Purchasing land and living on it. Please help!

[justanothercalifornian]

I'm kind of surprised there are not any house boat or floating home communities here. Is that just a west coast thing?
Just for fun I'll be looking into the boat house idea
As far as land, I have been searching mainly in the NW area and Leander for land (only because it's familiar to me) but I will start looking south now.
Are there any communities that are building alternative housing, such as prefabs, yurts etc?

[love roses]

I'm NE and see a lot of land with manufactured housing on it, several with homes additionally being added. I've seen this all around the more rural parts of Williamson County and in Pflugerville too. I bet you could even find something around Bastrop/Bastrop county.

[CptnRn]

One thing to keep in mind when buying raw land is that if it is not already part of a subdivision, with water, sewer, gas, electricity infrastructure extended to it, those things can be very expensive to get them extended to the property. So you will want to take those costs into consideration.

If you use google maps, with the satellite view you can find subdivisions that have trailer houses on them pretty easily. They are not hard to spot. For example:

Out near Niederwald

[HappyTexan]

Raw land:

When you're there..look around for poles along the road. See poles ? Good, now call the electric company and talk to them about hooking you up. Running the line underground from the pole to the house is no cost anymore (it use to cost $$ as opposed to the free overhead run).

Water: meter at front of property ? Yes then that is a good thing. No ? Is there private water in the area ? Do you have to dig a well ? Is there potable water in the area ? Water is your most important utility.

Sewer: septic is your option. How much depends on your soil type. Rock = expensive and what type of septic you get. I have a gravity system (no electric, no moving parts).

Gas: no worries..you can get a propane tank put in. Buy the tank and not lease it - the lease ends up costing you more.

Phone: God help you. Personal experience here: the phone company won't do any work until there is a house and you have closed. I tried to tell them I was not in a subdivision and it was not a matter of a typical "hookup" but they refused to listen. Closed and moved in and called. They came out and told me there was no line they could hook me up to. No s*it sherlock..I'd told them that.
Two months later, yes two months I finally got a phone. They had to bring a line down my road in order to hook me up.

Cell phone: unless there is a tower nearby all you will get is static. Have to drive into town to make calls.

DSL: coin toss here but most likely no. Dialup (once you get a phone line run!) or satellite.
Forget cable..dsl would be your only hope.

[FueledByBlueBell]

For the most part, buying a resale home is much cheaper than building.