Trophy-property ranches hit the market as more heirs choose to sell
Owned by the same family for more than 116 years, Reynolds Ranch is now on the market for $30.7 million.
Courtesy of California Outdoor Properties
For more than 116 years, Deanna Davis’ family has owned Reynolds Ranch, which spans 7,600 acres in California’s Central Coast region. With the heirs in disagreement over the homestead’s future, Reynolds Ranch is now on the market for $30.7 million.
“It’s so hard to make decisions together as a family about the ranch,” Davis told CNBC. “If I had the cash, I would buy the whole thing right now and cash everybody out and start over and take the title in a LLC.”
It’s a common predicament for family trees that have too many branches, said Davis, who runs the property. Her mother, who died last December, was the last family member who grew up on Reynolds Ranch. Now the family is scattered across the country and some of her relatives live overseas. Some family members who can only visit once or twice a year would rather cash out.
Families like Davis’ are increasingly choosing to sell these long-held properties, high-end ranch brokers told CNBC.
The legacy properties are in big demand — even if not at pandemic highs — as deep-pocketed buyers crave wide open skies and a slower pace of life. The so-called “Yellowstone” effect also remains in full force, with fans of the Paramount show seeking sprawling properties in Montana, Wyoming, Colorado and other Western states.
“All I know is whoever buys this property, when they sit on the porch in the afternoon, sipping their margarita or iced tea, they will think they landed in paradise,” Davis said.
‘Nothing quite like it’
Ranch brokerage Live Water Properties currently has $700 million in listing inventory, up from under $200 million in May 2024, according to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, broker Latham Jenkins. Many of these properties are legacy ranches that are on the market for the first time in generations, he said.
One such listing is Antlers Ranch in Meeteetse, Wyoming, which spans 40,000 acres — nearly three times the size of Manhattan — and is priced at $85 million. Antlers Ranch is on the market for the first time in five generations.
“Large historic properties are less common as many have been broken up and sold off,” Jenkins said. “Those that remain are highly desirable.”
These legacy ranches can demand a premium for reasons other than acreage, he said. Many historic ranches — like another one of his listings, Red Hills Ranch, a 190-acre property asking for $65 million — are surrounded by public lands that cannot be developed. Buyers are drawn to that privacy, as well as the ability to hike and fish nearby and see wildlife up close.
Red Hills Ranch, 25 miles outside Jackson, Wyoming, spans 190 acres and is listed for $65 million. Nestled in the Bridger-Teton National Forest, Red Hills Ranch was formerly the private guest ranch of late Senator Herb Kohl.
Courtesy of Live Water Properties
“When you sit next to a running river, watching sunrises and sunsets, seeing an elk calf be born, there’s nothing quite like it,” Jenkins said.
Families usually come to him when the next generation has little interest in taking over the ranch, or when the heirs can’t come to an agreement. He described it as “bittersweet” when these one-of-a-kind properties become available for the first time in generations.
“That’s the thing with real estate. The land is perpetual, but the ownership is not,” he said.
Bill McDavid, a broker at Hall and Hall, represents Rocking Chair Ranch, a 7,200-acre Montana ranch that has been in the same family for more than seven decades.
“The adult children just got to the point where they realized, ‘No, it’s time for this family to move on and do something else,'” he said of the sellers behind the property, which is listed at $21.7 million.
Generational transfer of wealth
As ranching has been on the decline for decades, many multigenerational ranches have already changed hands, according to McDavid, who is based in Missoula, Montana. However, McDavid said he is also seeing a rise in families looking to sell ranches they bought 20 to 30 years ago. The owners typically don’t have family ties to ranching and decided to buy trophy properties after making their fortune in tech or finance.
“For the buyer who made their money in the dot-com era, they had a grand idea about a family legacy, or whatever,” he said. “And then their kids got older, and they didn’t move to the ranch because nobody ever moved to the ranch. I mean, the dot-com guy, he came out and visited for at most the summer.”
For the heirs, “it was never in the cards for them to take over the ranch,” he said.
Davis said she hopes a local ranching family will buy her California property, which has abundant grazing pastures and water…
Read More: Trophy-property ranches hit the market as more heirs choose to sell