Wyoming Named Cheapest State To Buy An Acre Of Land-That's A Lie

Who makes these studies? Well, the website Zippia made this one. But they clearly haven't opened up Zillow to look at a home in Cheyenne, Casper or Laramie. It's not cheap to be a home owner here. As a homeowner, I'm personally slighted by this stat. When I was in the process of buying my home, my realtor even told me that this was a "hot market".

How about an example? They say an acre in Wyoming costs $1,558. I moved here from Kentucky and my home was twice the size of my Cheyenne home and sold for almost half of what I paid for my home here. The average price in Kentucky is $7,209.

Here's how they attempted to justify their claim.

This one was fairly simple. To find out how much an acre of land costs in each state, we reviewed the estimated average land value for each state from an April 2015 working paper by William Larson for the Bureau of Economic Analysis, New Estimates of Value of Land of the United States.”

So, you're using 2015 data in 2021? Cute. That's not how any of this works. Land prices were significantly lower 7 years ago. I mean, not mind blowing lower, but, you can't use last decade's data and claim it as gospel. I could also say land was a lot cheaper in the Cowboy state in 1995.

Get our free mobile app

Don't get me wrong, the cost of living is higher here than Kentucky, but so is the average pay. Seeing 15 dollars an hour for retail jobs is much higher than the closer to minimum wage that a lot of other states are dealing with for retail. So the wages here are a lot better. But, still, you can't sell me a steak for 1 dollar and charge me $34 for a baked potato at a steak house. That's what Zippia did in their article.

LOOK: Here is the richest town in each state

Just saying the names of these towns immediately conjures up images of grand mansions, luxury cars, and ritzy restaurants. Read on to see which town in your home state took the title of the richest location and which place had the highest median income in the country. Who knows—your hometown might even be on this list.

LOOK: See how much gasoline cost the year you started driving

To find out more about how has the price of gas changed throughout the years, Stacker ran the numbers on the cost of a gallon of gasoline for each of the last 84 years. Using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (released in April 2020), we analyzed the average price for a gallon of unleaded regular gasoline from 1976 to 2020 along with the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for unleaded regular gasoline from 1937 to 1976, including the absolute and inflation-adjusted prices for each year.

Read on to explore the cost of gas over time and rediscover just how much a gallon was when you first started driving.