Food for thought for those considering moving to St Marys, KS.  I just returned from a trip yesterday to assess whether I should relocate my family there.  Here are my observations:

-There is almost NO housing available within a one hour drive of the chapel.  Most houses are sold within days of going on the market.  Unless you have about $400k to spend you are living in a suburb of Topeka.  Forget the "back to the land" fantasy cause it ain't happening in this area.

-Properties are poorly maintained and rather shabby.  Photos online are very misleading, heavily filtered and deceptive angles to hide major flaws.  Even video walkthroughs are not reliable.

-Because there is a high demand for housing in that area, sellers and listing agents are unscrupulous.  The house I drove a 1000 miles to view was priced at almost $300K yet it had mold and a collapsing ceiling.  During a ZOOM walkthrough I noticed the seller agent wore a Miraculous Medal and that reassured me.  Don't be fooled by someone wearing sacramentals and talking about their church.  This agent lied about the condition of the home and avoided those areas during the walkthrough.  And because of the housing shortage some trusting soul will probably buy that house even though it's 1.5 hours away from the SSPX chapel.

-There is a serious drought in central and western Kansas.  This will keep inflation very, very high.

-Wages are low in relation to the cost of housing.

-Gasoline was $3.89 a gallon.

-Temporary housing really doesn't exist.  So apartments or hotels aren't an option.  BTW, no hotels available in the area due to a recent major leak in the Keystone Pipeline in Marshall Co.  I had to stay in Topeka. Hotels rooms are about $150 a night.

Just from reading this, I went to realtor.com, and entered a property search for the following criteria:

1) 5+ bedrooms

2) 2+ acres.

Only 3 properties came back within a 20 mile radius (one was duplicated).

Of the three, the prices were $415k, $623k, and $733k respectively.

Here's the reaults: https://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-search/St.-Marys_KS/beds-5/lot-sqft-87120

Supposing you had 10% to put down ($41.5k) on that cheapest one, you're still at $3k+/month mortgage payment, all in. 

So if you had a sizable family, and any more specific criteria, the pickings are pretty slim.

But even if you're a newlywed/young couple, what are you going to do once you grow out of your 2-3 BR house?

So, here's a thought.  This is about 6-7 minutes from St. Mary's SSPX ...
https://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/28950-Doyle-Creek-Rd_Saint-Marys_KS_66536_M88322-59949

234 acres for about 2.5 million dollars.  Why wouldn't SSPX acquire this property?  You could put about 100 2-acre properties on there and sell only to Traditional Catholics, making for a true Traditional Catholic development, where there would be an HOA that would enforce Catholics standards in the neighborhood, such as modest dress, etc.

That's about 10,000 per acre, so 20,000 for a 2-acre plot.  Of course, they would need to be developed, etc.  But I think they could sell out a neighborhood of 100 homes in there fairly quickly.  And given that everyone would be Traditional Catholics, each home wouldn't necessarily need 2 acres, but you could have common areas like parks, and some acreage for growing food / farming, etc.

234 acres for about 2.5 million dollars.  Why wouldn't SSPX acquire this property?  You could put about 100 2-acre properties on there and sell only to Traditional Catholics, making for a true Traditional Catholic development, where there would be an HOA that would enforce Catholics standards in the neighborhood, such as modest dress, etc.

Just thinking out loud, I wonder how the folks in Kiryas Joel (NY) handle this sort of thing.  It's an all-ultra-Orthodox Jєωιѕн enclave, and again, given that, who else would want to live there?

Yeah, if I had Mel Gibson-like money, I'd be doing Traditional Catholic community development all over the place (I'm not a huge fan of SSPX right now).  I would also work to make the communities as grid-independent as possible, and would plan it out so that every few homes could share resources.  In my neighborhood and in most neighborhoods, there's a huge amount of waste.  So, for instance, every person in this neighborhood has their own equipment (lawn mowers, riding mowers, trimmers, edgers, car tools, power washers, snow blowers, etc.) ... when, what?, many of these tools you use maybe once a week?  There could be a little tool shed every few homes (situated close enough to them all) so that these could be shared.

I would also build/sell the homes for no profit and finance at 0% interest (maybe some fees just to manage it all).  There would be a Home Owners Association, and violators of rules such as modesty of dress, public cursing, etc. ... would receive fines, with multiple serious infractions resulting in eviction.

Every few homes would have a little mini-park area with swing sets and other things so the kids could play (again, shared so that each home doesn't need a swing set), and then there might be some facilities like gyms (gender-segregated of course), perhaps a garage for people to work on their vehicles, a store, etc. ... so that the community could almost have its own little micro-economy.  And of course there would be areas for farming, having livestock, etc. that could be commonly maintained.

And of course there would be a little chapel there where the Blessed Sacrament could be reserved for visits.