A house on California’s redwood coast usually costs a fortune. In Crescent City, the typical one runs about $368,000. Bristol sits in the Virginia mountains with home values near $207,000. Every town here comes in under the national average home value of $372,000. Every town here also has real jobs, real schools, and real hospitals. In each one, the scenery and a working local economy come at the same low price.
Anaconda, Montana
Rocky Mountain resort towns rarely come cheap. Anaconda breaks that pattern at a median home value of $308,000, low for a place set in a mile-high valley below the Rocky Mountains. The Pintler Mountains, a subrange of the Rockies, stand beyond downtown. Six miles north, Lost Creek State Park holds limestone cliffs and granite walls that rise 1,200 feet over the canyon floor, plus a 50-foot drop at Lost Creek Falls. Trails past the falls continue into the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest.
The copper smelter at the town’s founding closed long ago, yet the local economy stayed healthy without it. Work now spans education, healthcare, tourism, hospitality, and construction. Butte lies 26 miles east for anyone who wants a wider field, including Montana Tech, St. James Healthcare, and active mining operations. Scenery this big usually carries a resort price tag; here it does not.