Are you ready for another moving to Rapid City Success Story. Hi. This is Tristan Emond with Mindful Living Realty, a realtor right here in Rapid City, South Dakota, the gateway to the Black Hills. Last winter, I went to check in on the Evans, who moved up here from Denver, Colorado. Let's see what they say about their experiences and what they love about Rapid City, South Dakota.
Well, I mean, it came over a couple of year period. You know, obviously just Well, we're from Denver, so being from there, it was like impossible for us to find someplace that we would be able to afford. Because number one. Yeah, yeah. Like the housing market there was insanely expensive. So we always wanted a house we could raise kids in and those kinds of things.
So we were kind of looking at a few different states and South Dakota kind of stuck out for us because the population was low and it was small, small city and yeah, so your videos helped a lot. Yeah. Yeah. You know, just being able to see the different areas of town, the neighborhoods and other reasons why some people move and.
Right. You know, some of the stuff I really enjoyed was just finding out how far away the other populations are. Like, you have to drive like 5 hours to get to anywhere. Yeah, right. And we loved that. Oh, oh. Ideally, one day we wanted to homestead. That's our ideal situation eventually as to find a house and have some land in Homestead on and do those kinds of things.
So yeah, yeah, getting out here was the goal. The goal and mainly, you know, like seeing the housing market in rapid obviously has expanded quite a bit too. I mean, nothing like Denver, but still and for people living here, it's probably feels that way. Yeah, it feels like insane. And they're like, they're probably where we were, like, we're never gonna be able to buy a house.
But, you know, we were in that situation. We could, number one, anywhere, like 1900 dollars a month for rent and a two bedroom. So not even our kind of cost of living kind of put us in that range where, you know, like we're used to living kind of frugal so we could work like maybe we could apply and maybe we could get approved.
And I'm like, Let's just do it. Let's see. And it all came together. But, but I mean, also the freedom. Yeah. The freedom, Freedom for freedom, liberty and all those amazing things. Yeah. I mean, the one thing I'll say, I don't know if that really answers that question, but the one thing I'll say that I really noticed working with you is you knew exactly what you're talking about.
And like, I think sometimes, like you told me things without really telling me I don't know how to give a good example with that, but, um, I could just, just, I could tell in the communication where we were going to be at and what we could get into. And with the market the way it was, you know, like what we needed to do to get out here and really tell you that's, that's your specialty, you know, get people out here if that's what they're really trying to do.
It was for me, it was just like easy. It was like we were in a completely different state. So the I the options for us were kind of like it felt a little weird not seeing a house that you were going to put down, you know, put money down on. But like for us, you were so willing to, you know, Tristan's awesome.
He went to the house. He told us the truth about. I mean, we didn't feel like you were trying to hide anything from us about the house or anything like that. So it was just like, really straightforward, simple. I just that's the biggest word for me is it was like easy, simple and just smooth. It all went so smooth to me.
I was really awesome. That's what we like to hear. Yeah. What we strive for is really just smooth. Yeah, that's. Yeah. And like, I think it's considered something like, you just let us simply let us know that the whole process just went real easy. And suppose even despite we're you know, in Denver most of the time that was the thing is we were in a different state.
And then just like we didn't know anything about where we were coming to, really, we did some research, but not all. No. I mean, what can you really know without coming in so much? Yeah. You said, you said for actually putting foot on the ground. Yeah. See, what's about. I mean, I can only show you so much. Yeah, exactly.
Yeah. Just. I mean, even just the feel there's the how it, how it looks in person and it's so much different 100%. But we do everything we can to make sure you can see work as much as possible. Still being able to do what you need to do. Yeah. Yeah. And we, you know, when we drove out for the inspection, um, just kind of driving out, you know, over the hills into where we started seeing homes in rapid and getting into town.
Like, I mean, both of us kind of teared up a little bit. We love before we even knew for sure we were going to make it. And just because you could see as small town and like come in from Denver, like a whole different experience and we knew like we knew just driving in as soon as we got right now.
And it wasn't it wasn't even not mental. It was like just this feeling of like it was comforting. Yeah, Yeah, for sure. I love that everywhere I need to go is less than 15 minutes away. That's awesome. We can fill up the car at less. The gas lasts for like two weeks. But also just this has this small town feel that just makes it seem like it's almost 15 years back in a way.
I mean, I feel like where we came from, it just was like, so easy. Go, go, go. And even like the architecture, just everything about it was just a little bit so it felt futuristic. And then coming here, it just felt so homey. And like you said, Pleasantville feel especially like living off of West Boulevard. I love this neighborhood.
I love it. I think it's amazing. The main thing for me is just the people and yeah, super friendly and the people I work with and just real down to earth and, well, I mean, like when we moved in good people, we have like four neighbors come and just introduce themselves, which is really different for us because where we're from, it's not, they're not people aren't really like that.
So it was really, really amazing to have that experience and have neighbors come in and say, Hey, this is us, this is our this is my name. And I don't know. Now we know neighbors. Oh, that's really cool. I love it. I love it here. So far, I think I think we're only going to really love it more and more.
It's so funny. People that we talk to that have also moved out of from out of state say that they're never leaving. They love it here. Yeah. So that's yeah, that's really crazy. We moved here in January and he told me he's like, I'm going to die here. So, you know, he was quite say, yeah, he moved from California and he spent a lot of time in Tucson, Arizona, before that.
You know, he was in the military support. His dad was in the military. So he traveled when he was younger. But he's just happy here. Everybody is. I mean, talking about that year. But the main thing is specifically this home, too, I just want to say is that we found not necessarily what we're really looking for future wise, but we knew this home specifically would, number one, work for us.
It has everything that we do need, but most importantly, it's like a foundation piece for us to start our lives here and now, like coming out here and bringing something that we could afford, you know, like is it quite as foundational as establishing our lives as just getting a home that, you know, maybe in a few years we do get something that's more what we're looking for, But we could use this as a rental property or, you know, even maybe sell it and we have extra money to put into another home.
So I personally love this home, but I love the super ambiance with it. I love the age of it plus or the bus full of art. And yeah, I love the neighborhood. It's very central. Yes, you know, everywhere we've been. So that's great too. And I also feel like it was almost I mean, I don't know if you feel the same way, but I think like for the situation that we were coming from and into, I feel like it was it was here for us.
It's a very weird feeling. It always kind of felt that. Yeah, well, the way the whole situation worked too, I mean, things just kind of fell in line. And then the fact that we have any other offers and I mean, you know, yeah, the appraisal, even though we had to pay more for it, we managed to get it done.
Yes. Which is always happen before. Sometimes we try to get a cool appraisal and they say no way. So the fact that it just the old pieces just kind of clicked together as a result and the fact that, you know, it was like a whole separate unit underneath. We had my mom that came with us. It was just like it was just perfect for us and a lot more comfortable for us and all of us in that way, I think.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's yeah. Everybody, thanks for watching. Be sure to check out this playlist of other testimonials from people who have lived in and moved into Rapid City. Thanks again for watching that amazing day. And remember love where you live.