Forgive my ignorance, I'm trapped in the northeast.
Depends on location, as always. Average small parcel with water and power is running about $10K an acre. Further out, less. Still can find decent land for $5K, the bigger the parcel, the price becomes less per acre.
Around Kalispell and Flat Head Lake, the Californicators are paying a premium for being able to be cold and complain about hunting. Trust fund babies trying to turn Big Sky into another California. Natives are not too pleased with that.
Gunner
It is not so much the cost as the location. Raw farm land here is still reasonable the further you get away from civilization. Just as anywhere though to own big land you have to have made your fortune or inherit it (then worry about the taxes) neither of which I will reap. As a younger man I was able to do some real cowboying on some big ranch, man what a life, hard, but fun.
It is almost impossible nowadays to start a large ranching/farming operation from scratch without having loads of capital because the return is marginal, outside the lifestyle.
Take example central Texas, buying any land within 2 hours of San Antonio or Austin you will pay double or triple for the land (demand is skyrocketing) and within 10 years be surrounded by new “ranchette” housing neighborhoods. Just ask the folks in the Leander, Taylor, Liberty Hill, New Braunfels, Boerne, Seguin, Hondo areas - and the list goes on. People bought there 10-15 years ago were moving to the country. Not anymore.
Family land owners in that areas that did hold out can no longer resist the temptation to sell based on the price they can get and the fact they are now in the burbs.
Re: Is land more expensive in Montana than Texas?
When I moved to Montana in 1971 the average cost of ranch land was 52 dollars an acre according to the Chamber of Commerce. Sigh but that was before the developers moved in.