How did you find your homestead?

Enjoyed the photos! You folks have some beautiful land out there. Alex your view shows you have done lots of work. Rewarding isn't it?

junkman,

Yes, and it sounds so sucky to say it's more than just rewarding, when we all know homesteading, farming, land development, construction, and all is often good-hard work. But all our projects and efforts don’t and haven’t seemed like hard work. Like you say life is rewarding, in so many ways.

Buying the land, or finding it, is only one happy part of a life one wants. For us our on-going experiences are wonderful and rewarding, on many levels, as I said.

Thanks,

Alex

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Thou art That

We began by daydreaming and prioritizing our needs/wants. How much land? How close to school/employment/hospital? Outbuildings? Electric on property? House already built? City water/well/springs? Surveyed? Fenced? Grazing land? Wood lot? Tillable land?

We also figured out what each of those was worth to us. For example, a house was only worth about 35K unless it was a dream house, becuase that's about what we figured we'd save by not having to rent while we built new. We also knew what electric on site, septic, drilled well, etc. were all worth in a given area. That helps a lot when you're thinking "Well this place is X and that place is Y, this place has these features and that place has those..." Until you know more or less what the base land price and the improvements are worth, you can't tell if it's a good deal or not.

Knowing what the improvements will cost also helps you stay within your budget. You may think you're doing great by buying some acreage below your budgeted price, but if you have to drill a well, have it surveyed, build a barn, put in fencing, install a septic, have electric run... you can quickly go WAY over budget and then wish you'd gone with a more expensive but improved place, or less acres, or a hillier but cheaper per acre parcel.

Then we used the internet to get an idea of what various types of places would go for. Realtor.com was a good starting place, and UnitedCountry.

We started out thinking north GA would be good - close to my family, close to Atlanta so we could weekend at "the property"... but it was way too expensive! We broadened our search to include western NC/eastern TN, then central TN and AL, then OH, WV, PA, NY, KY.

When we found areas we liked, we'd do google searches for "acres pennsylvania free gas" or "acres pennsylvania septic" etc.

Land in central WV is going for under 1K per acre unimproved, more with utilities and some parcels have free gas. A house naturally increases the cost, too.

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Our homestead-in-the-making: Palazzo Rospo
Eating the dream

Alex, I bet you get that smile on your face every time that you look at that view.As you say God is GOOD.
As for my homestead.I own 20 acres 1 mile from where I grew up.I had just about given up on finding land that I could afford. A gentleman had 176 acres for sale for $650.00 per acre(1986 prices).It had road frontage on 2 sides with a creek near the middle.From thee creek to one of the roads was 80 acres.Me and 3 friends went to the man and offered him $800.00 per acre for the 80 acres.(The land had been on the market for 2 years).He at first said no,but we went back several times and developed a friendship.Six months later he agreed.After we bought the 80 acres he sold the rest of his land fairly quickly.I guess what I'm trying to say is be patient, keep your eyes open and don't give up.

We just got a signed contract from the seller on the land that we are buying and just waiting on the settlement date to be set. The way we went about it was this:

1. We thought about where we could afford to retire to. And where we wanted to go to, with friendly people, low population, clean air/water, etc.

2. Checked out the web and also took some vacations to the areas we were interested in. Then after we deceided the area/state we looked at several different areas within the area/state so we had more than one to choose from.

3. Read/wrote a lot of people on here and other websites for advise and information.

4. Went to the areas (Arkansas for us) and had the realators that we had emailed/phone called to ahead of time of our trip take us around for the land we had seen on the web and ones that were like the ones we wanted. (We had set up minimum requirements = i.e. app 40+ acres, live water such as a pond and/or creek.

5. Made an offer on the land we wanted. And then got the signed acceptance of the buyer.

Also a lot of good luck helped too. When we found the one we settled on, we knew it was the "one" while walking it.

Glenn and Deb

A bank foreclosed on a developer, but the law doesn't allow banks to be real estate agents or to continue the developing, so they held an auction. My ex had X($24k) amount of money he was willing to part with, so he bid that. Then they called him up to the table and pointed to the plat of the undeveloped development and said, "You were high bidder for Phase IV, so which lot do you want?" Being a limey, he picked it by amount of acreage, figuring if he were back in the UK it would be equal to a whole county probably. After we signed the papers, I said, "What did we get?". Only then did we figure out the location by the map and walked the 20+ acreage. It was a drought month, so it seemed like a lot of land...until the rains came and we found we had bought "swamp land in Florida". I only live on about an acre of it anyway so the rest remains natural and is a good buffer from neighbors. Having grown up near the Glades, I'm a swamp angel anyway.

In this part of the country, eminent domain and bribery works well. First, you find a property that you like. Then you pay the local politicians a "consultant fee" (aka, the bribe) to help you get the eminent domain approved by the local government. You do have to at least offer to pay the current the assessed value but that's a joke. The properties around here are assessed at 70% of the actual value but many homes (like mine) haven't had a full appraisal in over ten years. This means that a property could be worth four or five times what you would be required to offer.

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“When I think of what tremendous consequences come from little things, I am tempted to think, there are no little things.” -Bruce Barton

Not quite 56 years ago a 3 day old baby was brought here from the hospital.
It's been the only place I've ever thought of when I've heard the word "home".

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"Agriculture is our wisest pursuit, because it will in the end contribute most to real wealth, good morals, and happiness."
Thomas Jefferson to George Washington 1787

Land is cheap if you know where to look. In some places in Canada you can get land for $50 an hectare which translates to about $20 an acre. Foreigners have to live there for a year to be able to buy more than 4 hectares in some provinces, though.

In South America you can also find land that cheap. Not just in the tropics but in Argentina and the rest of temperate South America.

But if you don't want to leave U.S. soil, $50 an acre in Alaska is probably the best you can find.

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The best way to PREDICT the future is to help CREATE it.

I inherited 30+ acres and a nice old Brick Farmhouse from my Grandparents. This is the house my Mom Grew up in and where I spent my childhood summers riding horses and motercycles with the neighborhood kids. All most all of whom are still around.

I am very blessed to be able to "come back home" to the place that brought me so much happiness as a child.

Sara, I am in Southern IN and land is very expensive all over. If it isnt expensive then theres silly rules about manufactured homes and such. You can find pockets of good cheap land but you will need to really dig for it. If you want to build and have to live in a little trailer until its done then you might need permission. Its getting hairy. But my dh's job is a good one and we can't just up and leave, so I kinda know where your coming from.

We found a modest house in a small town with a large yard and so far its been good. We are going to move again, we really want a minimum of 5 acres, but it really depends on dh's job. We will need to follow his job if he has to relocate.

First, a few questions. How far can you commute, and do you have plans for the boys' education(IN has very generous HS laws)? If you want to be near a certain district, call the school and ask for the boundaries. If you have a certain desired commute time, go to a map. Mark your center point where his job location is. Locate and mark all the cities within that number of miles all around the center point. Then connect the dots. Tell your realtor you need to be in or as close to that circle as possible.

OR

If there are small towns in an area that interests you, go to the center of town to either the barber shop, co op or the cafe, where all the old timers sit and visit. Get permission to hang a sign saying you'd like to buy some land nearby, with just a few of your specifics like if you want land to build or would consider an existing house, looking for a fixer, need room for chickens or a garden ETC. Buy a cup of coffee, talk about the weather. You will make friends. The old timers know everyone and everything and you will get a call, even if its from the town realtor.

Good luck!

Thank you for the great suggestions, Almostthere. Hitting up the locals for tips is such a great idea. Thanks so much.
Sarah

foreclosure.com and it was listed as land only and I dont know why. Anyway we drove out to look at several places that day & It was last on our list. Turned out to have house, outbuildings, irrigation equipment and a guest house... I sure didnt tell the bank. I made an offer & got it. I guess it pays to follow up on listings.

Ravenlost, your home is very beautiful!

katlupe