Where are you in MT? I spent 3 weeks in the Bozeman area last summer and found property to be quite expensive.
The big house is in Bozeman (I have a small hunting cabin, about 300 sq ft, about 100 miles north of town). We got really lucky with this house...it happens to be right next to a frat house. The couple that owned it before us are ranchers and the wife wanted to try living in town, so they bought this house cheap and fully restored it. The husband simply couldn't deal with living in town, so they moved back to the ranch and put the house up for sale. Most people, including me, refused to even look at the house due to the frat next door. My wife fell in love with the house, so we spent a week or so talking to neighbors about the frat, coming by late at night to see how loud the frat was, etc. We were the only people to make an offer on the house and the sellers accepted it without countering (we made a low, but reasonable, offer). Turned out that the frat guys are actually really good neighbors, so we were able to get a great house at about half the price others go for on this street. Bozeman prices are pretty close to what you'd find in the Bay Area at this point (well, not in the new developments, but for sure in the historic downtown area).
