Feb. 28, 2022

Best Rapid City Parks - Sioux Park

 

 

 

 

A sundail. Welcome to Sioux park, where you can do almost anything with the dinosaur looking over your shoulder.

Hi everybody. I'm Tristan Emond mindful living Realty a realtor right here in rapid city, South Dakota. Welcome to my YouTube channel. I'll talk everything about moving to rapid city and the wonderful things of rapid city and the black Hills, and this was about town adventure. We're showcasing one of my favorite parks; Sioux park.

Sioux park is located on the west side of rapid city, just south canyon link drive and east of Sheridan lake road.

One of the main features of Sioux park is the full-sized track and football fields. Here the local schools play some of their football games, soccer games, track, and field meets. And this past year final marching band performances.

Plus it's a favorite spot for walkers, joggers and runners.

Located in the Mural walls are four Racquetball courts.

Plus there's multiple tennis courts and a number of soccer fields.

Just on the edge of the park is the Jimmy Hilton pool with waterslides lots of fun stuff, places for the kids. With plenty of parking,

there are plenty of basketball courts for your pickup game. With your friends, horse shoes, anyone just gotta bring your own horse shoes.

And playground equipment for kids of all ages.

Even those big kids.

Yeah, right. I can do this. No problem go. Nope.

Nope. Throughout the park, you'll see a bunch of these green slackline poles. This park was created in memory of Nehemiah Larimer a senior at Stevens high school who passed away on March 28th, 2015. Nehemiah was passionate about slacklining highlining and rock climbing, and he loved to introduce others to these sports.

This park honors his legacy to pursue new challenges and adventures and to celebrate a life of love and balance. There are picnic shelters

and beautiful green spaces for your picnic lunches,

climb trees.

Look up at the clouds, moving by.

listen to the breeze in the cottonwoods

and smile at the songs of the birds. If you're lucky, you might even see the albino squirrels.

Yes, of course, a sundail because why not?

I see a burn behind me that was built after the 1972 flood, when the rapid Creek flooded all the way through the town, creating a lot of these parks, a lot of these green spaces. And so this was part of the work that was done to make sure that doesn't happen. And again,

Another interesting feature nearby. Sioux park is the tree Arboretum, which is just over these stairs. Over the hill. We can check out different species of trees and walk on a little park. One of my all time, favorite things about Sue park is the bike path right next to rapid Creek. The lake path follows rapidCreek, about 10 miles all the way across the city.

From west side to east side, this concrete paths is perfect to run Jog. Bike unicycle or whatever suits your fancy. There are even some bike repair stations along the way.

I love the beautiful views and listening of the sound of the water rushing by at rapid Creek.

Hot out here today had to put my feet in the water

Just across the street from Sioux park is a legendary storybook island and American Legion baseball fields, ofta shade. Hey Everybody I hope you  enjoyed our park tour today? If you liked this video, be sure to give me a thumbs up and if we can to watch this video or this video, thanks again for watching everyone have a wonderful day to remember.

Love where you live.

 

Feb. 21, 2022

Best Rapid City Neighborhoods - Countryside Subdivision

 

 

 

 

Hey everybody welcome back to Tristan about town neighborhood edition. We're back off sheridan lake road today. And one of my favorite and subdivisions countryside.

Hi everybody. I'm Tristan Emond with mindful living Realty or realtor right here in rapid city, South Dakota. Welcome to my YouTube channel where I talk everything about moving to the rapid city. and all the amazing things about rapid city and the black Hills and these neighborhood editions of Tristan about town.

We drive to the neighborhoods and talk about what's nearby. Let's do it. Countryside is a neighborhood just outside of rapid city, along Sheridan lake road. The foundries are Sheridan lake road on the south canyon J drive on the west metal lawn drive on the north and Tanager drive on the east. But first we got to get there.

It's about a five minute drive from the light at catron Boulevard to the subdivision.

Countryside subdivision has a majority of split and multilevel homes that were built in the 1980s and 90s.

Most will have garages with over 2000 square feet. and very few townhomes.

Your elementary school, children will go to Corral drive elementary, which is about seven minutes away. Right next to corral drive elementary is Southwest middle school and high schools. We'll go to Stevens high school, about 15 minutes.

In 2020 only five homes sold in this area. The average sold price was 345,000 with an average days on market 11.

It's 13 minutes because a grocery store in Baken park, 20 minutes to Rushmore mall, you'll be downtown in 15 minutes. South side, Walmart is 12 minutes. Shopping at Rushmore crossing with target to Sam's club and other stores. It's 20 minutes away. The nearest dog park is 11 minutes away. The medical community is about 12 minutes away.

And for the military members ellsworth air force space is about 28 minutes.

Just a minute or two from countryside  subdivision is cornerston pantry gas station, and convenience store, along with subway sandwich shop.

In that area  is also a green house. and landscaping business, storage units. Athletic club and red Rocks golf course, once construction is done, you'll be a few minutes away from Sheridan lake popular trails, such as the flume trail and other black Hills scenery

just in town or a couple of retail plazas. They include restaurants, workout, facilities, and the ever important drive-through wine store. There's also banking carwash, just down catron Boulevard is the super Walmart center. Complete with grocery pickup retail stores, big D gas station and rapid wash carwash baken park will be your nearest grocery stores drugstore with postal center.

urgent care, hardware store

and Walgreens. Thank you for watching our video. We hope you enjoy it. Please give us fat thumbs up. Don't forget to hit that subscribe button and nail the notification bells to see all of our rapid city and black Hills videos, you love what you see. Download our 13 reasons why you should move to rapid city relocation guide that link it's below.

And then you can check out this playlist and this video. See you next time and remember, Love where you live

 

Feb. 14, 2022

Best Rapid City Neighborhoods - Meadowbrook and Arrowhead

 

 

Hey everybody. I'm Tristan Emond with mindful living Realty, a realtor right here in rapid city, South Dakota. Welcome to my YouTube channel, where I talk everything about moving to the rapid city area and all the wonderful things about rapid city and the black Hills in these tristan about town, neighborhood editions.

We go roll them through the subdivisions. Let's go check it out. Welcome to the area bordering the meadowbrook golf course and Arrowhead country club. The borders of this area begin with west florrman street on the north Sheridan lake road on the east. The corner of stockade drive and Nicholas drive on the south and just around the frontier drive culdesac on the west.

In this area, you'll find a variety of home styles from ranch to splits to three level homes.

you won't find very many town homes in this area, but you will find majority of the homes have garages.

Most of these homes were built between 1960 and 1980 and just square footage around anywhere from 1500 to 2,500.

For your school age children. Your elementary students will go to Meadowbrook right in the same neighborhood, just a few minutes away. Your middle schoolers, go to Southwest middle school, about five minutes away. And your high schoolers would go to Stevens high school, seven minutes away.

In 2020, the average sold price in this area was $264,000 with an average days of market of 31. However, in the entirety of 2020 only 21 homes sold this area.

So how far are you away from your nearby services? Grocery and Baken park is about six minutes away. Rushmore mall, 14 minutes. You'll be downtown in about nine minutes, south side Walmart. You'll be there in about 13 minutes, Rushmore crossing, including target Sam's club and other stores about 15 minutes away.

The nearest dog park is seven minutes away. And the medical community, 13 minutes for our military members. You're about 23 minutes from the front gate.

At baken park shopping center, you'll find your family fare, grocery store Boyd's drug store and pharmacy along with post office and shopping center to include an urgent care and restaurants across the street from baken park. It's Safeway and another shopping center, including hardware store fitness center, and other shops in this area is also Walgreens O'Riley's auto parts and the goods and services of west main street.

Don't forget to get your ice cream cake at Coldstone Creamery. The south side, Walmart complex includes your super Walmart with grocery pickup. And shopping center, including your Verizon store in dollar tree near by walmart is also your carwash and gas station. Just north on park drive is the poular Canyon lake park complete with its open spaces, picnic areas, and beautiful trees, kayak and fish on the lake and walk through the park on the bike path.

Other nearby futures include the Meadowbrook golf course with its beautiful greens next to rapid Creek dairy queen,

amazing pizza and sandwiches at piazanos. And barks and bubbles for your four legged friends. Thanks for watching this video. We hoped you enjoyed it. Please give us that coming to thumbs up. Don't forget to hit that subscribe button and nail the notification bell to see all our rapid city and black whose videos love what you see.

Download our 13 weeks. This is why you should move to rapid city relocation guide that link. It's below. And then you can check out this playlist and this video. See you next time to remember love where you live.

 

Feb. 7, 2022

Best Rapid City Neighborhoods - Fieldview Drive Area | Tristan about Town

 

 

 

Welcome back to Tristan about town neighborhood edition, Today we are on the south side, rapid city and the homes surrounding fieldview and parkview lanes.

Hi everybody. I'm Tristan Emond with mindful living Realty, a realtor right here in rapid city, South Dakota. Welcome to my YouTube channel. Where I talk everything about moving to rapid city area and all the amazing things about rapid city and the black Hills and these neighborhood editions of Tristan about town.

We drive through the neighborhoods and talk about what's nearby. Let's do it.

Welcome to the fieldview subdivision in Southeast rapid city.

It's borders on the north are east Minnesota, and catron Boulevard on the south Campbell street on the east and fifth street on the west.

In this subdivision, you'll find mostly ranch or split level homes. Built between 1990s and the two thousands

you'll have anywhere from 1500 to 3000 square feet and most likely a garage

for your school-aged children, your elementary students will go to grand view elementary, about five minutes away. The middle schoolers would go to south middle school, about seven minutes away in high schoolers to central high school, about nine minutes away.

In 2020, the average sold price is $260,000. And the average days of market is only 13 days.

For your goods and services, family fare grocery store is only seven minutes away. Rushmore mall is 16 minutes away. You can be downtown in 10 minutes. South side Walmart is literally minutes away. Rushmore crossing with Sam's club and target is 14 minutes away. The nearest dog park is five minutes away.

The hospital and medical community is six minutes away. And for military members, Ellsworth air force base about 22 minutes to the front gate.

Other places nearby. Is a circleS Plaza, Robbinsdale park with a playground baseball fields and green spaces and newer BMX track. Right next to robbinsdale park is the leash free dog park I was talking about the walking path. There is just about one mile. She's talking St. Patrick street is regional grocery store, family fare.

ACE hardware, great sandwiches and gyuros at Pauleys and donuts. You run into parkview park with it's swimming pool, softball fields, and kids' playgrounds, the shopping area near the south side. Walmart includes carwash. Gas station a retail shopping Plaza,

and a Walmart complete with grocery pickup. Thank you so much for watching a video. We hope you enjoyed it. Please give us a thumbs up. Don't forget to hit that subscribe button nail that notification bell to make sure you see all of our rapid city and black Hills videos. Love what you see, download our 13 reasons why you should move to rapid city relocation guy, that link it's below.

In the meantime, you can check out this playlist and this video. Thanks again for watching. Have a wonderful day. And remember love where you live .

 

Jan. 31, 2022

Rapid City Neighborhoods - Canyon Lake Drive

 

 

Welcome back to Tristan about town today. We're at Southwest side, rapid city, one of those areas and homes just around Canyon Lake drive.

I'm Tristan Emond with mindful living Realty, a realtor right here in rapid city, South Dakota. Welcome to my YouTube channel, where I talk everything about moving to the rapid city area. And all the wonderful things of rapid city and the black Hills and these Tristan about town neighborhood editions, we go rolling through the subdivisions.

Let's go check it out. Welcome to the canyon lake area. This community is south of Canyon lake drive, west of 32nd street, north of Jackson Boulevard and east of Canyon lake drive beating Jackson Boulevard.

In this area, the majority of your homes will be ranch styles built between the 1940s and the 1960s.

For Your children going to rapid city public schools, Canyon Lake elementary as a couple of minutes away. West middle school is two minutes away. And Stevens high school is three minutes away. No schools too far from this area.

You'll find about 50% of them have some sort of garage. And the square footage range is that new for 1000 square feet to 2,500.

You Also find a few townhomes in this area and some apartment buildings.

When you're ready to get out of the house and go shopping baken park is your closest grocery shopping, which is six minutes away. Rushmore mall is 15 minutes away. A Trip downtown, be about 11 minutes. North side. Walmart is 14 minutes away. South side. Walmart is 17 minutes away. Rushmore crossing, including target and Sam's club is 16 minutes away.

The nearest dog park is under five minutes away. The medical community is about 15 minutes away. And for our military members, Ellsworth air force base is about 25 minutes away.

in 2020, the average sales price in this area was $194,777. The average days on market 18, a very popular.

at baken park shopping center. You'll find your family fare, grocery store Lloyd's drug store and pharmacy along with post office inside and shopping center. To include an urgent care and restaurants across the street from baken park. It's safe way. And another shopping center. Including hardware store fitness center and other shops in this area is also Walgreens O'Riley's auto parks and the goods and services of west main street.

Don't forget to get your ice cream cake at Coldstone Creamery. The south side, Walmart complex includes your super Walmart with grocery pickup and shopping center, including your Verizon store and dollar tree near by walmart is also your carwash. And gas station, just a few blocks away is the popular canyon lake park, complete with it.

Open spaces, picnic areas, and beautiful trees, kayak and fish on the lake and walk through the park on the bike path. Also a few minutes away is storybook island a free storybook theme park for kids and Adults like and Jackson park with his picnic tables and Frisbee golf course. Are there any bright futures include the Meadowbrook golf course with his beautiful greens next to rapid Creek dairy queen

amazing pizza and sandwiches at piazanos. And barks and bubbles for your four legged friends. Thanks for watching the video. We hoped you enjoyed it. Please give us that cover to thumbs up. Don't forget to hit that subscribe button and nail the notification bell to see all our rapid city and black hills videos love what you see.

Download our 13 weeks. This is why you should move to rapid city relocation guide that link it's below. And then you can check out this playlist and this video. See you next time and remember love where you live.

 

Jan. 24, 2022

Rapid City Neighborhoods - Parkridge in Southwest Rapid City

 

 Welcome back to tristan and about town neighborhood edition. We're back to the Southwest side, rapid city, those homes and neighborhoods surrounding Meadowbrook drive and parkridge drive.

Hey everybody. I'm Tristan Emond with mindful living Realty realtor right here in rapid city, South Dakota. Welcome to my YouTube channel where I talk everything about moving to the rapid city area. and all the wonderful things about rapid city and the black Hills In these tristan about town neighborhood editions

we go roll them. The subdivisions. Let's go check it out. You find the parkridge area as those homes and neighborhoods south of Western avenue, west of stockade drive north of Nicholas drive to the end of park Ridge Homes in this area were built between 1970s and the 1980s.

The majority of the homes are ranch in three levels homes with a few two-story  homes mixedin .

for your school aged children. Your elementary students will go to Meadowbrook school about five minutes away. Your middle school students who go to Southwest middle school about five minutes away. And your high school students who go to Stevens about seven minutes away

 homes in this area have a square footage of two to 3000 square feet and most have a garage.

In 2020, the average sold price of homes in this area was $320,000. And they were on the market for an average of 23 days.

 How far away are you from services? Grocery is at baken park about eight minutes away. Rushmore mall is about 16 minutes away. You're 12 minutes away from downtown. You're 14 minutes away from south side Walmart, 17 minutes away from target Sam's club and Rushmore crossing, shopping. Six minutes away from the nearest dog park, 15 minutes away from the medical unit

and for our military members, 25 minutes away from Ellsworth air force base.

At baken park shopping center, you'll find your family fare, grocery store Boyd's drug store and pharmacy along with post office and shopping center to include an urgent care and restaurants across the street from Macon park. It's Safeway and another shopping center, including hardware store fitness center, and other shops in this area is also Walgreens  O'Riley's auto parks and the goods and services of west main street.

Don't forget to get your ice cream cake. At Coldstone Creamery, the south side, Walmart complex includes your super Walmart with grocery pickup and shopping center, including your Verizon store and dollar tree nearby. Walmart is also your carwash and gas station, just north on park drive. It's the popular Canyon lake park complete with its open spaces, picnic areas, and beautiful trees, kayak and fish on the lake and walked through the  park on the bike path.

Other nearby features  include the Meadowbrook golf course with its beautiful greens. Next to rapid Creek dairy queen.

Amazing pizza and sandwiches at piazanos and barks and bubbles for your four legged friends. Thanks for watching this video. We hope you enjoyed it. Please give us that covenant thumbs up. Don't forget to hit that subscribe button and nail the notification bell to see all our rapid city and black whose videos love what you see.

Download our 13 reasons why you should move to rapid city relocation guide. That link is below. And then you can check out this playlist and this video, see you next time to remember love where you live.

 

Jan. 17, 2022

The Weather Events of Rapid City - Snow, Wind, Hail and more!

 

 

Snow ice and hail oh my! Snow ice and hail oh my!

Hey everybody, I'm Tristan Emond with mindful living Realty, a realtor right here in rapid city, South Dakota. Welcome back to my YouTube channel. Talk, everything about moving to rapid city and the wonderful things of rapid city and the black Hills in today's video. We're going to talk about the weather events of rapid city weather events.

Number one. The wind. So apparently the wind is a huge issue for a lot of, you have had a lot of comments, a lot of questions about the wind of South Dakota. So it has its own video stick around to the end. I'll show you share with you where that video is. Weather event. Number two, the snow. Of course we're in the Northern part of the United States.

We get snow here in rapid city and South Dakota. State-wise our state ranks, right? I'm on the 15th of the list, which is about 40 inches per snow annually, depending on which website you look at. Number one of this list vermont with 90 inches of snow every year. And of course the caboose, Florida with 0.01 inches per year, you guys were wanting to get some snow down there.

It's a lot of fun to play with. Now, breaking it down by city, rapid city, we get about 50 inches of snow per year. On average, based on these sites that I've been looking at where Sioux falls is around upper forties. Now the difference though, between rapid city and Sioux falls is that over here in rapid city, we have the banana belt weather.

So we'll get the snow. And then two weeks later it would be 50 degrees. That'll melt. Here comes another round of snow. We'll get a little higher 40 degrees again in the middle of January that all melt. So we don't usually see the same snow that's on the ground. At the beginning of the year as we do in the end of the year, whereas some parts of the Eastern state of South Dakota, that that  snow that they have the beginning of the year is on the ground in some fashion the entire year, or it certainly it's a lot colder over there.

So it takes longer to melt. Now there's a big difference when you get into the black Hills, of course, lead South Dakota has 195 inches of steel per year. On average. That's four times what we get in rapid city. He'd be like this beautiful spring-like day in rapid city or Sturgis or Spearfish, you drive up the hill a little bit into the black Hills and it's like a complete winter Wonderland.

The next thing they're talking about in regards to the snow is, as I mentioned before, snow melt, snow melt, and sometimes that melting then freezes at night and we have a deal with ice. Now. Ice can be a lot of fun if you've got a 4-wheel drive pickup truck and you want to spend some doughnuts in some parking lots.

But it certainly makes driving and travel a lot more difficult in our area. Just got to learn how to drive on the roads and take the right precautions at the right time. All right. Sometimes we even have ice storms where rain is coming down and freezing right away and it's collecting ice on everything.

The biggest key issue here of course is trying to get into your car if you have to drive around. And obviously it's not recommended to go driving when you're got an ice storm. But it can also collect on some of the power lines, create so much weight and down the power lines in those areas. Now, I could tell you a few stories about ice and driving from Sioux falls to rapid city, but instead we'll talk to you about the next thing still brings them out and that is blizzards.

Now since we have less humidity, most of the time over here in rapid city, the snow that they get most of the year is lighter. It isn't that wet, heavy snow that you make snowman and snowballs from so many times the accumulation of the snow is as much of the problem is the snow blowing it's blowing across the road, reducing the visibility.

It's bringing drifts along with it. When it blows across the road, creating problems, trying to get from one place to the other. And if you're driving in the snow at night, it looks like star wars space time. But yeah, winter can get long sometimes in March and April when we're ready to just have some spring.

That's when we're getting the two foot of heavy wet snow, those spring snows, they usually melt really quickly afterwards, but sometimes it's just, will you please just stop snowing? Now, it's time for weather event. Number three, the one year, all worried about that would be hail. If there's one weather event that we're known for outside of the snow is hail.

We do have hailstorms, we have them regularly and we have them frequently. So I did all the research to find out, well, how much hail do we have in reference to the rest of the country? So first let's look at the top 10 numbers of hail loss claims in the United States. We're not even in the top 10.

However, let's flip to this one, which is the major hail in 2020. There we are. Number one on the list. And then the top 10 hail claim frequencies were number one, again, followed right behind Nebraska. And 2020 was a weird year for hail. We had like four major events before July 1st even. 2020 was the first time that we submitted a hail claim for our house, where we had some exterior broken windows.

We had some damaged siding. We had the roof and the gutters that all need to be replaced. Even our metal siding on our back garage needed to be replaced as well for some cosmetic damage. That was some crazy hail to it. Totaled out two of our cars. If you look at this side right here, you can see that no matter where you are on the black Hills, we had substantial hail in 2020.

Now, usually even though hail storms can come up relatively fast, usually, you know, they're coming. They usually come after a hot day. In the later afternoon and you can kind of see it off of the distance and you can kind of feel that "Uh-oh, something's coming", that usually gives you time to make the plans get protected.

But Hey, when you've got an afternoon hailstorms that comes through and you're at work and your car's outside, cause that's where you park it. Sometimes there's not a lot that you can do, but generally we see enough warning so that we know something is coming. A lot of times you can get a feel for the whole weather pattern and just get a feel for, Hey, they'll probably have another afternoon thunderstorm.

Cause that's the way things are going. And I want to be protected just in case it happens to turn into a hailstorm. So the answer really is just simply being aware of what's happening around you, what the weather's doing and having good insurance. In our area you want to make sure that you have a deductible low enough to cover the hail damage that was bound to happen.

Having a deductible of four or five, $6,000 is really not a deductible at all. When you're going to replace your roof. Before the end of its expected lifetime, you can probably expect to replace yourself at least once every 10 years due to hail damage. The other thing to do is make sure that you ask questions about your insurance.

Sometimes your insurance doesn't cover cosmetic damage on your metal surfaces. So if you've got a metal garage that gets beat up by hail. And it's just all kinds of cosmetic, some insurance companies won't replace that. So make sure you've asked your questions about what is covered and what is not covered in your hail insurance.

Now, what about your cars? Again, the answer there is have some pretty, the insurance makes sure we have the comprehensive insurance to cover your car in the event of a head claim that if you don't have a garage or a carport or a way to protect your vehicle, the other thing to keep in mind, especially when you're buying a vehicle is the gap.

The difference in payment between what you can buy a car for. And what insurance gives you for the car. You know, it's kind of one of those, it depreciates it because you drive it off the lot. We bought a 2014 Kia forte for the children because they had a lot of cool gadgets and they really liked it. And we were, we're kind of P the people that buy car and driver forever.

Well in 2020, yeah. It got totaled and totaled pretty easily actually, because the value of that car didn't hold over time. The Nissan center that we had. Actually, we got a better deal for that. Got total. But we were able to replace that easy enough, where we kind of lost a few bucks on the Kia when we went to replace that one after the insurance claim came through.

So long story short, know what's going to happen. Be aware of the weather patterns and surroundings and Hey, get some good insurance. Weather event, number four, tornadoes. Now here in the rapid city, black Hills area. We don't see a lot of tornadoes actually touching down. They'll usually go north or they'll come back around the black Hills.

It just kind of skips over the black Hills. Now that being said, we did have a weird landing of in Spearfish canyon last year. I believe of a tornado. And then I remember a long time ago, we lived in north side rabbit city, so a little bit more closer to the Plains. And we were there on, in our basement watching video with some friends and we knew that there was a tornado warning, but we didn't.

Thinking anything about it afterwards, we go outside and there's that feeling of, you know, just after the storm feeling. And there's a few rough shingles everywhere. So that probably got a little close. I don't know if he actually touched down or not. Now when I grew up in Tyler, Minnesota, Tyler, actually our tornado that took out the town at one point.

So I remember being in school, always having the tornado drill and our tornado was a big thing. Well, not so much over here, you got most places. You'll have a basement. If not, you probably have a tub and chances are the tornado is not going to be a very big deal. Now as you go north and east rapid city, that's what Trinity has happened a little more frequently as they pop over the black Hills and pop it to the Plains.

But rapid city, not so much event number five, fire now I realize that fire isn't a direct weather event, but since we live. At the gateway to the black Hills national forest, where 75% of the forest fires that have started have been lightening related, it seemed like it would be a great time to talk about fires in the area.

Now the fire season over here, it goes from about may to October. Once the weather starts getting warm enough. And a lot of it depends upon how dry the year is. So previous years we've had very wet years. This past year, it's been a little dry. We've already had a couple of fires this year because we've had a little bit less snow, a little bit less weather.

So it's been a drier year. So, you know, those signs of the black Hills national forest talks about the fire danger. Yeah, they've been a little bit closer to this way lately now because the black Hills national forest is part wilderness area park tourist playground with campfires and park. Full-time homeowners.

There's certainly plenty of potential for fires within our area. And if you do own a home in the black Hills, things such as fire defensibility, cutting down of trees to make sure you have defensible space and things like this. All affect you and your homeowner's insurance. Now, according to the black Hills national forest website, over the past 30 years, they've been tracking forest fires there.

Actually. What about an average amount of 99 forsest fires a year. Which actually surprised me. I didn't realize that there were that many there's also where I talked about 75% of them were lightening related and majority of them were the south side of the Hills where the more of the wilderness areas are located.

That being said. Just a few months ago, we had the shorter fire, which is just up Nima real we're actually just beyond my office here. There was a fire that started in a residential neighborhood that burned a lot of acres and got even close to rapid city where you could see the fire from Canyon lake park.

Now the firefighters did an amazing job that protected all the homes. I think only one. Home. And a couple of outbuildings were lost that whole procedure. They made sure they evacuations were done on time. Nobody's lives were lost and everything was done really, really well, but it was over previously burned.

Fire Actually got to the same neighborhood in 1988, so it didn't have as many trees to climb up and crown across the roads and get into anywhere new that way. So if you're looking for that home in a black hill, surrounded by trees, or even with a view, fire is certainly reality, but it's something that the national forest looks out for watches out for,

and does a very good job protecting private property in that scenario. Okay. Number six, floods and water, right? The Creek runs all the way through rabbit city, which comes from Pactola reservoir up in the black Hills, hover in 1972, 15 inches of water fell in six hours. And that was up by Nemo, which is this side of the reservoir.

So waters came flowing through down rapid Creek and we'll rapid a Creek, runs into canyon lake, a lot of debris clerked it other way. And at the Canyon laek spillway, all that debris caught. Causing water to just rush over and flood through downtown rapid city and destroying homes along the way, which is why

now you find a lot of green space and park along rapid Creek. This was a unique event, but it was considered a 500 year flood. So they've made a lot of adjustments to make sure that it doesn't happen again. Now, now a number of water levels stations along rapid Creek between pack toll and rapid city to measure the water level.

So we know. What to expect. They've also done a lot of work, even in recent years to make sure that the water has places to go in drainage and ditches along those green spaces and in the parks along rapid Creek, since then, we haven't had a significant flood that caused damage quite like that. However, we do have cyclical years.

Like I mentioned before, sometimes we have dry years. Sometimes we have wet years now on these really, really wet years, like 2019, it seemed like it was raining nonstop from. May to June, we had the saturation of the ground, all the basements, rapid city, they were tested really good in 2019. If there was good drainage, you wouldn't have water in your basement.

If not, you're probably dealing with it. On the plus side of that from realtors perspective, if there was any water damage in the basement, but in 2019, it's by now been adequately disclosed or properly fixed. And we also know that if there was no water damage in 2019, there probably isn't going to be any.

Rapid city also has flood zones. So make sure you know where you're buying your property, particularly along rapid Creek, kind of in rapid valley and even the Southeast side of town. There's some, some areas that are flood zones also on these flood zones, as we'll learn in 2018, there's also potential for, or some flash flooding.

When the ground gets saturated, the rain comes down and you comes to the water, just kind of fills up and floods the road a little bit. Now, maybe you're already saying, dude, why does anybody live there? That's ridiculous. And since I've always lived in the north, I don't know any different. And sometimes I'm like, why do we live here now, once you get, I feel for the weather patterns, you have an understanding of when to go out, when not to go out, when things are going to hit, how to drive on all these roads, it really doesn't become that big of a deal once you really get a feel for it.

And it gets an experience in driving around and understanding, like I mentioned, how those weather patterns work. We ain't got no hurricanes. We ain't got no big bugs.  We ain't got no Gators and in April, like it is right now, it's 60 degrees, not 90. And as I mentioned, the top of the video, here's the video about wind.

Don't forget, check out my overall video about the weather in our area as well. Thanks everyone for watching. Have an amazing day to remember love where you live .

 

Jan. 10, 2022

7+ Fun and Unique Things about Rapid City

 

Hi everybody. I'm Tristan Emond with mindful living Realty, a realtor right here in rapid city, South Dakota. Welcome back to my YouTube channel. We'll talk everything about moving to rapid city and the wonderful things about rapid city and the black Hills. The grass is green. The leaves are going back on the trees and it's time to get out of the studio.

Back on the streets. Today we're going to talk about the unique things about rapid city. Wait, so you're telling me you don't have a Brontosaurus overlooking your whole town. Never fear. Our skyline Brontosaurus is not alone. He is one of seven dinosaurs in dinosaur park on the top of skyline drive. Established in 1936

this is one of rapid city's , premiere free family fun attractions, where you can see up to a hundred mile views at the top of the hill. Yes, there was some stairs to climb. Right. So I had gone up to skyline drive, which is our next segment to take a video of me in front of Skyline drive just like the rest.

Right. Well, I got back to the office, looked at my video clips and this is what was there?

tried to go back to refilm it. But because of the construction, how long it would take me to be there and my schedule, I didn't get it done. And of course today it's cloudy. So, so I thought it'd be fun to do a little behind the scenes of Tristan Emond doing video and hitting all the wrong buttons. Anyway, back to the show. Skyline drive has the best views of rapid city.

This road is about two miles long and you can see all sides of the city, both east side and west side.

Stop at any of the parking spots along the way, get out and enjoy the views rapid city. Plus just off of skyline drive is a skyline wilderness area. This is a 150 acre area park with all sorts of trails. Great views. And even a look at an old amphitheater site that was never used. I gave up here one 4th of July and there was a couple sitting in their classic Ford Mustang, convertible top down, looking out east, watching the fireworks, kind of cool.

We've got a whole alley dedicated to graffiti art. And this isn't in the graffiti that you and I did back in 1989, between sixth and seventh precinct in downtown rapid city is art alley.

Period. Is it constantly changing tapestry, full of amazing graffiti art,

personal political community, global issues, all kinds of different expressions that evolves sometimes almost daily. When I called the city of presidents for nothing 43 presidential statues standing each quarter, downtown, rapid city from Washington to Jefferson, Regan to Obama. They're all here.

Downtown rapid city.

The city president's project began in 2000 to honor the legacy of American presidency. A series of life-sized bronze statues of our nation's past presidents line the city streets and sidewalks. You sculpture privately funded and the pattern of placement was chosen to maintain orderly structure and eliminate any sense of favoritism or political gain.

After the middle of November, the presidential statutes are donned with hats, coats, and mittens, a free will offering from the residents of rapid city. Do those indeed. And for my Norwegian friends, a church made entirely of wood. The chapel in the Hills is an exact reproduction of the famous Borgund Stavkirke in Norway, this chapel was built in 1969. The only metal use was on the ornate door furnishings in locks, instead of nails, they use wooden Dell pins. This free attraction, not only showcases the amazing architecture and woodcarving of Norway, but also has a museum meditation trail and stair-step back patio.

This would be used for weddings and events. What do you get when you cross a carousel? I train and mother goose storybook. Island, of course. Storybook has been in operation since 1959. It was founded by the rapid city rotary club. You'll find all your favorite story characters here from Cinderella to the three little pigs to aladin.

You can't go through a story without hitting your head.

During the Christmas season, the entire park is decorated with lights for Christmas light display. I don't want free. It's great for those kids and those kids at heart. And of course there's only one gateway to the black Hills national forest. The black Hills national forest is 1.2 million acres of public lands.

We've got rugged rock formations, canyons, grasslands, streams, lakes, and unique caves. This includes 11 reservoirs, multiple swimming beaches, over 30 campgrounds, two plus scenic byways, 1300 miles of streams, 13,000 acres of wilderness, and over 450 miles of hiking trails. And all of that is in our backyard. No one else can say we're 33 minutes away from Mount Rushmore, the premier attraction of the black Hills national forest.

We're 15 minutes away from crazy horse and ongoing mountain sculpture. If you've ever come across South Dakota. You'll see, sign after sign saying go to wall drug. We're only 52 minutes away from wall drug, shopping and backyard full of stuff. Badlands national park. It's a South Dakota treasure. That's received lots of great reviews the past few years.

We're only 57 minutes away from the Badlands in 43 minutes, you can be on the wildlife loop and Custer state park. There you'll find the South Dakota traffic jam of buffaloes wandering around. For winter fund we're 67 minutes away from Terry peak, the Black hills premiere snow skiing and snowboarding hill and were only 29 minutes from legendary Sturgis.

Where an ordinary town turns into a motorcycle rally hosting over 600,000 people every year. Hey, thanks for coming along with me today. I hope you enjoyed the ride and enjoyed the views. It was fun showcasing you the unique things about our town of course are so much more. It's going to showcase.

Keep watching the videos, including this one and this one. Thanks for watching. Have a great day and remember love where you live.

 

Jan. 3, 2022

6 Things You Gotta Know Before Buying a Home In South Dakota

 

 

Hold up, slow down. Wait a minute. Before you buy a home in the rapid city area, there's six things. You got to know

Hey everybody I'm Tristan Emond with mindful living Realty, a realtor right here in rapid city, South Dakota. Welcome back to my YouTube channel, where I talk everything about moving to rapid city and the wonderful things about rapid city and the black Hills. Today we're gonna talk about a few things that you need to know before buying a home in the state of South Dakota, state laws, federal laws, things you need to know and understand before you signed that dotted line.

Number one, and really the heart of all of this is don't assume. Real estate varies by rules and regulations, state by state, by state. So don't assume that the way your home is sold or your home is bought in the state that you're in is the same itself. Dakota, for example, here in South Dakota, it's called dual agency is allowed.

That's when I, as a real estate agent can represent both a buyer and a seller and some states that's not allowed, but that doesn't mean that it's a bad thing here in the state of South Dakota. It is still legal at this moment. The other thing to consider is like real estate taxes here, or South Dakota, real estate taxes are paid in arrears.

So when you're paying taxes in 2021, actually paying the taxes of 2020 that were assessed in the fall of 2019. Always ask questions, ask again, verify, ask questions, make sure that you understand that, you know, the procedure that, you know, the processes that you know that everything's in place so that you don't get yourself in trouble by signing something and then realizing, oh, wait, I don't want to do that. Number two get pre-approved.

Don't assume that. Yep, no problem. I've got great. This I've got great credit. Mike comes off the wall. There'll be deal. I'll have it. No problems. Make sure you make the contact with the lender. I've got local lenders. I love to work with that will help you through the process to make sure that all of the boxes are checked.

I hate for you to find the property that you love or you realize, oh wait, we've got a five-year process to get really pre-approved here because there are some hiccups along the way that you didn't realize were an issue. Make sure you get pre-approved first. And then once we're pre-approved. Have the right attitudes and the present market of spring 2021, things are nuts.

Things are a bit crazy. You might be putting offers on a number of different properties before you actually get one accepted. Come with the right attitude. Be persistent, be patient, and be ready to hit the ground running. Number three, we can't tell you everything. I know, I really don't like this part either, but fair housing rules and regulations forbid us from talking about certain things in the area to make sure that we're not scaring you to one area or to another based upon our perception of what is good or what is bad.

As you can imagine, back in the day, there were certain neighborhoods that certain real tours where it start to shift people away from, by saying, well, the blacks are coming in. You better move. So as you can imagine, Uh, it wasn't a wonderful thing. So the fair housing acts, which are a federal national thing, came into effect to make sure that we as real estate agents, don't say, Hey, this is a good neighborhood in, this is a bad neighborhood.

I can tell you how safe a neighborhood is. I can't tell you how good the schools are. I can't tell you about the demographics of a certain area. Those things. I can point you in two directions of resources to find things, but personally, I can not tell you. Yeah, you should stay away from that area. That sucks.

Let me tell you this story to illustrate what I mean, I had a buyer in my car a few years ago and we were driving through a part of town that not every nobody appreciates or feels like it's the best part of town. And as we were driving around, he was like, this is still a big deal. I have no problem with this.

I'm from inner city, New York. So this, this is no big deal whatsoever. Now, if I would have just assumed that he didn't want to look at certain areas because. Well, you know, that's that area, then I'd be making the decision for him right now. You're giving him the opportunity to make the decision for himself on what areas he liked and what areas he didn't like.

One of the best things you can do is go to the area that you're considering at night at dark. And just turn off the car and sit in the darkness and see how you feel. Get a little bit walk around. How do you feel in this area that you're looking at? That's a great practical way to kind of get a feel of the neighborhood that you're considering.

Number four, the buyer agreement. South Dakota law says that we as real estate agents have to let you as the customer, know how we can help them. Now, if we show you more than one home, one time we are required to have you sign documents and these documents are to be what the disclosure of how we can help you.

And it also is a agreement. For us to basically, you got to hire us to work for you. This document contains a timeframe, an area, and a price point to help define where you want to look. Typically, what we're going to do is have you signed this document for a period of six months to make sure that, that we are in contract, basically with you during the whole process.

Now, this agreement gives us the real estate agents exclusive, right? To help you find a property. I understand the thought form of, Hey, I want to use as many real estate agents as possible. And the one that finds me the home well then is the one that's going to get paid. And I understand that from that perspective, but from a business standpoint, I can't be spending my time with you for 30 days only to find out that one, the one time you went with somebody else, they found you that property.

Now there are options we can deal with. In this agreement, for instance, we can make the agreement for one day. So any home that I show you that one day are the properties that I get paid for. If you purchase this. And then that works because the document then covers me for those homes have looked at that day.

So if you come to town, You started driving around, you see a few homes you want to look at and you just go ahead and call the listing agent right away and they show you those properties. And then they slide some documents at you and ask you to sign them. You could be signing an exclusive buyer agency to work with them, which is fantastic.

There are many great real estate agents here in rapid city, but if your plan was to later, meet up with me and have me show you homes. I can't do anything for you because you've signed buyer  agency with another agent. I can't step on their toes because you've already got that agreement signed with them.

And if you want it out of that agreement, you'd have to go back to them and say, Hey. Can I get out of this agreement? I want to work with Tristian and which case they may say yes, they may say no. I had one scenario where I ended up paying a referral fee to release that buyer so that I could work for them.

So be aware when you're ready to buy a property here in rapid city, you'll need to sign a buyer agency agreement with me or another realtor for us to legally show you. And work with you. Number five, it's time to talk about earnest money. All right. We've got Peter approved. You're getting a pre-approval letter in hand.

We've got our buyer agency sign and we've gone out to look at properties. We've got the right attitude. We're not talking about things we're not supposed to. And we find the property. It's time. You're writing an offer on that property. One of the first things I'm going to ask you about is how much do you want to present to the seller on for earnest money?

Now earnest money, doesn't have to be any percentage. It can be 500 bucks. It can be $5,000. It's up to you to decide how much money you want to present. Now, this earnest money is basically your way of saying, this is how serious I am about the property. So if you put in a hundred bucks, That's pretty easy to get back or lose.

Nobody really cares, but if it was $5,000, well, that's a little more heavier pill to swallow. If you end up canceling the contract and not being able to get it back in South Dakota, this is how earnest money works. It is presented at the time of acceptance and it is then cashed in the trust account of the title company or the listing and listing agency.

Then we go through the process of closing the property. If you want to cancel the purchase agreement based on something that we built into the offer, such as all of the special contingency, a home insurance contingency, or a financing contingency, you have a right to get that earnest money back. If however you decide, yeah, today is Friday and I don't want to buy a house anymore.

The seller has every right to keep that money because you broke the contract. Now, before that earnest money can be released either buyer or seller. Both buyer and seller have to sign off on it. So if there are disagreements between the buyer and the seller about who should keep the interest money and who shouldn't keep them on as money, sometimes that money can be a limbo for a little bit of time.

The bottom line here is to make sure that you put enough earnest money to make sure the seller knows that you're serious about the offer, but not so much earnest money. If that's something actually happens and you need to back out, you're not destitute. You'd have to give that money back to the seller.

Number six, and probably one of the most important ones. There is no get out of jail free card. When we put together a purchase agreement on property and we submit that offer. And it's accepted. You are obligated at that moment to fulfill the terms of the contract. There is no three days of your sin policy.

There is no I'm going to sleep on a policy. There is no get out of jail free card. If the sign, the documents and the seller has accepted, you're obligated to buy the property. I will always recommend that you get a home inspection. So you do have that there to protect you in case something does pop up, that you really feel uncomfortable with make sure when you present that offer to the center, think about how I feel when this is accepted.

If the reality is. Holy cow, I just bought a house. And now all of these thoughts and dreams of actually moving to rapid city are real. Yeah. Halt. Yes. If you get cold feet, we can certainly cancel the first agreement and ask for your emergency money back. But unless you decided to cancel based upon a contingency built into the offer, as I've mentioned before, they can keep your earnest money.

Let's make sure when you present an offer. You know, that's what you want. You know, you're going to move forward and you're ready to buy the property. There everybody there, we have it, the six things you've got to know for buying a home in rapid city, South Dakota. I hope I didn't bore you to death with rules, policies, and procedures, but it's very important stuff to understand and realize.

When you're moving into another state, don't assume ask questions, verify information, and there's no jail free card. Thanks everybody for watching. Have an amazing day to remember love where you live.

 

Dec. 27, 2021

Vacation Homes in the Black Hills - Stay or Buy?

 

 

 

It's time to spend weekend in Hills,

Hey, Everybody its Tristan Emond with mindful living Realty. Welcome back to my YouTube channel. I talk everything but moving to rapid city and the workflow things over at the city and the black Hills and this episode trust about town. We're staying in a vacation cabin for the weekend at Terry peak. Terry peak is on the Northern edge of the black Hills, just beyond lead and Deadwood, but an hour away from rapid city vacation home that we shade at.

Isn't a neighborhood just beyond the terry peak ski area. This beautiful home had big windows. Big spaces, game room

views all around and a hot tub to boot. We watch movies, play games cooked on the stove and grilled up some steaks.

You love sitting on the deck, enjoying the fire

and watching the sunset each night.

It's March 7th, I'm sitting on the deck in the sun, but no coat on. It's amazing. If snow skiing and snowboarding is your thing. You're minutes away from the Terry peak ski area where this beautiful views. Multiple runs and play areas. Historic lead is only a few miles away and he always check out deadwood and see if he can win some money.

About 15 minutes west of this area is Spearfish canyon. One afternoon. We drove to iron Creek trail and enjoyed the scenery.

made sure to leave a sno wmarker. Letting the world know demons were here, their vacation, home rentals all over the black Hills. You can find them as Poplar websites, such as Airbnb, the RBO and local sites, such as executive logging and black Hills location. cavities.com. There are even a couple of sites specific to some of the vision such as Edelweiss moutian. Pro tip

if you do come up here to Terry peak, stay through Monday. What happens is love people coming up to the weekend had to be back Sunday night, so they leave Sunday morning. So Sunday afternoon, it's peaceful and tranquil. Got you covered. Now that you've come this far in the video, you're probably thinking two things.

The first one is boy tristan you're pretty cool in these videos. Of course, who's the brains in this outfit. My point, exactly. Second thing is, wow. Maybe I should buy a vacation home in the Hills and rent it out. And that's a good possibility for you, but let's talk about a few things you should know before you move forward with this thought form.

First, one more rules and regulations. So first of all, is the county rules. If you're within Pennington county, Which is the rapid city and hill city area, right in the middle of the Hills. They have a lot more rules in regarding to what properties can and cannot be considered a nightly vacation rental, pennington county vacation ordinance has three pages worth of rules, regulations, site plans, all these things.

They need to approve you to be a vacation home, nightly rental. So it's really a lot of work to go through. And sometimes it's not even worth the trouble. Now, if you're buying a home at Pennington county, that already has been a vacation home. It can continue along in that step, grandfathered into it, so to speak.

But if you're buying a new property that hasn't been, you need to get approval from Pennington county to make sure that it's a  legal nightly rental. Now, other counties in the black Hills, such as Custer county and fall river county. And so the south and Meade county, Lawrence county and Butte county to the north east have fewer regulations.

So it's a lot easier to do a vacation home, nightly rental in those counties. The other thing to consider while we're talking about rules and regulations is the covenants of the property that you want to buy. The rules of the subvision might  prohibit nightly rentals might prohibit extra people coming in to the property.

So you want to make sure that the covenants say you're okay with the rentals. All right, now that we've talked about the fun rules and regulations, let's talk about getting into the process of thinking about buying a potential vacation home. So the first question we have to ask ourselves or ask yourself is what is your goal in this type of adventure?

Would it be to stay in the property all summer long and rented out through the winter? That's the case you might want to consider buying a property up in Terry peak, which is closer to this ski area. Do you want to buy a vacation homes for yourself? And if Hey, if you haven't get it rented every once in a while.

Good for you. In which case you have more options as far as where you're going to be and your amenities and that kind of thing. Or maybe you want to make a full-time run of it and just be a vacation rental. And that's mostly what you want to use it for. And just come out here a week or two over the year.

However, those best for you by answering this question for yourself, we can then narrow down where you want to be, what amenities you need to have the services you can offer, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Let's talk about location for a moment. Now people that are coming into the black Hills for vacation, want to use a vacation, home to rent and then go day tripping every day and they make it a vacation on their stay at home spot.

So if it's far, far back away from everything, not as many people are going to be interested in renting a vacation property. If you have to use a snowmobile to get to it in the wintertime. Even less people could be interested in that piece. So you got to make sure that you adjust the location of your property to whatever your goal is.

As far as your vacation, home rental aspirations and to piggyback ride along location is the idea of amenities. If you are having a vacation, we want people to come to. Do you want to have those things that most people are going to want such as a decent wifi signal, maybe a hot tub, maybe there's a view or something, or maybe you're back with somewhere in the trees.

You want to make sure that your property is appealing for the most people as possible. If that's your goal. A property right next to a busy highway might not be as appealing, but you don't want to be too far away from everything else that this takes a long time to get out of where you're staying. But of course, on the flip side, there are some people that like to get away in the black Hills and just get away.

For example, those properties on Edelweiss mountain that I mentioned earlier. They're like 20 minutes from the highway, 30 minutes to the nearest town. So they're a little bit farther back and some of them don't even have any wifi signal. We stayed at one where we actually had a landline that we picked up the phone and called her kids and gave them the landline phone number because there was no cell service.

And that was great to get away for a while because that was, that was her intention. But not everybody will like the fact that no wifi, I can't get ahold of anybody. It doesn't always play with everybody. Sure. Whatever property we're looking at matches the goals that we've talked about earlier. The other thing to consider, especially looking at this from the business side of things is that there's plenty of competition.

There are plenty of black Hills vacation, home rentals available all over the black Hills and all sorts of different areas in places. So you need to make sure yours fits in as far as location, ammeniites, and price. So let's talk about price for a bit. Now I looked up on Airbnb that Terry pit area that we were just at, you can find a rental up there anywhere from $150 to over $300.

Now, maybe you're doing the mental gymnastics right now, 200 to $300 a day. Even if you figured out that you rent the property for half of the year, a little bit of money in there, plus you charge on top of that for cleaning services that doesn't come out of your pocket. It could be a pretty good investment.

Well, let's talk about the price of the homes that you'd be purchasing to get all this done. For example, the properties that I've seen for sale in the Terry peak area have been anywhere between $450,000 to $550,000. And these are very nice 2000 square foot homes, some kind of log or wood siding, very beautiful properties.

And this is the same throughout the blackheads, any property that has some acreage with a house on it, especially a very nice looking house. Probably give you a spend upwards of $400,000 for that property. So make sure you run your numbers, make sure that that was numbers, which your goals. Finally, you need to consider who is going to clean and take care of this property for you while you were away.

Now, there are plenty of vacation home management companies here, the black Hills, and you can hire them to do all these services for you. Make sure that they cleaned prior before you check in and make sure that no frozen pipes everything's operational, that kind of thing. Or you could do it yourself, hire your own cleaners to clean the property, but what's going to happen when emergencies pop up, who's going to take care of them in that scenario.

The other option of course, is to do it like my dad and his wife, do they rent out their house during this time and then spend that time camping out in their RV, in different places in the black Hills. So it's like a extended camping trip. And then when their guests leave, they come in and they cleaned it for themselves.

Get it ready for the next guest. There you go. My friends, here's a few things to think about. If you're thinking about buying a home in the black Hills and using it as a nightly vacation rental, it was an amazing weekend for us. Thanks so much for watching this video. I hope you enjoyed it. Please go ahead and give me that thumbs up.

And of course, remember to watch this video and this playlist. Thanks again for watching everybody have a great day and remember love where you live.