The National FabricM · Revealed Preferences
M11M
Remote-Work Invaders
A San Francisco salary, a Montana address, and a firm view on who ruined the valley.
Reference marketFirst identified in Bozeman, Montana (ZIP areas 59718, 59715).
Also found inBend, Oregon; Truckee, California; Coeur d'Alene, Idaho; Asheville, North Carolina; Hood River, Oregon.
Thesis
The household's income is set by a labor market it does not participate in locally and is spent in a housing market it does, which it then describes as having been ruined.
The wage arrives from 1,600 miles away. The price effect stays.
Portrait
In their own words
- Age38
- Income$214K
- Net worth$640K
- Education82%
- Home$860K
- Ownership84%
- HouseholdTwo adults, one dog, one guest room booked through September
- VehicleTacoma with a roof box, 4,000 miles a year
- Debt$690K at 6.4%
- Vice
- A $1,700 season pass used nine days
- Most likely to
- Call the valley ruined in a photograph taken from his own deck
- Signals
- Fiber install, a Slack status reading MT, a chest freezer of elk he did not shoot
Who they are
Thirty-eight, $214,000 from an employer 1,600 miles west, net worth $640,000, of which $170,000 is unrealized appreciation on a house bought in 2021 for $612,000 and now assessed at $860,000. He moved for the trailhead and stayed for the tax rate. The Tacoma covers 4,000 miles a year and wears a roof box permanently. The season pass cost $1,700 and was used nine days. He has been here four years, refers to people who arrived in 2023 as the ones who ruined it, and has never once been in a room with anyone whose wage is set locally. The comparison he draws is always to what he paid in Oakland.
Our neighborhood
Subdivision built after 2018 on what was hay, with fiber to the property line and a view corridor written into the covenants. Twelve minutes to a trailhead, nine to a coffee roaster, forty to the lift. A quarter of the units on the road are held for seasonal or occasional use and stand dark from October. Median home value has moved 79 percent in five years and median local wages have not, which is a fact everyone on the road knows and describes as happening to them.
Shopping
A $6,200 Traeger, a chest freezer holding elk he did not shoot, and technical outerwear rated for conditions he does not encounter. The Tacoma was bought used at $48,000 during the period when that sentence was possible. Groceries run 14 percent above the national average and he has stopped converting.
Spending
Income $214,000 against $690,000 at 6.4 percent, which is $4,310 a month and comfortable, and is the number that priced the teacher out of the same listing. Net worth $640,000, most of it the house and a 401(k) from two employers ago. Property tax rose 22 percent in three years and he wrote to the county about it.
Media
A Slack workspace on Pacific time, a local subreddit he reads to be annoyed by, and a newsletter about the housing crisis in a town he arrived in four years ago. He has strong views on short-term rental caps and a guest room booked through September.
Interests
The trailhead, genuinely. The lift, occasionally. A county commission meeting attended once, on the subject of a subdivision one road over from his own. He is against it, and the argument he makes is that the valley cannot absorb this kind of growth.
Where they live
Darker is more of them.
M11 · REMOTE-WORK INVADERS
ZIP CODES
—
How thick on the ground
$86K
Median household income
1.19× the national median
$494K
Typical home value
1.85× the national median
5.8×
Home value against income
1.54× the national median
42%
Bachelor's degree or higher
1.80× the national median
74%
Owner-occupied
Share of occupied units
$1,673
Median gross rent
Monthly, contract plus utilities
2.36
Average household size
Persons per occupied unit
44.5
Median age
Years
How they compare
Against the average American household.
Median household income
1.19×
$86K here$72K everywhere else
Typical home value
1.85×
$494K here$267K everywhere else
Bachelor's degree or higher
1.80×
41.9% here23.3% everywhere else
Home value against household income
1.54×
5.80× here3.77× everywhere else
Who lives next door
Household types that turn up on the same blocks.
M1Ski-Town FeudalistsOwns four bedrooms at 8,000 feet in a town where the ski patrol sleeps in a van.
M4Medicare MogulsOn a fixed income, in the sense that the dividend arrives on a schedule.
L4Flyover TerritoryFour people per square kilometre, eighty-two per cent ownership, and a contrail belonging to someone who has an opinion about them.
M8HomeGoods Wine MomsThe one affluent household where the house does not eat the raise, and the difference is spent within four miles of the driveway.
M3Empty-Nest EstatesSix bedrooms, two occupants, four vehicles, and a plan to downsize starting soon.
H4Boat-Poor Wealth CosplayersLooks like HH2, financed like DD1. The yacht is leveraged; the marina knows.
The receipts
- 01Works from home80th19.2%
- 02Recent repricing of an amenity market66th1.49
- 03Home value against local income73rd5.77×
- 04Bachelor's degree or higher75th41.9%
- 05Typical home value74th$494K
- 06Built since 201068th13.6%
- 07Held for seasonal or occasional use64th9.8%
- 08Median household income63rd$86K
- 09Rural-urban continuum position54th0.38
- 10Households with three or more vehicles45th25.3%
SourcesFigures from the U.S. Census Bureau, Zillow, the Department of Agriculture, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and MoneyHole Research. Everything else is observation.