and ag components.”
Jenkins is seeing much the same thing.
“Many of the new buyers see the value in a ranch from a recreational and lifestyle standpoint, more so than the historical agricultural use,” he said.
COVID-19 Pandemic prices, meanwhile, are largely gone. So that’s not a route to the above-market pricing that many legacy ranch owners are seeking when they sell.
“Some sellers think they can still take advantage of that. I do not,” he said. “If you’re going to get an over-market price with some blue sky in it, it’s going to have to be a pretty rare offering.”
Rare meaning it has all of a pretty extensive buyer’s checklist.
“It’s going to have to be large. It’s gonna have to be private, contiguous, near a town — you know within 30 minutes of groceries and restaurants,” Widener said. “And on top of that, it’s gotta have the ability to make a little money, to justify its existence.”
Recreational value, though, is at the top of that buyer’s list for most.
“That’s either in live water, still-water fishing, or big game, big game hunting,” Widener said. “You have to have it.”
Changing Economics For Ranching
Selling the Antlers Ranch was a private family decision, May told Cowboy State Daily last year. But he also said he gets why Wyoming has been losing so many of its legacy farms and ranchers lately.
“The younger generation sees a better way of living, outside of agriculture,” he said. “The hours, the amount of work , the seven days a week and things like that — it doesn’t appeal to a lot of people. It just takes a different (person), someone who loves the lifestyle.”
Many ranchers, he added, are tired of just surviving.
“That’s a good, perfect word right there,” he said. “Survive. And that’s why you’re seeing a lot of farmers and ranchers getting out. They’re tired of just surviving.’
On paper, many ranchers may look quite wealthy. But they’ve been teetering on a financial ledge — land-rich but cash-poor.
“At some point, they cannot pass a ranch on without paying substantial taxes or locking them into an LLC or something,” Widener said. “So, it gets to a point where one of the family members says, ‘Man, I’m in my 70s. I’m just going to sell the ranch.’ And the kids are like, ‘Yeah, I don’t want to operate it. That’s fine.’
You know, most aren’t wanting to continue that legacy of running a ranch,” Widener continued. “It’s someone else’s turn to hold the torch, and I think that’s what you’re seeing now.”
Gambling the family farm year-in, year-out on cattle or other livestock also ties one’s destiny to a commodity that’s up and down all the time, Jenkins added. There are questions about risking thousands of dollars every year on a commodity whose value fluctuates, risking land that’s worth much more than the livestock.
“The kids are not as interested in working the ranch as past generations have been,” he said. “And it’s obvious it would be a better bet for the family to sell rather than risk going forward with continuing to operate it.”
Retaining Value
Having so many legacy ranches come to market at once does create “an era of concern about their stewardship going forward,” Jenkins said.
New buyers aren’t beholden to old owners when it comes to their vision for a place.
But Widener believes at least some of it will be mitigated by the economics involved, particularly where significant amounts of value are tied up in a system of public land leases woven around a much smaller proportion of deeded acreage.
Pathfinder Ranches, Midland Ranch, Pitchfork Ranch, and Antlers Ranch all have significant amounts of value tied into leased acreage from public lands.
To keep that portion of value, those leases must be actively used. To the extent a property has value in such leases, it’s going to a force on what happens. It will attract certain types of buyers, who, going forward, will have to at least consider that portion of their new holding’s value.
The Midland Ranch is a good example of what’s involved. It has 1.15 million acres overall — a huge slice of land that’s bigger than the state of Delaware and five times the size of New York. But just 5,880 of those acres are deeded.
It does have great recreational opportunities, but it’s perfectly set up as an operational ranch.
As an operational ranch, it has done very well for its owners, the Arambel family, for 120 years, according to the property’s listing agent, Court Merrigan, with LandVest Christie’s International Real Estate. And it can continue to do that for generations to come.
Midland Ranch actually has two different prices for the marketplace. There’s one for the entire ranch at $22 million, and another for breaking the ranch up into smaller, individual ranching units.
Merrigan, however, believes the Midland does have great potential beyond an operational ranch.
“These ranches are really just beautiful pieces of our heritage, our Western heritage in Wyoming,” he said. “And they’re being priced so that they can continue, in some way, to uphold the legacy that we’ve got. That legacy can be interpreted in lots of ways.
"And I think the future agriculture, ranching, people have in every generation figured out what’s next. So I, for one, am super optimistic that this round of sales will continue that legacy of people figuring out what the next thing is.”
Contact Renee Jean in renee@cowboystatedaily.com
Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.
