So I was born and raised in Colorado and I'm now in my 40's. Colorado is quickly turning into California and I can no longer live here with what is happening. I'm a HUGE gun guy and shoot all the time and instruct NRA classes. My wife is a surgical nurse at one of the best hospitals in the country(she has serious skills and is also a shooter). We want to down size and get a smaller house but add a shop building and 2 to 10 acres so we can shoot on our land and enjoy some out door projects. We would need to be near a surgical center or hospital so she could get a surgical nursing job. We will have about $50-75K for a down payment and dont want to spend more then $250,000 including our down payment to keep our mortgage as low as possible. With that budget, could we buy land outside of a town/city and build to our specs? We have not moved in many, many years and dont know where to start. I'm also under the impression that Missouri is solid red and no chance of the liberals gun grabbers taking over like they did in Colorado(shit is getting REALLY scary here). I hear the gun laws are really good for gun lovers in MO. Am I correct in thinking this? I need to stay in western MO as I will have to drive back to Colorado often to help family. Any help or advice is greatly appreciated!!! Thank you!!!

I don't know how far out you would have to go to get what you want, but the East side of the state has more hospitals than you can count on two hands.

Barnes
SLU
St. Louis Children's Hospital
Cardinal Glennon Children's Hispital
Barnes West
Missouri Baptist
Mercy Creve Coeur (Formerly St. Johns)
Mercy South County (Formerly St. Anthony's)
St. Lukes
St. Joseph's
St. Joseph's West (Lake St. Louis)
Mercy St. Peters
Mercy in Festus (Formerly Jefferson Memorial)
Shriners
Christian Hospital
Des Peres Hospital
St. Mary's
DePaul

I'm sure I'm overlooking a couple.

Barnes is undergoing a billion dollar remodel and expansion. They are affiliated with Washington University.

Mercy is spending money like it grows on trees.

SLU hospital is building an entirely new $600 million hospital.

The St. Louis area is simply a healthcare oasis.

CBR is correct, east side of MO is the medical Mecca.
Welcome aboard, just promise to tell everyone back home, this area is shit, and not worth the move. Those California types are spreading, they invade, ruin, and move.

I imagine that the big city hospitals pay more but I would not want to deal with the city traffic in either KC or ST.L. Why not look into the hospital in Clinton (Golden Valley I believe). I think a home on a small acreage would be much cheaper than like property near a metro area. Truman lake is there with great fishing and more public land to hunt than you can cover in 10 years. A decent public range is nearby. There are a lot of rural homes on small acreages in the Truman lake area.   Or there's Bothwell hospital in Sedalia. Close to Truman and the upper Lake of the Ozarks. Two members only ranges... one with trap and skeet and a rifle/handgun range and the other with a 600 yard range as well as two public ranges within 25 miles or so. Sierra Bullets as well as Starline Brass factories are here as well as the State Fair. Easy drive up highway 65 to Interstate 70.

Columbia has 3 or 4 hospitals and is a big college city (MU) and is right on Interstate 70.

Where I live in Johnson County, they don't have all the building permit regulations that many other counties have. Means build what you want without fear of dumbasses saying that you can't do that. At least where I am which is in rural area, but the towns still have their own building laws and such.

We have Warrensburg(Johnson County), Clinton(Henry County) where you could get some land w/home for reasonable price with good hospital along with lower taxes.

Near me is Harrisonville/Belton/Raymore (all Cass County) where you can get some good land, decent hospitals, but you have regulations on building permits and such, along with higher taxes. Also closer to KC if you're looking for even larger hospitals.

Clinton is also known for Truman Lake and fishing tournaments throughout the year. Also has very large hunting conservation lands that are spread out throughout the county, so if you find a home without as much land as you want, you still have shooting/hunting areas. It's where I hunt for deer/squirrel and Golden Valley Shooting Range(no RO and self safety rules/open year round and outdoors w/covered shooting benches).

The closer to KC you get, the more expensive the home, land and regulations.

Thanks gentleman! My wife feels western MO is already to far as we will have to drive back to Colorado several times a year for family obligations so western MO is probably best. Does anyone know what nursing jobs pay around in the smaller areas south or north of Kansas City? Se make about $40/hour right now. I make about $25/hour in a Distribution Center.

I found this house/propery in Cass county that is gorgeous! Has just about what I need/want. A realtor I'm talking to said I can shoot all I want on this property. I may call the county to confirm. I'd be in heaven here: https://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/MO/pmf,pf_pt/house,land_type/97040705_zpid/32_rid/2-_baths/0-260000_price/0-1068_mp/87120-_lot/globalrelevanceex_sort/39.534762,-92.819366,37.737055,-95.771942_rect/8_zm/

Looks nice, but if it's flat what direction will you shoot? You may have to build a berm, or talk with neighbors about it before buying. You don't want someone calling the police every time you shoot.

Attached File

I don't know what a surgical nurse makes around here but I wouldn't be surprised if it's not that much or more.

Warrensburg is 35 miles or so east of KC on 50 highway and has opened a large distribution center for Dollar Store or Dollar Tree and has the MO. Veterans Home which I see advertising for nurses from time to time though not for surgical. The 'burg has a hospital too I believe. Another college town. The Perry area range would be a 30 minute or so drive from the area of the distribution center and Golden Valley maybe 45 minutes or so. Don't forget the discounted bullets at the Sierra outlet in Sedalia. :-)
From the Hwy 50/  business Hwy 13 intersection would be an hour and maybe a bit longer to I70 and the KS state line. West on 50 to 435 north to I70 west.

There's an awful lot of close neighbors that which be a good thing or bad especially when you're wanting to shoot.
You haven't said what part of Colorado you're located in but Colorado has an abundance of scenery...on this property you're going to be looking at corn and soybean stubble to the north and west for several months every year it appears.

Not trying to be a downer just offering advice.

One thing that you haven't mentioned is a basement... a basement is a big plus.

Make sure that you'll be able to keep the areas that you are going to be spending much time in during the summer mowed to keep the tick and chigger population down... have you experienced chiggers? If not you're in for a treat.

I don't know what a surgical nurse makes, but a buddy of mine has a trauma nurse for a wife.  She goes out on the heli for transporting victims to get them stabilized.  She makes in excess of $100k a year.

Wow from the listing  it didn’t look like there was that many houses around the property. Thank you for pointing that out and it also looks like there’s a highway literally in the front yard. Probably not the safest place to be shooting guns. I would have built a berm but I don’t wanna piss off the neighbors because I shoot all the time LOL.

I have heard my wife talk about the flight nurses and I think there is some special certification/education that you need to complete before you can do that kind of work and that’s why they get paid a lot more.

I’m not exactly sure what a chigger is but I think I’ve heard of them. I am familiar with ticks because we have them in Colorado but they are not that common. I am in  Wellington which is just north of Fort Collins and as the last town before heading up into southern Wyoming. I am used to corn fields and farmland. We are also very close to Fort Collins which I think is 160,000 people now.

So what do you do to keep the chigger and tick population in control so they’re not bothering you every time you go out into your yard? I’m super anal about my property and I keep everything meticulous and clean. Not sure if that will do it or if I will have to put chemicals down. Sounds like I probably need to find a different area to buy land especially since I want my own shooting range on the property. My wife would also like a basement but if our shop was big enough we could use that for storage which is what we do with our current basement.

I am astounded at what you can get in Missouri and a few other states we’ve looked at. My house was $150,000 in 2001 and it is now worth over $400,000. That’s how much property has gone up in the last decade and a half. It’s absolutely crazy how expensive it’s getting out here. The house above would be worth $1 million anywhere in Northern Colorado.

Green County is still red. Boone is bright blue

A chigger is a tiny little biting insect that introduces an enzyme to the area of it's bite to dissolve your tissue so that it can slurp it.... most people have a reaction to it that itches bad for about 3 days... a few lucky folks never notice them and think that chiggers don't bite them. Ticks are very common and can carry several diseases though, for me, a tick bite doesn't itch nearly as bad as a chigger. You can encounter what people in this area call seed ticks which are tiny like coarse ground black pepper and get loaded with them. One can get covered with chigger bites too and that is worse.
You can spray your yard and use permethrin on your clothes if you're going to spend much time in the brush like turkey hunting or mushroom hunting. Don't let the ticks and chiggers scare you off... you will learn how to deal with them but you will get bitten from time to time if you spend time in rural areas.

The basement recommendation is for safety not storage. We have tornadoes. We have had 4 that hit the town I live in since '77 and more out in the county. I am a spotter for our city/county Emergency Management Agency and have seen quite a few funnels that didn't touch down. My city was hit a couple of days after the big Joplin tornado and sustained millions of $$$$ worth of damage. The wall cloud formed south of my location and I radioed it in but never saw the tornado but did see 3 funnels that did not touch down that day.

Don't let any of what I've said dissuade you, you just need to be aware and if you turkey hunt and fish, April in MO. is GREAT!  Turkeys in the morning while looking for morels and Crappie spawning on the gravel banks in the afternoon.

Thank you! I appreciate all the great info! I'm going to really consider all my options. I'm also looking at South Dakota, they seems to be squared away also. Maybe the Rapid City area. It is more expensive them MO but much less then CO. Gun laws seem good.

Keep grass and weeds cut, and get free range chickens.

Been doing a lot of looking. South Dakota in the Rapid City are is a lot more expensive then I expected! You need $300-400k for anything decent. Missouri is looking better and better. I may check out Kansas but a democrat Governor was just put in office!!!! Do any of you know if I would need to take a "firearms training class" so I can get my CCW permit in MO? I have had mine in Colorado for over 20 years and have taken very hi level classes with Rob Pincus, Travis Haley and Clint Smith to name a few and I have taught thousands of students over the years. I'm hoping they will just give me the permit based on that. What should I expect? Thanks!

I don't know about MO permits, because I never got one. I mailed off to Florida and got their permit, while MO was still working out the details on ours. (FL accepts a DD214 as training).

I don't know about how they would look at you when you get a permit but I would guess they may make you do the class like we have to do.  Dunno though.  However, you could be come a CCW instructor pretty easily I would imagine.

Look in the Rolla area too.  Right on I44, regional hospital for your wife 100 miles from Springfield, St. Louis and Columbia.  Hour from Jefferson City.  30 minutes from Fort Leonard Wood.  Lots of national forest around.  COPS range (google it) about 15-20 minutes west off J highway.  Private gun club about 5 minutes east of town off BB hwy.  Range (junky but close) about 15 minutes south of town off 63 hwy.

Rolla's not a bad place to live and lots of places to buy what you're looking for.

Springfield is solid Blue??  Somebody forgot to tell everyone here that one!!  Springfield has two major Hospitals.  It's the third largest city in the state, but you can be in the country litterally 10 miles in any direction.  I have 8 acres of woods 13 miles south of Hwy 60 and it sure doesn't feel like the city to me!

When he said Springfield, I wonder if he meant Columbia.  They're pretty blue up there.

I saw one of those blue/red maps of MO, that showed Springfield that way, but I can't find it now.

Judging by what I just saw in my search, I'd have to say that I was wrong.

In your defense, there are definitely blue areas in Springfield, especially around the universities.

I moved to Mo from back east.  I carried on my home state permit for a couple years until it was going to expire.  Then I did the 8 hour class to get the MO permit.  We didn't have a class when I originally got mine, it wasn't a shall issue state yet.  You had to know somebody.

You might try getting a hold of a few realtors, give them a list of your wants and needs, let them find a list of places you can come in and take a look at.

When I moved from St. Louis down to Southern Mo, we used a combo or realtors and Zillo...

I moved down here, right before my company tried forcing me to relocate to Englewood, Colorado to work at our headquarters location at the South Fiddlers Green Circle...

I was talking to the relocation folks, I was told to get a place like we currently have, it would be at least 500k+ and likely an hour maybe two each drive.
When I went up there for the brain washing, I did not enjoy the thought of moving there.  I mean, it was OK to visit on the Company dime, but I want to come back home after 4-5 days and not go back for 6 months to a year...

My wifes sister lives out there and between work and visiting her, we've made the drive about 5 times.  
I slept part of the way each time, so I think we did it in a little over 12 hours. +/- an hour or so...

No permit needed to carry concealed or openly in MO.

My wife’s a nurse. There’s a nursing shortage in KC so your wife should be able to get a job pretty easily.

In my AO - just north of the city - you can get a decent house on 5-10 acres for around 200K.

Guess I’ll have to tell HCA that they aren’t as big as they are...lol. There are several hospitals I the KC area that your wife could work at in med surg. C’mon over to MO, we need more like minded conservative people...

My wife says the average pay for med surg in the KC area is going to be around $32 an hour for someone with your wife’s experience.

Just curious as I was almost in a similar situation a few years ago but did you or anyone else bring up the cost of living increase vs. current compensation and if so how did the company respond?