Billionaire cowboys snap up America’s sprawling ranches, like $350m Yellowstone

• Wealthy Americans are increasingly parking their money in Western ranches
• Land once used to graze cattle is now being accrued like collectible art

Ranches across the West, once valued for what they could earn their owners through the cattle trade, are rapidly being bought up by wealthy Americans looking for somewhere to park their cash. 

Real estate brokers who have been dealing in legacy ranches for decades say unprecedented demand and increasingly limited supply is sending the cost of land to new highs.

Yellowstone creator Taylor Sheridan recently bought a 270,000-acre Texas ranch for around $350million, while former NBC anchor Tom Brokaw acquired a Montana ranch for $18million. 

These colossal ranches are not only a safe investment, but also offer their modern owners private playgrounds for fishing, hunting and skiing.

‘In the last few years the ranch market has just gone crazy,’ said Hunter Harrigan, whose father Dave Harrigan founded Harrigan Land Company around 30 years ago.

‘People aren’t necessarily buying these ranches anymore for what they can produce in income, but the long-term appreciation,’ he told DailyMail.com.

The recreational value of such ranches was of little interest to the cattlemen making a living on the land through the 19th and 20th centuries.

‘For a lot of these old ranchers a trout stream was just a place to pull the irrigation water from to irrigate their hay meadows,’ said Harrigan.

‘[Now] owning a trout stream is like owning a piece of beachfront property, we only have a limited number of river corridors in the Mountain West that have the right water temperatures and habitat and everything else to support trout,’ he said.

Those looking to build a portfolio of Western ranches may also invest in land that lends itself well to particular outdoor lifestyles.   

‘They might have a fly fishing property in Montana, a hunting ranch in New Mexico and a ranch with a nice home close to a ski resort in Colorado,’ said Harrigan.

Greg Fay, who runs the brokerage Fay Ranches and has been in the trade for more than three decades, said that for many, investment in ranches is like putting money in art – each ranch is a unique asset in finite supply.

While the profits generated by rearing cattle are no longer the main draw for most investors, many maintain some type of farming operation out of respect for the heritage and conservation of the culture.

Revenues of between one and four percent a year on the initial investment, though not life-changing, can then be put back into land. And according to Fay, allowing cattle to graze increases biodiversity by replenishing the grass.

He also argued there has also been a cultural shift in attitudes towards ranch land.

On one hand, Covid forced people away from urban hubs and opened their eyes to the value of a pared-down and simplistic outdoor life.

‘Covid really played a very big role in exposing land as an investment to a much larger audience,’ said Fay. ‘The idea of buying land to insulate your family just spread like wildfire and all of a sudden our market exploded.’

The craze around ranches has also coincided with the explosion in popularity of Taylor Sheridan’s blockbuster TV series Yellowstone, which last year became the most popular show on US cable television.

Sheridan filmed much of its spinoff series 1883 on the Four Sixes Ranch, which he bought himself in January 2022 for around $350million, along…