In life, I never “planned” on getting into land acquisition. I drank the corporate kool-aid and figured I’d retire with a nice nest egg to live comfy from 60-80ish. I stumbled upon this 2K sq foot cabin. Came with 20 acres, insane views in rural NC/TN area. Paid around $300K a couple of years ago for the entire parcel and house and the rest is history. I’ve since bought the parcels surrounding it and have 50 acres total here.
My advice on land:
- There are still great deals out there if you’re willing to be about an hour or two outside of a big city. Keep in mind, even the rural towns still have grocery stores, hardware stores, small cafes, so it’s not like you’re living in the jungle.
- Find something you enjoy visiting yourself or with your family, not something that you’re looking to make a dollar on. Look for it to make memories, not money.
- Look for a smaller piece to start. You don’t need a ton of acreage to be secluded. There are good quality vacant land tracts and tracts with homes/cabins that sit on 10 acres with neighboring properties of 1,000+ acres. Those super large tracts next to small parcels rarely get sold, touched or visited. So if a big tract isn’t in your budget you can find a small tract next to large tracts and you’ll “feel” like you own it all.
- My biggest advice - visit the land before you buy it. Don’t just hop on the GIS Map and land topography maps and make you decision. You need to make sure a there is a road that leads to your tract. If not, guess who gets to pay an excavator $300/hr to cut a small access road in. It’s much easier to find a piece that has road access.
- If a cabin/house is present, electric is already run there and you’re golden. But if it’s a vacant piece, see how far the nearest electricity lines are.
- If it’s vacant and you want to build a homestead or cabin, call the county health dept to see if the land has ever been “perced” (Percolation test). If it has, how big of a structure can you build? If you have 6 kids and it perced for a 2 Bedroom max, guess what…you’re screwed.
- If surrounded by other land tracts, have a realtor or someone check on easements.
- If money is your motivator, ask yourself, is there growth eventually coming to this area?
- Also, if money is your motivator, is there any loggable timber that can be trimmed to help pay for your purchase. Has a forestry study ever been done on it?
- If memories are your reason but you also want it as a long term investment (decades), can the overall land be resurveyed, split up and sold off as individual parcels if growth ever comes to area. An engineer/surveying firm can put together a “concept site plan” for you for fairly cheap.
As mentioned, I never thought I’d be riding around on a side by side mid day in my late 40’s looking for land tracts, but I will say, as someone who lives primarily in a big city…I give getting out in the boondocks two very big thumbs up.
BREAKING: Nvidia, $NVDA, Microsoft, $MSFT, Google, $GOOGL, partner with US government on AI research program.
Politicians have been buying loads of all three.
For example, Pelosi has bought millions in $NVDA, before the announcement, and owns millions of $MSFT and $GOOGL.
Packers should have won this game easily. Too many mistakes. Not getting the 4th down in SF territory (bad spot IMO). Savage dropped INT. Missed FG. Now… down to 1 drive.
never expected to be this far but had so many opportunities to keep it going
the future of the team is bright, but that doesn’t make it hurt any less 😔