Does anyone know the avg price for land in NE Indiana?

Home~Maker · #1 09/28/05, 08:52 AM

Hi! I'm a newbie, this is my first post. This looks like a great forum!

I was wondering if anyone knows (or knows where to find out) the average cost of vacant land per acre in northeastern Indiana, specifically Elkhart County. This would hopefully be somewhat close to the city of Goshen, with no utilities and no buildings. Trees would be fine (we'd need a woodlot anyway), and it doesn't need to actually be farmland; I'm just looking into prices for a future homestead (in a few years *sigh*) of an acre or two for a house, a big garden (raised beds if need be), a small barn, chicken coop and root cellar. I just want to get a rough idea of what kind of savings I'd need to even really start looking. Does anyone have any info on this, or know where I can find it online?

Thanks!

cfabe · #2 09/28/05, 08:57 AM

Land is usually much more expensive per acre. Around here on the edges of the developing areas you can buy a 5 acre building lot for about $30k or a 30 acre lot for about 60k. I'm not familiar with land in indiana, but it will always vary a lot depending on the location and features of the land. Swamp tends to be pretty cheap, mountian tops with an awesome view tend to be expensive.

wannabe2 · #3 09/28/05, 12:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cfabe

mountian tops with an awesome view tend to be expensive.

I don't think there are very many mountain tops in NE Indiana.

chitom · #4 09/28/05, 12:43 PM

My wife and I have been looking for land/housr and think that Southern Indiana offers some more affordable options. for about 60k you can get about 5 acres with a house already built. Plus you can situate yourself between Indianapolis an Bloomington. Anyone know anything about the areas around Bloomington? Someday I will need to get out of Chicago.

KathyJ · #5 09/28/05, 12:46 PM

try calling (googling) some realtors in the area you're looking at - they can give you the best prices right now.

wannabe2 · #6 09/28/05, 12:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cfabe

Land is usually much more expensive per acre. Around here on the edges of the developing areas you can buy a 5 acre building lot for about $30k or a 30 acre lot for about 60k. I'm not familiar with land in indiana, but it will always vary a lot depending on the location and features of the land. Swamp tends to be pretty cheap, mountian tops with an awesome view tend to be expensive.

Whereabouts in Ohio are you, cfabe, if you don't mind sharing (don't have to be too specific)? I'm interested in finding rural property around Columbus or Dayton. Columbus, I understand is getting to have quite the sprawl, but aren't there some counties within reasonable driving distance that are still fairly rural?

Strange Bear · #7 09/28/05, 01:34 PM

Go to Yahoo.com and type in Goshen Indiana. You can then look at some of the real estate agents. I just looked at Century 21. They had a farmhouse on over 200 acres for 2 million +.
Good Luck

cfabe · #8 09/28/05, 03:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wannabe2

Whereabouts in Ohio are you, cfabe, if you don't mind sharing (don't have to be too specific)? I'm interested in finding rural property around Columbus or Dayton. Columbus, I understand is getting to have quite the sprawl, but aren't there some counties within reasonable driving distance that are still fairly rural?

I currently live in the cleveland suburbs, but I do all my future-land-shopping-dreaming in the more rural areas out east, ashtabula area. That's where I eventually plan to move out to.

uncle Will in In. · #9 09/28/05, 04:36 PM

Elkhart and Lagrange countys would be frightening to price a small acreage for a building site. The Amish are buying old farms down in Fulton and Miami counties. The ground in Camper Factory land is to expensive to farm.

Home~Maker · #10 09/28/05, 06:40 PM

No, there are no mountains here, but there is swampland!

I think 60K is about 10 times what I'll be able to afford, let alone 2 million

...can you homestead on swampland...?

I do like southern Indiana, I've driven through there several times. I hear (from a cousin) that it rarely even snows near the Kentucky state line during the winter.

Our jobs are here, though, and so is my family. I intend to keep my job until I don't need it anymore, God willing lol... It doesn't have to be actual farmland, just livable. I'm not looking to drive a tractor, necessarily, just have a huge garden, which can be raised beds if necessary.

Also I'm hoping to go solar, use wood for heat and cooking, and have a well dug, as well as build the house ourselves (I'm studying about cob building techniques), so it should be vacant with no utilities. I guess I thought maybe I could buy a couple of acres from a farmer or Amish family, land they might consider "unfarmable" or something. I've been trying to dig through realty sites but they either don't have vacant land listed right now or they don't give the price (or it's way more land than we'd need).

uncle Will in In. · #11 09/28/05, 08:32 PM

The "Farmers Exchange" magazine is a weekly farm paper printed in New Paris In. It lists several estate auctions every week. It has become very common for anyone wanting to sell a farm to list it with a realty/auction company. They divide the farm up into several desirable plots of a few acres each. One plot will have the house and farm buildings on a homestead size plot. They auction these one at a time, them reauction them is multiples as the bidders might request. Next they auction the farm in it's entirity. THEN they see which way totals the greatest amount. At this time you are told if you are the succesful bidder on whatever part you bid on. This may sound weird, and I'll admit it is very interesting and educatioal to watch the auction take place. Anyone can sit in on the auction as a spectator. There will be a couple dozen plots of ground sold in the distance from Goshen In you would like every week. Check it out.
To buy this way requires you to arrange financing prior to the auction. If you are the best bidder on a property, you are required to place a 10% nonrefundable down payment. This means you won't get it back if you can't come up with the balance at closing time.

Home~Maker · #12 09/28/05, 08:36 PM

Great! Thanks alot for the information. New Paris is like five miles from my house

That was another alternative location, in order to still be close enough to our jobs, but I didn't think anyone living outside the area would recognize the town by name so I didn't mention it.

I'm just "window shopping" for now, but I wanted to get an idea of what the land might cost ahead of time so I know how much to save. I will deffinitely be getting that magazine!

SELF-EDIT: http://www.farmers-exchange.net/

Mel- · #13 09/29/05, 12:31 AM

look at realtor.com also. I'm south of indy and there are alot of small parcels in the 5 acre range or more around here, but they are also going for 10-20k an acre.

for the person asking about between indy and bloomington, you should look west to northwest of bloomington, mostly between bloomington and terre haute. anything between indy and bloomington is outrageous. but again you can look at realtor.com to get an idea.