The Prebuild/Prebuy Questions?

[jessedesmith]

Hello, i am planning on buying some land to build a small homestead with my family and i was wondering what i should look out for before buying and building.
i know some of what to look for but i wanted to ask you all for your list of haves and have not for a property in case i was missing something.
any help would be greatly valued

Thank you and have a great day.
Jesse

[Windy in Kansas]

Easy access to water for starters.

Deeded access or public roads leading to your property.

Soil quality. Is it something that will grow crops readily?

Zoning regulations. Is the land you seek agriculture land that will allow all of the operations and the buildings that you want? Can you do the building yourself or are there regulations and building permits that require licensed labor rather than do it yourself?

Taxes. Reasonable?

Land encroachment by city spread?

Weather. Without the proper weather for the length of growing seasons for the crops you wish grow you can only do some extending with hoop houses, etc. Also can you handle the seasons and temperature and humidity swings an area brings forth?

Are the people friendly enough that you will eventually fit in and feel welcome. I observed over the years that newcomers are somewhat held at arms length for a couple of years UNTIL the locals see that they do indeed plan to stay.
In some areas it is longer than that.

Are there churches, schools and other amenities to fit your needs?

Are utilities of reasonable cost and with easy access?

Does the area flood? Earthquake prone? Hurricane prone? Tornado prone? Other issues?

Are there markets nearby for the crops or livestock you will have to sell?

These are a few things to think about, mostly topics I have seen brought up here in the past.

Welcome.

[ET1 SS]

That is pretty open.

Avoid drought areas, avoid tornado areas, hurricanes are a real pain avoid those too.

If the extreme heat bothers you then you should avoid that. If the cold bothers you then avoid that.

Say you have 'X' amount of money. If you spend almost all of it on land, then you are going to live in a stick lean-to for years while scraping the money to build a house. If you spend only a small bit on the land, then you can afford a house sooner, but inside in five years you will have maxed out the small lot and you will feel cramped.

My advise is to buy the cheapest land possible. Getting as much as you can for cheap, hopefully while avoiding droughts, floods, tornadoes, and hurricanes. Then build a home as you have the cash.

Do not plan on paying anything over $500 per acre.

You only have one chance to buy your land, get exactly what you want the first time. If you decide that you do not like a house, you can always build it again. Land is harder to do that with.

[fantasymaker]

The most critacal element to enjoying your property will be your
NEIGHBORS
The ones adjoining, the ones in the neighborhood, the ones 3 miles away that think your place is their 4-wheeler track, the ones that think its thier hunting ground,theGOVERNMENT ones , the road , and the animals, checkem all out and prepare to build a ,
GOOD FENCE!

Access both leagal and practical

Things that appeal to me would be a power source, such as free gas ,water power, solar, wind, wood, etc or better yet multiple power sources.
Old buildings, lotsa junk and unusuall terrain seem like resources to me and often lower the cost of land.

[watcher]

Don't forget mineral rights!! In some areas you don't get the mineral rights and the person/company with them then have the right to come in and drill/dig for THEIR minerals even though those minerals are below your land.

[edcopp]

Originally Posted by jessedesmith

Hello, i am planning on buying some land to build a small homestead with my family and i was wondering what i should look out for before buying and building.
i know some of what to look for but i wanted to ask you all for your list of haves and have not for a property in case i was missing something.
any help would be greatly valued

Thank you and have a great day.
Jesse

We could most likely help you a bit more if we knew something about where you are. Within a few states or so.

It seems a lot of people who post are scared to death that someone will find out where they are. Some may be on the lam, hiding from the FBI, CIA, MOD-SQUAD, EX-SPOUSES, IRS, VFW, and so on. Perhaps this is the case with you. If you give us a hint we promise not to rat you out.

[jessedesmith]

no not on the lam, that i am aware of.
i am looking for land in the arkansas or oklahoma area.

[hunter63]

How much land are you looking for?

How big is your family now, will it get bigger?
Does family like the idea?

How much money do you have to spend?
How will you support yourself? (work, farm, skills?)

Looking for land with building or build your own? (skills)

All points brought up, all good ones. (my hay field under water right now)

I will add a "perk" (septic) laws?
Water/ well, how far down? spring, water rights? laws?

[Ramblin Wreck]

Lots of good advice above, and I'll just add to watch out for nuisance plants and animals/insects. Examples of nuisance plants might be Kudzu or Johnson grass. Nuisance animals might be coyotes or wild dogs. The biggest nuisance insect in our area are fire ants. Good luck and best wishes.

[Hoop]

the most important attribute for any land is access.
Avoid shared roads like the plague. Most are nightmares. The best (most would say only) location one should consider is land that butts up to a publicly maintained year around road.

Utilities. Electricity is very important. So are things like telephone service. Water is a huge guessing game, as nobody knows for certain how deep your well may be.

Zoning. A double edged sword. If you purchase property in an unzoned area, that means you can do as you like on your property. Unfortunately, it means your neighbors can also do as they like.
If you plan on building a nice house, know that your next door neighbor can move in a grubby trailer, an outhouse, 17 junk cars, and 23 nonstop barking mutts.

Crime. Often overlooked. If the land is free, it isn't worth having if its located in a high crime area. The population of meth addicts is exploding.
If you take the unrealistic view that high crime rates exist everywhere, you will be in for a very long, very unhappy existence.
There are countless low crime areas in the country.

Physical characteristics of the land. Sand is great for a septic system. Not so great if you're farming. Bogs are great for cranberries. Not so great if you want to raise corn.
Purchase land whose characteristics fit YOUR needs.

Remember, good land that is furthest away from any means of economic livelihood is the least expensive.

[jessedesmith]

well, the family is getting bigger. right now it is myself and two family members. we are looking to build our own place, i have done a fair amount of summer construction jobs but we are looking to build a rammed earth house eventually,
we may take to living in yurts for the first year while we save up materials and money. at the moment it is 2 years away so we have some time to make our big list before buying land. but so far it is:

1. water and mineral/water rights
2. zoning/ building codes
3. prefer land that is butted to national forest but who knows
4. outside of a decent community( good jobs,schools, low crime rate etc.)
5. good soil/growing conditions
6. decent setup for septic system
7. within our price range.

we are looking for 20 - 40 acre
thank you for the help thus far.
Jesse

[PatR]

My husband and I spent almost a year looking for what we wanted. We finally found 14 acres that is heavily wooded with a driveway winding in and the house hidden back in the trees. We fell in love with it. The neighbors property line was within 15 feet of the back of the house, but his house was on the front of the property and his woods were behind us. Of course, within the first year of us moving in, he clear cut the woods behind his house. My husband fussed (goodnaturedly) at him daily for 6 months about cutting down his trees behind our house and put in a pond. My ducks moved to his pond. We became good friends and now he lets me run my goats on his property to keep it cleared, so in the end I wound up with an extra pasture to use. So keep in mind, you never know what the neighbors might do on their property.

[pheasantplucker]

Road frontage, privacy, liens, flood plains, mineral rights, surveys, neighbors, soil condition, electrical access, taxes, WATER availability, codes for septic systems, terrain, timber, access, price, climate, noise (from nearby highways or freeways)
These were all things I considered before I bought my place. Good luck