Montana, here I come!

		Newsletter from Montana - Minnesota July 2008 Would you like to buy yourself a job in Montana? I have a small butcher shop for sale in Chouteau County, south of Fort Benton. The butcher shop was recently leased to somebody, so it is a turnkey operation. The owner took a survey in the neighborhood to see how many people would like to see it re-open, and they got over 200 signatures! There is definitely a need for a butcher in this small farm community, especially with hunting season not too far off. Only $ 125,000 will buy the business, the shop, the coolers with a brand new compressor and the equipment to get you started! The home overlooking Red Lodge is sold, but the home overlooking Livingston is still available, which has stunning views of the Crazy Mountain Range, the city of Livingston and the Yellowstone River. From here it is just minutes to town, Chico Hot Springs, the year round access to the Yellowstone Park and about 40 minutes to skiing. The best of all worlds on 22 acres! I received an email recently, which I would like to share with you: --------- quote ------ Dear Dorothea, As a retired CEO with 34 years on Wall St. and as a Member of the Chicago Board of Trade under my belt, let me compliment you on the compilation of offerings and first class financing info you are offering on your website and recent newsletter. I hope you make a bundle. The subprime situation has been solved with the FNMA & Freddie debt restructuring. There is a reason that big, smart money is buying ranches and retreats in the West right now. The fed will step up after the election and reverse the seven years of damage they did to the dollar by dramatically raising interest rates in defense of the dollar. After the November election, we will never again see 6% ...30 year mortgages in our lifetimes. -------end of quote - name and contact information on file ------ Well, I suppose if you would like to buy some real estate, this seems to the time to do it. In Minnesota the 117 acres with the log sided home (it has two kitchens!), historic barn, shop and pole barn reduced the price to $ 625,000. Now this price is hard to beat for that much partly forested acreage and the 10 stall horse set up in the barn to boot. The home has a nice wood finish inside as well and there are six bedrooms and two baths. Mike Olson listed a nice six acres parcel in West Central Minnesota. It is a Big Toad Lake back lot for just $49,000 adjacent to $350K+ homes. The lot features amazing habitat for waterfowl and deer. There are no covenants restricting what type of home you may put here. Mobile homes and RV/camper trailers are allowed. Whatever your taste, come check out the peaceful surroundings of Big Toad Lake. If you are looking for a larger parcel with lakefront, we have 23 acres for $122,000 or 280 acres for $980,000 The choice is yours! Buy just 23 acres with 1450+ feet of lakeshore or buy the entire parcel! For starters whatever you choose you will not be disappointed. Set in the serene Minnesota countryside with a variety of wildlife. Regardless which one you choose the land is suited to calm your nerves. Just 3 miles off the beaten path, the 23acres parcel provides about 12 acres of mature woods and 11 acres of tillable ground. There are many potential locations for your home and also enough open space to stretch your legs. Overson Lake is 56 acres and 12 feet deep. There is no public access to the lake so your privacy is insured. The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) does not have any records of fish in these waters, but people have been spotted fishing from shore on the other side of the lake. The seller is willing to divide the land to give you the exact acreage you need. The 280 acres consist of 195+/- tillable acres and 85+/- acres of mature oak trees and ponds. The Minnesota DNR has used one of the ponds as a rearing pond for walleyes. Despite the fact this pond is only 13 acres and 14 feet deep, walleyes are thriving off of the many fresh water shrimp. Another pond on the property also provides excellent habitat for the many wildlife species of the area such as whitetail deer, wild turkeys, ducks and geese. During the last couple of months I had several phone calls asking to buy coal mines, oil leases and even gold deposits, so I checked into that field. Did you know there is almost twice as much oil in North Dakota as there is in Saudi Arabia? The Bakken Formation is a 350 million-year-old underground layer of rock that occurs in much of the Williston Basin, a vaguely heart-shaped warp in the otherwise flat prairies on the U.S.-Canada border. It was discovered in 1953 by a geologist named J.W. Nordquist and named after Henry Bakken, owner of the Montana ranch where Nordquist first drilled. North Dakota used to be a tropical forest, along with Eastern Montana and part of Canada. This not only makes for outstanding Dinosaur discoveries, it also produced roughly 500 billion barrels of oil, 1.85 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, and 148 million barrels of natural gas liquids in the Bakken Formation of the Williston Basin Province, Montana/North Dakota and about 25% in Saskatchewan, Canada. Terra Graphics has a nice map, showing the proven oil fields to date. They update the map every year. The USA is using 22 million barrels of oil a day, at that rate there is enough oil in North Dakota to last us for 40+ years. Of course there is enough oil in Alaska to last us 250 years and there is some in Wyoming, Colorado, Montana, Utah, South Dakota, New Mexico, Nebraska, California, Texas, offshore…. The oil in Alaska is produced at a cost of $3 a barrel and the oil in North Dakota is produced at a cost of $16 a barrel (they are selling it for $100 a barrel, of course). The difference in production cost is the machinery and technology used to extract the oil. In the Bakken formation you cannot just drill a vertical hole and watch the oil spout out. Here you need to drill sideways with a hydraulic fracturing technology (pumping sand at high pressure into the well, collapsing the oil-rich rock and allowing the oil to flow back), which was developed recently by Dick Findley, a geologist from Billings. The Bakken oil is pure, light golden and sweet smelling, which is greatly prized by refiners. Why then are we paying $4 for a gallon of gas? Lindsay Williams says it is to pay off our trillion dollar national deficit… Nevertheless, Sinclair just bought a five-year mineral lease for a few thousand acres at $4,600 an acre in North Dakota. To have an oilrig there, you will need at least 1,000 acres around you, since you need to go in horizontally. An unprecedented 98 per cent of the wells drilled are productive. Since it costs about five million dollars to drill one well, you do not want more dry holes than necessary. Now they also have the problem of where to take the oil for processing. There is a small refinery in Mandan (next to Bismarck, ND), but otherwise they ship the oil to Canada and farther south for processing. However, North Dakota is thinking about building another oil refinery near Makoti, which is SE of Stanley or 118 miles NW of Bismarck. If constructed, it would be the first new crude oil refinery in the United States in 30 years. Curiosity got the cat. Since I drive across North Dakota to commute between our ranch in Minnesota and our home in Red Lodge, Montana, I thought I would make a couple hundred-mile detour to NW North Dakota and see what is going on. I was amazed! After driving north on State Highway 85 for an hour through rolling grassland with an occasional farm here and there, the oil truck traffic got heavier. Then I saw them. Brand new oil pumps, painted beige, with storage tanks of the same color, they are actually an asset to the landscape. Each one on a nice square carved into the red soil among the deep green fields. I arrived in Watford, which used to be a struggling farm town. Now Main Street was blocked off because of construction. They are building a brand new bank building there, along with a matching shopping mall. The roof of the tiny gas station was wobbling in the prairie wind while trucks that obviously work in the oil fields where lined up to fill their gas tanks. The town was not ready for the growth. It got even more interesting when I went further north to Williston. There were miles and miles of machine shops, oil tool shops, all kinds of industrial buildings, old and new. If you are out of work and out of ideas, take a bus to Williston. If you cannot make it there, you cannot make it! Stanley, to the east of Williston is even busier! It is by far not flat up there and boring. It was actually beautiful, with rolling hills of grassland and crops dotted with farmsteads, a huge sky and puffy clouds. I now broker mineral rights for coal mines, oil leases, gold and limestone deposits, let me know if you want to buy, lease or sell any! If you rather run your car on alcohol, check out the book and DVD "Alcohol can be a Gas" by David Blume. It will tell you how to convert your car to use alcohol, how to make alcohol to use in cars and even how to start your own distributorship. If they can do it in Brazil, we can do it here! Would you like to own a small airplane? I am selling my Cessna 182 with brand new interior for $65,000. We would trade for a helicopter. Let me know if you are up to it. The Cessna 182 has a high wing and is ideal for taking photos. Or if you rather have an antique airplane, we have a 1943 fabric covered Stinson V77 (project) we could also trade for the helicopter or sell for $60,000. If you did not have a chance to take a vacation this summer, laughter is an instant vacation according to Milton Berle... Have you heard about Christian the Lion? All the Best and let me know when you will be arriving in Montana! Have a great month of July and let me know if your travel plans include Montana or Minnesota! :-) Best Regards, Dorothea Lowe, Broker More Newsletters
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